Salad Vending Machines Are Restaurants, Health Department Decrees

‘A’ for effort

A Chicago-based food startup called Farmer’s Fridge — which stocks wood-paneled vending machines with fresh salads and the like — must treat its machines as restaurants in miniature, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has determined. Farmer’s Fridge recently shut down all 55 of its machines in New York, which occupy hospitals and office lobbies with a goal to provide fresh food where it might otherwise be hard to come by.

But prepared food and salad greens come with a higher risk of food-borne illness, the department emphasizes. “The Health Department worked with Farmer’s Fridge to be sure their equipment would hold food at safe temperatures, and that foods were properly labeled and from approved sources,” the department told the Times. Farmer’s Fridge says it already takes careful temperature readings and uses software that won’t dispense expired goods. But they cooperated with the regulation effort, and now the company will pay the standard restaurant price of $280 per inspection to receive a letter grade on each machine — though regulators will suspend some conventions, like requirements for a bathroom.

In other news

— A new cafe from actor Waris Ahluwalia, called House of Waris Botanicals, is open for drinks like kombucha, matcha, and coffee, plus unusual teas and drinks like saffron rose golden milk.

— A group of art students has “rescued” a turkey as an “art project,” and now it’s recuperating on the UWS.

— With each passing year, the informal “Friendsgiving” becomes as fraught and time-consuming a ritual as the real, family one, writes Times critic — and no friend to Friendsgiving — Pete Wells.

— Comedian Amy Schumer and chef husband Chris Fischer made Page Six headlines with a big tip “more than double” their bill at Upper West Side restaurant Good Enough to Eat — but assuming they were heavily comped, it doesn’t sound out of the ordinary.

— Jersey City’s Ani Ramen House is getting a location of tucked-away omakase sushi counter chain Sushi by Bou, run by problematic sushi chef David Bouhadana. It opens in December.

— Is a hot dog a sandwich?