Rarely are the experiences of athletes a lesson to those of us who tend to restrict their cardio to carrying a bag of groceries up one flight of stairs. But it turns out that the consumption of caffeine before competing in various sports like running, rowing, and swimming measurably enhances performance—which means that it's worth drinking coffee before going to the gym or getting on the treadmill, or indeed any half-assed attempt to burn calories. Caffeine not only increases the power output of muscles, say researchers, but also "affects the brain's sensation of exhaustion." And if you swallow enough, it provides hallucinations and communication with the other side, which would really liven up a dull workout!

• Momofuku Ssäm is opening a new private dining room. [GS]
• Add Le Gamin to the list of spots tacking service charges to the bill. [Eater]
• A report on Craftsteak's new recession-friendly menu. [Feedbag]
• One upside to a bad economy: free restaurant equipment! [Eater]
• A list of restaurants where you can still find peanut butter desserts. [GS]
• Daisy May's has the 5th best chili in America, according to Bon Appétit. [BA]
• It's the end of the world: Starbucks is introducing instant coffee. [AdAge]

• It's not all doom and gloom: Terrance Brennan (Artisanal, Picholine) and Floyd Cardoz (Tabla) both have new restaurants in the works. [GS, TONY]
• Donatella Arpaia and Michael Psilakis say they're two months away from opening Gus & Gabriel's Gastropub in the old Kefi space. [NYT]
• A list of the best Brit food in New York. Yes, such a list really exists. [MM]
• John Doherty explains why he quit as chef at the Waldorf-Astoria. [NYT]
• Vinegar Hill House in Brooklyn is opening a private dining room. [GS]
• Cheapo Eight O'Clock Coffee beat out Starbucks in a CR taste test. [NYDN]

• Union Prime and Onda both open today. [NYT]
• Terrance Brennan's Artisanal just added a grilled-cheese bar. Oy. [GS]
• Black Iron Burger Shop is the latest victim of the dining crime spree. [Eater]
• Bad news, coffee addicts: prices are expected to shoot up this year. [NYDN]
• Kelly Choi has signed on to host the new Top Chef spinoff. [TONY]
• A few suggestions on where to eat and drink on inauguration night. [RG]
• Were you lucky enough to earn an invite to the inaugural dinner? Enjoy the duck, pheasant, seafood stew, and apple-cinnamon sponge cake! [TFB]

Economy got you down? Can't afford your precious mushrooms or acid tabs anymore? Well, fear not. The keys to your next hallucinogenic high are right in front of you. In coffee! And ping-pong balls.

It's not at all surprising that New York's been rated the nation's fourth most caffeinated city—especially in light of new research which suggests that people who drink a lot of coffee are prone to delusions including hallucinations, hearing voices, and, best of all, sensing the presence of dead people. The highest caffeine consumption looked at in the study was 330 milligrams a day, which is contained in just one Grande cup of Starbucks drip coffee. So treat yourself to a couple of those today and you could forge a whole new career as the next John Edward.

♦ Alain Ducasse has tapped Pierre Schaedelin to be the executive chef of his much-maligned Benoit. [NYT]
♦ Michael Psilakis and Donatella Arpaia's Kefi re-opens tonight. [Eater]
♦ A few photos and the menu from Cyril Renaud's new Bar Breton. [GS]
♦ R&L, which was quickly shut down by the Department of Health after opening in the former Florent space in July, is reopening this week. [Eater]
♦ The best places to pick up coffee in the West Village. [NYM]
♦ Citysearch's top 10 bars and clubs of 2008. [CS]

Poor Starbucks is barely making any money. The coffee chain's profit dropped 97% in the fourth quarter, because it's spending so much money closing down all the stores it opened earlier, when they thought every block in the world needed a Starbucks. At least they're good at giving away coffee for free! Hey, remember when Starbucks was the emergency backup job of the creative underclass, where you could make some scratch and get health care as a starving artist? Now it's aspirational. The emergency backup job is burglary. [AP]

♦ Jean-Georges Vongerichten is opening his first "green" restaurant inside ABC Carpet. [NYM]
♦ British chef Fergus Henderson is cooking at Momofuku Noodle Bar tonight as part of his annual "FerguStock" publicity tour through New York City kitchens. [Eater]
♦ New York's Adam Platt tasted seven different coffees and ranked Abraço's the best and Starbucks the worst. [NYM]

Last week Starbucks' ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy, quit the Starbucks account. As you can imagine, it's pretty fucking rare for something like that to happen, especially with a company of that scale. At the time, the agency just mumbled something about how it was "time to move on." But now the truth has come out: Starbucks is a notorious headache. Thanks largely to "mercurial" CEO Howard Schultz. Wieden & Kennedy (also behind this Nike campaign, incidentally) spent four long years working for Starbucks, and, according to an excellent Ad Age story today, none of that time was particularly happy. But Schultz was pals with Wieden's founder, so it went on and on. The conflict can be read either as a case of a prima donna client, OR the case of prima donna ad agencies not feeling "appreciated" for their brilliance:

