Aramark

The Philadelphia School District in 2005 hired Aramark to help it erase a long-standing deficit in its full-service cafeterias. But the Philadelphia-based company hasn't closed that deficit, and school officials, none too happy, are now prepared to end the contract with the company if new terms can't be reached. Tom Brady, the district's interim chief executive, said yesterday that he might recommend that the district jettison Aramark when the contract expires at the end of September.

Joseph J. Rotondo, 28, a computer programmer, died of multiple brain tumors Friday at his Langhorne home. His father, Joseph L., said that since 2007, Mr. Rotondo had worked in the campus-services department at Aramark, the Philadelphia food-services firm. "He worked on the Web sites that a student uses to transact food services," his father said. From 2001 to 2007, Mr. Rotondo worked with computers for the Defense Supply Center in Northeast Philadelphia. Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Rotondo graduated from Conwell-Egan High School in 1999, and earned his bachelor's degree in management information systems in 2003 and his master's in computer science in 2008, both from La Salle University.

Aramark, the food-service provider formerly known as ARA Services Inc., said yesterday that it had acquired Harry M. Stevens Inc., which operates food and drink concessions at some of the nation's biggest arenas and ballparks. With the newly acquired contracts, Aramark, which has operated stadium concessions around the country since 1966, will now provide service at the homes of 28 teams in baseball, football, basketball and hockey. Aramark officials would not disclose the price of the deal, which gives the Center City-based company rights to venues in nine states and Puerto Rico.

Aramark Corp., Philadelphia, lost a contract it had since 1992 to run the concession stands at Camden Yards, the home of the Baltimore Orioles. Aramark spokesman David Freireich would not disclose the reason the Orioles gave for deciding against renewing the company's contract for the 2011 baseball season. Aramark had 600 employees working at the ballpark. Many are expected to be picked up by whatever food-service company the Orioles select to succeed Aramark. A spokesman for the Orioles would not disclose the reason for the move.

Aramark Corp. won a five-year contract from the Philadelphia Eagles to handle concessions at Lincoln Financial Field, the Philadelphia food-services company said yesterday. The agreement puts Aramark in charge of serving hot dogs, pretzels and beer at all three of the city's major sports facilities. Aramark already has contracts at Citizens Bank Park and the Wachovia complex. The deal at the Linc, signed a few weeks ago, is worth an estimated $10 million a year in revenue - not a huge contract for a company with $10.2 billion in sales last year - but a symbolically important one. "We're real excited, with Philadelphia being our hometown from a corporate standpoint," said Norm Miller, group president of Aramark's sports and entertainment services division, which has contracts at 34 professional sports arenas, ballparks and stadiums.

A day after agreeing to a $6.3 billion buyout offer from private investors, Aramark Corp. reported a steep decline in quarterly net income because of noncash charges in its uniform-rental business. The previously announced pretax charges of $42.9 million reduced the Philadelphia company's net income 51 percent, to $35 million, or 19 cents a share, on revenue of $2.9 billion. For the same period a year ago, Aramark reported sales of $2.8 billion and earnings of $71.4 million, or 38 cents a share.

The Philadelphia School District will end its contract with Aramark to run full-service cafeterias in 115 of the district's 267 schools, officials announced yesterday. As of Oct. 1, the school district will take back the operations and run the cafeterias, which Aramark has run for the last two years. District officials said earlier this month that they were unhappy that the company had not helped the district erase a long-standing deficit in its full-service cafeteria operations and were considering terminating the five-year contract - renewable annually - after the first two full years.

Saying it is owed $7.3 million, Aramark Corp., the Philadelphia food-services provider, has sued a New Jersey operator of correctional facilities. In the suit, Aramark contends Community Education Centers Inc., of West Caldwell, N.J., has been in default on bills since at least June 2008. Locally, Aramark services Community Education Centers facilities in Philadelphia, Delaware County, Reading, and Trenton. Aramark's lawsuit, filed Feb. 18 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, said Community Education Centers was overdue on $5.2 million of the total, and it requested that a judgment, including interest, costs, and attorney's fees, be entered in its favor.

Joseph Neubauer, best known as benefactor to some of the region's top cultural organizations, stepped down Tuesday as chief executive of Aramark Corp. after 29 years as its leader. Aramark, one of Philadelphia's largest companies, with a global workforce of 250,000, has hired Eric J. Foss, 53, a former PepsiCo Inc. executive, to succeed Neubauer as president and chief executive. The move marks the end of an era for the food-services and facilities-management company, which has known just five chief executives since 1936.

