In spite (or maybe because of) of appalling weather in February, restaurant performance was far from appalling, as the industry posted its eighth consecutive month of positive same-store sales growth. The first quarter of 2015 is lining up to be the third consecutive quarter in which the industry has achieved positive same-store sales growth, per TDn2K’s Black Box Intelligence. Same-store sales rose 2.1% in February, a 4% drop from the growth rate reported for January.

It's not a good time for trouble at troubled American Apparel. The company is in the midst of a major transition. Revenues last quarter were down 5% following the departure of Dov Charney as CEO. But a worker has filed a claim with the National Labor Relations board charging harassment related to an effort by factory workers to organize.

The music duo Ex Cops got an invite to play at the “McDonald’s Showcase” at this year’s SXSW. But they weren't going to remunerate. One of the duo shared the pitch on social media: “Their selling point was that this was ‘a great opportunity for additional exposure,’ and that ‘McDonald’s will have their global digital team on site to meet with the bands, help with cross promotion, etc.’

Mini makes good money on its model variants (such as the John Cooper Works). Now it is hoping to get a piece of the booming compact luxury segment with its Countryman Park Lane. Adding a luxury model to the Countryman line-up makes sense as it had its best sales year on record. The Park Lane is a new look for the Mini portfolio. While it's a new look, it's not entirely new to the brand. Park Lane is one of London's most prestigious address located in the borough of Mayfair.

Chronically underpaid women, take heart. The millionaires-in-the-making include more women and minorities than today's millionaires, according to the survey of 1,064 investors with $50,000 to more than $10 million in total investable assets. The survey was conducted by Bellomy Research for Fidelity Investments to try to pinpoint affluent investors' attitudes and behaviors.

Should your product be on a higher shelf or a lower? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, by researchers at Ghent University in Belgium, finds that, well, it depends. But vertical positioning on a shelf does influence purchasing decisions: When we look down, we seek out more concrete information; when up, we take a more generalized look. Established brands, say the researchers, may benefit from shelf positions that require the consumer to look down a bit. It seems subjects more often selected their most preferred brands when looking down.

Sometimes you can't help where your chips land when you make a programmatic buy. Unfortunately for some major brands, their ads ran on an ISIS recruitment video. Said a YouTube spokesperson (to CNN), "We have stringent advertising guidelines, and work to prevent ads appearing against any video, channel or page once we determine that the content is not appropriate for our advertising partners." The ISIS video flagged to YouTube has been removed.

The Rodney Dangerfield of the sharing economy, Uber can't get no respect. The latest place to love it about as much as an infection, Japan, ordered Uber to stop a ride-sharing pilot program in southern Fukuoka city. The San Francisco-based company was told by Japan's transport ministry to kill Everyone's Uber, a program that allows users in Fukuoka to share rides, as soon as possible because it violates the nation's road transportation law.

Volkswagen is showing what could be its next flagship model at the Geneva Motor Show this week. It is a second vault into the premium area after the Phaeton, which never made it in the U.S. The final 17 were sold in Europe in 2007. VW may see the new vehicle, the Sport Coup Concept GTE, is a bigger hit in the U.S., where the automaker has been struggling. Klaus Bischoff, VW's design chief, says the show car is "a car that we position above today's Volkswagen CC." The CC is several inches shorter and starts at $32,660.

Last fall there were 630,964 restaurants of all types in the U.S., down 0.7% from spring last year and 1% from a year ago, per NPD Group's ReCount research. But chain restaurants showed positive growth, increasing 1.1% since last spring. All quick-service/fast-casual restaurants taken as a group showed a year-over-year increase of 1%. Fast-casual concepts were responsible for most of the gain. Visits to quick-service restaurants, 79% of total industry traffic, were up 1%, while full-service restaurant traffic, representing 21% of total visits, was down 2% last year, per NPD.