You may have heard about Zach Chodorow's new Hamptons food venture last week. The son of Jeffrey Chodorow, the mega-restaurateur behind China Grill, Kobe Club, and Asia de Cuba (among others), the 22-year-old Wharton grad is now following in his father's footsteps and selling $20 Kobe beef hot dogs outside the Lily Pond club in East Hampton. But there are two Chodorow sons living it up on the East End this summer. There's also Max (he's standing over his brother, left), who will be a sophomore at Boston University this fall. And it turns out he's following in his dad's footsteps, too: He has a criminal record!

What do you do if you're the son of restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow and you just graduated Wharton? You sell $20 Kobe hot dogs outside a club in East Hampton, naturally. [Page Six]

• Jeffrey Chodorow's Borough Food and Drink—located in possibly the most cursed space in the city—will close this fall to make way for a "French-influenced American bistro," says Gail Greene. [Grub Street]
  

• A former employee at Wakiya, the restaurant locatede in Ian Schrager's Gramercy Park Hotel, has filed a $5 million suit against the restaurant, the hotel, and Schrager's company. She claims she was assaulted by a co-worker and fired because she spoke Spanish. [NYS]

• Is the decision to keep Florent open (albeit under a different name) a sign the meatpacking retail market has peaked? Or is landlord Joanne Lucas just insane? [NYO]

• Is it really over between Madonna and Guy Ritchie? Madge has apparently hired England's toughest divorce lawyer, Nicholas Mostyn—the same guy who handled Paul McCartney's split with Heather Mills—so the answer looks like yes. [Holy Moly!]

• Everyone was partying in the Hamptons this weekend. Molly Sims celebrated her birthday in Sag Harbor. Leo DiCaprio partied at Dune. Jeffrey Chodorow and Charlie Walk threw a dinner at the Kobe Beach Club. Even newly-convicted felon Wesley Snipes, who is free on bail, flew in to get wasted at a party in Water Mill. [Page Six]

A judge in Ireland has decided that newspapers there do have the right to publish negative restaurant reviews, overturning an earlier ruling that awarded a Belfast pizzeria $50,000 for a bad review. The ruling pleased champions of press freedom, but it also means that there is now no reason for NYC restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow to move to Ireland. [Breitbart]

Mega-restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow presides over more than two dozen restaurants like China Grill. He's also the guy who sparred with Rocco DiSpirito on TV and lashed out at Frank Bruni via a full-page ad in the Times.

Bizarro unicorn-slaying restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow is closing down his horrendous restaurant at the Gansevoort Hotel and replacing it with another horrendous restaurant at the Gansevoort Hotel! In March, reports FloFab, Ono, that weird fusion place that never made sense, is going to be replaced by a steakhouse called Maxim Steak, a partnership with Maxim magazine. It's a magabrand made edible! Also probably a bad idea.

Wealthy unicorn-loving rainbow-surfer Jeffrey Chodorow is closing his fishtastic venture WIld Salmon at the end of the month. Why? Well, it was swimming upstream from the start. (Zing!) Though the fish actually wasn't all that bad, the concept was fatally flawed. Like Chodorow, the restaurant was oversized, lacked nuance and ultimately was unpalatable. [Eater]

Vegan temple of soy mediocrity Zen Palate on Union Square is being replaced by a Jeffrey Chodorow backed Fatty Crab offshoot. NYU kids living in Carlyle, U-Hall and the Palladium will have to find some other place to get gooey overly sweet chunks of seitan to quench their munchies after smoking copious amounts of pot even though what they really want is a cheeseburger from Veselka but this cute hippie girl from Bethesda, MD who they're trying to get with and who is the whole reason they're smoking pot in the first place—though it makes them horribly paranoid and they have a ConWest paper due tomorrow—is, duh, also a vegan. [NYT]

Jeffrey Chodorow, the owner of Kobe Club, China Grill, Wild Salmon, Borough and many other so-so restaurants, has divulged his five-year plan to grow his gimmicky restaurant empire to the Observer's Doree Shafrir. Soon, it seems, New Yorkers will be wandering past whole blocks full of restaurants that Jeffrey Chodorow—and perhaps he alone—thinks are good ideas. A Maxim steakhouse, a Malaysian-themed coffeehouse, and yet another "American steakhouse concept" at the Empire Hotel are all in the works. And there's more! Woah! Also: Yipes!