La Salle University hired Aramark Corp. to run its dining services. Under the contract with Aramark, all of La Salle's current full-time food services employees will maintain their La Salle years of service and their eligibility for tuition remission, and have a comparable health-insurance plan, said Jon Caroulis, a spokesman for the Philadelphia university. The La Salle operation employs 100 full time and 60 part time, he said. Aramark's higher education division manages food services for more than 600 colleges and universities in North America, according to the company.

When your nickname is Donnie Baseball, you better get used to the heat when the team you manage is a miserable 19-26. Dodgers skipper Don Mattingly did not make any allies (among the people most important to him in his job) when, before Wednesday's game vs. the Brewers, he questioned his team's "grit" and the bosses who saddled him with highly paid all-stars he believes don't have much of the stuff. In any case, following his blast, the Dodgers hammered the Brewers, winning, 9-2, to match their highest run total of the season.

AS AN INMATE laborer at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, Chal D. Kennedy Sr. worked in the kitchen, heating and serving meals for nearly 400 inmates and then cleaning up after them. That meant scrubbing down two giant ovens once or twice a week with a noxious degreaser that kept him coughing and left a sudsy sludge up his arms. "You look like you just came out from under an automobile," Kennedy, 46, of North Philadelphia, said of the two-hour, two-man cleanups. For the nearly three years he worked that $1.61-a-day job, prison staff ignored inmates' repeated requests for protective gear or training, he said.

Claude Feninger, 87, of Malvern, who built grand luxury hotels around the world for Hilton, Sheraton and Omni, died Sunday, April 28, of kidney disease at his home. Before his retirement in the early 1990s, Mr. Feninger was president of international operations for Aramark. His responsibilities included servicing the Olympic Games for many years. Throughout his career, Mr. Feninger brought European hotel luxury and services to the United States. On the world stage, he developed, constructed, arranged financing for, and created hotel operations at 85 properties on six continents.

When Camden's LEAP Academy University Charter School compelled its new food-service management company to retain the school's executive chef and give him a $24,000 raise, LEAP also had to pay a $151,428 penalty to its previous vendor, documents show. Including Michele Pastorello's new $95,000 salary, LEAP has spent nearly $250,000 this school year to keep him employed as executive chef. The position typically pays about $40,000, according to industry experts. Pastorello is the live-in boyfriend of LEAP founder and board chairwoman Gloria Bonilla-Santiago.

In the Region     Aramark to sell $1B in notes   Aramark Corp. , of Philadelphia, the privately held food concessionaire, plans to sell $1 billion of senior notes to refinance debt. The company intends to sell seven-year bonds that may be rated B3 by Moody's Investors Service , according to a person familiar with the offering who asked not to be identified, citing lack of authorization to speak publicly. Aramark is raising funds as it begins a tender offer, announced Thursday, to buy back as much as $2.38 billion of outstanding obligations.

Food can be high art in some of Philadelphia's best restaurants. But why is it so hard to find a masterpiece meal in one of the city's great art museums? We know it can be done, since Danny Meyer set the bar high for arty destination dining in New York with the Modern at the Museum of Modern Art. But don't hold your breath for such haute-culinary inspirations at a museum near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The Barnes Foundation's Garden Restaurant was our best hope for something extraordinary.

AN ARM of the food-services giant Aramark and a local minority-owned business will pay the city a total of $400,000 to settle a suit that accused the companies of fudging their numbers to skirt minority-participation requirements in a Philadelphia prison system contract, the city announced Thursday. "They really were denying opportunities for legitimate minority companies that wanted to work," said city Inspector General Amy Kurland, whose office oversaw the investigation. Aramark Correctional Services provides three meals a day to prisoners, but it is required to subcontract out 20 percent to 25 percent of the work to businesses owned by minorities, women or disabled persons.

Laboratory Testing Inc. , an independent Hatfield materials-testing and metrology laboratory, promoted Frank Peszka to director of quality. He had been quality-assurance manager. Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau hired Nicole Johnson-Reece as executive director of the Philadelphia Multicultural Affairs Congress, a division of PCVB responsible for increasing Philadelphia's share of multicultural meetings, conventions, and tourism markets. She had been vice president, global diversity and inclusion, of Aramark Corp., Philadelphia.