Things To Do In SW Florida

The Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards are, pun intended, a lot to swallow.

Fifty categories. Critic’s and reader picks, three apiece. That’s 300 restaurants. A lot of reading. A lot of potential spots to put on your list for a whole year of dining goals. And we wonder (OK, I wonder) how many of these amazing places get lost in the shuffle.

NOMINATE YOUR FAVORITE RESTAURANT HERE.

And so, this year, we’re going to try something new. We’re breaking things out into four digestible sections that will show up on a quarterly basis and turn the discussion (and yes, debate!) into a four-course foodie meal that keeps the conversation going all year long. It’s a way to get excited and focus on each quarter’s contenders and winners.

The new Foodies will make it much easier for you to show up again and again to nominate, vote for and ultimately decide which Central Florida restaurants deserve top honors.

In this first round, we’re calling for nominations for Best Barbecue, Brewery, Burger, Cheap Eats, Doughnuts, Food Truck, Pizza, Sandwich, Seafood, Sushi, Tacos, Takeout and Vegan/Vegetarian and 2023 Restaurant of Year. read more

Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger was asked about a possible “fifth gate” for Walt Disney World on Wednesday.  He didn’t exactly plead the fifth but also didn’t squash the notion.

Iger responded to a question after the company’s quarterly earnings report. During a session with market analysts, he referenced the previously announced $60 billion earmarked for theme parks over the next decade, saying 70% of that would go to “incremental capacity.”

Later, he was asked where and when.

“We’re already hard at work, basically, determining where we’re going to place our new investments and what they will be,” Iger said. “You can pretty much conclude that they’ll be all over, meaning every single one of our locations will be the beneficiary of increased investment and thus increased capacity, including on the high seas.”

As far as timing goes, “we’ve got a menu of things that will basically start opening in ‘25, and there’ll be a cadence every year of additional investment and increased capacity,” he said. read more

By DEE-ANN DURBIN (AP Business Writer)

A federal labor law judge has ordered Starbucks to reinstate a high-profile labor organizer and barista who resigned in 2022 after the coffee giant repeatedly ignored her scheduling requests.

In a decision dated Tuesday, an administrative law judge with the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Starbucks compelled Jaz Brisack to resign. The judge said Starbucks scheduled Brisack to two or three shifts per week for months despite her repeated requests to reduce her schedule to one shift per week.

The law judge’s decision must still be reviewed and accepted by the National Labor Relations Board, which could then seek a court order to enforce it.

Brisack helped lead the unionization of a Starbucks store in downtown Buffalo, New York, in late 2021. It was the first company-owned Starbucks store to unionize in the U.S. in decades. At least 370 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since then.

After the successful union election at her store, Brisack began working full-time for Workers United, the union organizing Starbucks workers. But she found it increasingly difficult to do that work while also working at Starbucks. read more

By FATIMA HUSSEIN (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration wants to make residential real estate transactions more transparent by unmasking the owners of certain all-cash purchases. It’s part of an ongoing effort to combat money laundering and the movement of dirty money through the American financial system.

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed a regulation on Wednesday that would require real estate professionals to report information to the agency about non-financed sales of residential real estate to legal entities, trusts and shell companies.

All-cash purchases of residential real estate are considered at high risk for money laundering. The rule would not require the reporting of sales to individuals.

“Illicit actors are exploiting the U.S. residential real estate market to launder and hide the proceeds of serious crimes with anonymity, while law-abiding Americans bear the cost of inflated housing prices,” FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki said in a statement. read more