Jeffrey Chodorow, the insane Tevye of the New York restaurant scene, is opening another of his overwrought hyperbolic restaurants. Chodorow is close to signing a lease in the Empire Hotel (up at Broadway and 63rd) for his newest restaurant. We already have half-assed ninja shtick at Kobe Club, golden sperm gestalt at Wild Salmon and the nostalgic outer boroughs idyll of Borough. What odd theme will Chodorow tap next? We bet it has to do with unicorns but it's really up to you.

Yesterday we reported on an overheard conversation starring peculiar restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow—he was figuring out the cheap way to fix up some of the falling-apart areas of Kobe Club. Later, Eater was on the receiving end of a personal call from Chodorow. In the words of the man himself, "Kobe is not closing, ever." He then called 9/11 an inside job, claimed the Moon landing was a hoax, said that gravity was a Kurdish conspiracy, and quickly excused himself, saying he had a meeting with Hexlor VII, the Supreme Commander of Flexicor MI9. Also he's opening up a Kobe Club in Miami!

How did borderline crazy restaurant mogul Jeffrey Chodorow accumulate so much cash? And why are the lights kept so low at Kobe Club? Both questions can be answered in one fell swoop: he's cheap! The Choad was brunching at Sarabeth's recently, where he was overheard discussing Kobe Club, his much-maligned midtown steakhouse whose ceiling is covered in dangling swords. He was with some sort of interior design woman—and from what could be overheard, apparently Kobe Club is not at all holding up well. Among the complaints, the banquettes are threadbare and there's an "area of concern" near the raw bar. In what manner should all this be fixed? Said Chodorow: "Just do it as cheaply as possible. I don't care, just make it happen cheap."

Today Jeffrey Chodorow, the priapic owner of many a poorly reviewed restaurant, placed another ad in the New York Times Dining section. (He had previously taken out a full pager impugning critic Frank Bruni's motives in panning Kobe Club.) Today's ad was in response to Bruni's one-star review of Wild Salmon. It was written on "letterhead" in a generic "handwriting" font.

China Grill, zillionaire restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow's first Manhattan venture, was shut down by the Department of Health today. Too many insects, not enough refrigeration. And now it seems the website is down too. Is this the beginning of the end for the Choad? [Update: The China Grill website is now back online though its IRL version is still closed.] [Eater]

Jeffrey Chodorow's Borough opens tonight. After a peek last night, we're convinced it's by far the most restrained of his recent restaurants. No ninja swords, as at Kobe Club, no golden spermy fish hanging from the ceiling, as at Wild Salmon. That's not to say the place doesn't have a gimmick. The idea behind the menu (by Zak Pelaccio, late of 5 Ninth) is that it represents the food stuffs from the ethnic communities that can be found in New York's 5 Boroughs. Borough, get it? There were fried pickles for the Jews, fried chicken for the Blacks, and clam casino flatbreads for the Itals. This is the restaurant version of Joseph Sitt's Coney Island: There's something for everyone. Except the Asians.

Last night at Daisy May's BBQ (in our humble opinion, some of the best in the city), we spotted a large and gregarious party in the back room. Upon closer inspection it turned out to include none other than Krazy Karine Bakhoum who reps the constantly embattled Jeffrey Chodorow. Bakhoum was there with Pascal Riffaud, her husband and the constantly embattled founder of pay-to-eat service Primetime Tables; Penny Glazier president of the Glazier Group and restaurant critic Gael Greene. There was also some mustachioed dude cheering for the Red Sox. Note to that guy: In your face. Note to Pascal: Happy birthday. Now to unpack what this gathering means.