According to Grub Street Chicago's Mike Gebert, Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich may have found their location in the former ESPN Zone building. more ›

The Gothamist network wasn't the only ones who released a new iPhone app yesterday. New York Media (publishers of the Grub Street blogs and MenuPages.com) also launched a new iPhone app that allows users to browse restaurant menus in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, South Florida, and Washington DC, along with rankings and reviews, filter options allowing you to narrow searches by cuisine, location and price, and the ability to post menus to Facebook or e-mail to a friend. more ›

The ever intrepid Helen Rosner at Grub Street Chicago went through the Grub Street/MenuPages Chicago database and found that restaurant openings in Chicago were very strong in 2009. For the calendar year, 243 restaurants opened, with big-name openings like XOCO, Cibo Matto and Terzo Piano in the mix. 153 restaurants closed in that same time span, but the bottom line was that there always seemed to be some new place opening that drew crowds. more ›

Marcus isn't the only one taking a breather this week. Grub Street Chicago's Helen Rosner is also doing some much-needed decompressing. more ›