When his older brother suddenly joins the army and is sent to the Persian Gulf, sixteen-year-old Gary begins to take a new look at the restaurant that has been the focal point of his family and their small Pennsylvania town.
While spending the summer helping her grandmother run a small restaurant in a decaying and dangerous neighborhood on the edge of Pittsburgh, thirteen-year-old Cab meets many colorful characters and helps with the neighborhood crime watch.
When Pete and Penny's parents leave them with their uncle in charge of the family pizza parlor, they must solve a mystery after their secret sauce recipe is lost.
Eleven-year-old Belinda "Bindi" Winkler and her family find their way through tough times with the love and support of the community that grows around their newly opened restaurant, "The Dancing Pancake.".
The Critter Cafe turns into chaos when a group of raccoons, elephants, zebras, rams, and other hungry animals storms the place looking for something to eat.
Frannie goes to dinner at a brand new French restaurant and tries her hand at being a food critic, even as she starts a campaign to warn other diners that there are insects on the menu.
The ghost that pops out of the old green bottle Mr. Dobbs finds is very helpful in the diner, but the rest of the help and the customers are too frightened to find out what a nice ghost he really is.