Side Dish, the Ludatrix Edition

Hello and welcome to Side Dish, our weekly round-up of industry news, hot goss and things you might have missed. Now, let’s get to it...

📩 If you already get our daily newsletter, we apologize for the double dip. If you don’t, you can sign up for our it 👉🏽 here or check us out on Instagram.

• If you’re looking for a healthy drink where “soluble fiber and mucilage leach in,” then okra water is for you. Gulp.

• It’s hard to decide which is the most extra part of Flynn McGarry’s new restaurant: its California “aura,” the Lion’s Mane Schnitzel or the veggies grown on his personal plot at Isabella Rossellini’s farm.

• In this week’s edition of things we didn’t need but are happening anyway: Snickers BBQ Sauce.

• Fancy chicken is having a mo’ in New York’s dining scene, with “dressed-up whole birds” the highest-profile entrée in town.

• On the heels of Eleven Madison Park announcing the return of meat to the menu, The Guardian explores the “plant-based problem: why vegan restaurants are closing – or adding meat to the menu.”

• The Kelce bros Garage Beer keeps cruisin'. Can’t stop, won’t stop moving with a valuation of $200M and with $60-70M of revenue expected this year.

• The Gucci of groceries lands in NYC. Erewhon is opening a tonic bar inside a West Village padel club.

• We called it – buckets are big. Wendy’s confirms you can get a bucket of chili — but only in some locations. God speed.

• Paging our petty boos. Ghosted Sweethearts – all-white, with no words – is dropping for Halloween. You best return that text or a passive aggressive Halloween treat is headed your way.

• Speaking of ghosts, are ghost kitchen restaurants the next big thing?

• The New Yorker says you’ll “have a perfectly pleasant time” at Lex Yard at the newly renovated Waldorf Astoria. Sounds...fine.

• Pizza Hut just dropped a matcha pizza with Kyoto’s Gion Tsujiri.

• Macros with your macchiato. Starbucks debuts Protein Cold Foam.

• Forget caviar bumps. Hot dogs are the unexpected star of D.C.’s bars, from dives to dance floors.

• KFC jelly beans are real, with fried chicken, gravy and corn flavors dropping by Easter.

• Sommelier-approved at $7.59, Costco’s Kirkland Prosecco is the best deal in bubbles.

• From $18 Big Macs to slumping breakfast sales, fast food chains are scrambling to win back wallets.

• Grubstreet does the Lord’s work and checks out the viral mozz sticks @ B & A Pork Store.

• From Prebiotic Pepsi to AG1, the $248B functional drinks boom is rewriting what we sip for health.

• Pumpkin spice saves Starbucks: fall drinks just fueled its best sales week ever.

• A caviar-topped egg, a monogrammed butter pat and a waitlist in the hundreds, LV’s café in NYC turns lunch into luxury theater.

• Marriott’s CEO says travel is now defined by the haves and have nots. Big spenders gonna spend. Cost conscious travelers are staying home.

• Ever wondered why you feel a little, ahem, puffy at 30,000 feet? Turns out you’re not alone. Jet belly is real and the NY Post has some tips for you.

• Frontier Airlines is adding 20 new routes with fares from $29, gunning for #1 in low-cost travel.

• The new millennial parenting anxiety: vacations as self-improvement boot camps for kids.

• Infinity pools, hammams, bamboo massage huts, these hotel spas prove good design is the ultimate therapy.

• 2025 is the year of nonrefundable travel. Here’s how to dodge losing $$$ on your next trip.

• Frontier’s GoWild! pass is back. $299 for (almost) unlimited flights through April 2027. Blackouts apply.

• The new Acela trains are here. Sleek, pricey and somehow slower than the old ones.

• New rules for souvenir shopping abroad mean shipping home might now come with surprise duties.

• Bauhaus on the beach: how Breuer, Gropius and crew turned Cape Cod into an under-the-radar modernist hub.

• A Raleigh photographer built Whimsy Valley, a storybook mountain retreat with ponies and bark siding.

• Sleep among 350 mustangs at Wyoming’s wild horse sanctuary, the only one of its kind worldwide.

• A $12 Dove bar or a $120 Loewe one, soap is now both a drugstore staple and a designer collectible.

• Meet Ludatrix and Ludeaux, the new fragrances that swear to make you more