Could the current US economic meltdown destroy expensive coffee shops, as penniless consumers abandon Starbucks in order to huddle in unheated apartments brewing cheap coffee filtered through a sock? Folgers sure hopes so! The middlebrow coffee roaster is about to debut a big new ad campaign, hoping that now that your retirement fund has evaporated, you'll be interested in a lower-cost coffee experience. And hold onto your threadbare hats, newly poor caffeine addicts: Folgers has just made the "biggest innovation since the launch of decaf":

Click to viewBoomp3.com The baristas (baristi?) at a Toluca Lake coffee shop reached their breaking point with frequent customer Miley Cyrus over the weekend. According to one barista who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Cyrus’ frequent abuse of the homey atmosphere of the store may lead to her permanent eviction. They said, “We don’t mind it when people come in and hang out. We encourage it, but you have to buy a drink first. It’s the unspoken rule. She usually doesn’t order a drink until after an hour or two of just hanging out.” Apparently, Cyrus was in the store on Sunday for over forty-five minutes before placing her order for a caramel mocchachino with skim. It was at that point that Steve, the manager, warned her that she had just gotten her second strike. [Photo Credit: Splash Pics] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Click to viewBoomp3.com Normally, a crippling fear of spilling her drink order consumes Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo on her daily Starbucks run. Instead, the baristas must’ve assumed that when she used the name, “Ellen” it was a fake name and that her real name is Renee, as in Renee Zelllweger. Pompeo tried to laugh off the case of mistaken identity, but it really got to her. Pompeo confessed, “We’re both awesome and blonde, but that’s it. That’s where the similarities end. We’re nothing alike. Two completely different people.” [Photo Credit: Flynet] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Entourage star Jeremy Piven bucked the established order of the fashion world by sporting a pair of white pants after Labor Day in New York City on Tuesday. When asked why he dared to commit a fashion crime this heinous, Piven claimed that his pants weren't white, they were actually vanilla. Piven said, "They're vanilla bean colored — that's what my glam squad told me. Check the catalog."

Next year's Macworld may be the last chance to make a shamefaced Starbucks run to the mall-kiosk latte dispenser in the Metreon. Why did the Seattle coffee monoculturist give six months' notice of that coffee-bar's closure, and 599 others? Why, to retrain loyalists on other locations within footsteps. We already know that you drink only at establishments where the coffee pickers are unionized, graduate-degreed, and constantly hugged. And so do we. But here's our map of the remaining South of Market Starbucks — and all the Blue Bottle locations — anyway. Only to show to your sleep-addled board members when they visit for a meeting.

Tim Horton's, a coffee chain that caters to the Canadian Menace, is kicking Starbucks' ass on Facebook. There is a group called "Biodegradable Cups at Tim Hortons" with more than 10,000 members. This means that Starbucks could use some of T.H.'s online marketing savvy. And, that Canadians are suicidally bored. [Ad Age]

Starbucks just unveiled a special rewards program, offering free refills and wireless internet for its most loyal addicts. But this isn't enough for Times columnist Ron Lieber, who considers himself a very special, lucrative customer and who has a list of demands. He would like his own special, shorter lines and a special VIP seating section with Aeron chairs and reserved electrical outlets. He would like to be invited to exclusive parties. And everyone else would like his head on a platter. Again.

Ha! A former barista for the small coffee shop chain Starbucks has come forward and admitted to switching whole milk for skim when making caffeine cocktails for the Olsen twins. Mary Kate and Ashley have been frequent and loyal customers of the humble little java huts over the years, and have also (well, especially Mary Kate) been involved in various "so skinny!" grumblings. "The barista thought the Olsens were too thin, so whenever they ordered their usual drink, he would replace the skim milk with full-fat," said a source. What a nefarious, strangely philanthropic plot.

Howard Schultz, the founder of Death Star coffee chain and religious icon Starbucks, built the company up from nothing with pure grit, energy, and a visionary outlook. Then he went too far, aiming to open 40-freaking-thousand stores (more than McDonald's), and the company's stock price cratered over the past year. Schultz brought himself back as CEO earlier this year, and the dynamic caffeine pusher has now revealed how he plans to revive his floundering company: by micromanaging the shit out of every god damn thing:

Ethiopia doesn't have the world's most sterling reputation. Many people think of "famine" and "drought" when the country's name is mentioned. But the Ethiopians are lucky, in the sense that Starbucks has forged a connection between the parched and war-torn nation in northern Africa and yuppie coffee swillers across America who just adore the subtle fruity undertones of the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe blend. So the country went to a branding firm to come up with a logo to stick on all of its coffee, to make people think of it as more of a luxury item. The logo is pictured. It looks like it should be in lime green on the side of can of a new and exotic type of energy drink. Instead, it's on the oldest energy drink ever. The kind that comes from Ethiopia (and is not qat)! We wish the country well in its yuppie-swindling mission, but we would have gone with a logo that's a little more cutting edge, with both hipster appeal and a strong connection to Ethiopian history. Like this: