FIRST ON FOX: The restaurant industry is under constant pressure to evolve as tastes and trends change — including how much people are eating.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito, restaurateur and owner of New York City’s new Bar Rocco, discussed how shifting consumer habits — including delivery, pricing and weight-loss trends — are reshaping the industry.

“There’s no question the restaurant industry is changing,” he said. “Mostly dining habits are changing.”

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“A lot of people are getting food delivered to their homes,” he said, noting one example. 

“Now you can get everything delivered to your home. There was a time [when] fine-dining restaurants didn’t do delivery, but now they all do.”

Celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito has opened a new restaurant, Bar Rocco, in New York City. The Rockefeller Center location offers breakfast, lunch and dinner. (Eric Medsker)

At-home delivery is pulling some diners away from traditional restaurant experiences, DiSpirito said — while also contributing to a growing demand for faster, more efficient service when people do choose to dine out.

“They generally are looking for great value, but still looking for really indulgent foods, really special occasion experiences and vibes, and I think they want to feel like they experience something very special when they go out,” he said.

“Even in fine dining, it’s not uncommon to see someone order food and ask for a box to take it home.”

A powerful impact on the industry has been the GLP-1 movement. As more Americans take weight-loss medications such as Ozempic, appetites are shrinking.

Yet while people are eating less, DiSpirito revealed that this hasn’t led to restaurants reducing portions. Instead, he said, diners are taking their meals to go more often than before.

Mama’s Meatballs at Bar Rocco is one of the many menu options by celebrity chef and restaurateur Rocco DiSpirito. (Eric Medsker)

“Due to GLP-1 medications, people are eating less. There’s no question about it. They’re drinking less as well,” he said — adding that they “still want big portions.”

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“What I’m seeing is people are eating half of their food and taking the other half home,” he continued. 

“So now, even in fine dining, it’s not uncommon to see someone order food and ask for a box to take it home on almost every occasion, even on a date, which was unheard of at one time.”

DiSpirito says taking food to-go has been a major change in fine dining. (Jonathan Pushnik)

DiSpirito reflected on how swanky restaurants used to give out tinfoil swans, which he said was devised by restaurateurs to “discourage take-home.”

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“Now, we give them a nice pretty little package with a sticker on the bag,” he said.

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The take-home trend is also a more economical move, as it makes for a “free” lunch the next day. DiSpirito said he understands why people are thinking about value.

DiSpirito told Fox News Digital that he understands why Americans are more focused on value when they go out to eat. (Fox News Digital)

“Prices are generally higher. Costs are much, much higher,” he said. 

“Restaurateurs are often blamed, but really we’re just reacting to the cost of our inputs.”

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DiSpirito said he doesn’t fault customers “for wanting to take a little bit home and trying to get two meals out of [it]. Who can blame them?”

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World Liberty Financial, a group started by the Trump and Witkoff families, is accusing Justin Sun, a crypto billionaire and one of their investors, of waging a deliberate smear campaign to tank a crypto product he was allegedly betting against.

“Justin Sun chose to defame World Liberty — repeatedly, publicly and to millions of followers. World Liberty filed this lawsuit as a last resort to correct the record and to protect its token holders, its employees and all its stakeholders,” Tom Clare, World Liberty Financial’s attorney, said in a press release.

“We are eager to expose the falsity of Sun’s statements in court and in public.”

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Justin Sun, founder of Tron, during the Token2049 conference in Singapore, on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (Suhaimi Abdullah/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Sun, a crypto dealmaker and the founder of TRON blockchain, a cryptocurrency platform, announced a $30 million investment of WLFI in November 2024, calling himself the company’s largest backer at the time.

“We are thrilled to invest $30 million in World Liberty Financial as its largest investor. The U.S. is becoming the blockchain hub and Bitcoin owes it to [President Donald Trump],” Sun wrote in a post to X.

Two years later, World Liberty Financial is accusing Sun of, first, violating his agreement with the company as an investor by shorting WLFI’s token — a position that set him up to profit if the company’s value declined.

In response, World Liberty Financial froze Sun’s assets.

Then, Sun threatened to publicly criticize the company to his millions of followers online if the company didn’t unlock his holdings, according to World Liberty Financial.

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Justin Sun, founder of TRON, during the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Justin Sun engaged in a defamatory campaign to torch World Liberty Financial’s reputation,” Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, posted on X. “He knew his claims were false and made them anyway to harm WLFI token holders. I look forward to the truth coming out in court.”

Eric and Donald Trump Jr. also took to X to amplify a thread posted by their company, which accused Sun of “a coordinated media smear campaign against World Liberty Financial” and said he “refused to stop even when confronted with the truth.”

World Liberty Financial claimed Sun praised the company online, calling it “one of the biggest and most important projects in crypto” and that he was “fully aligned with the mission.”

When the company didn’t unfreeze his assets, Sun published his criticisms of the company, blasting World Liberty Financial’s business and leadership structure and warning viewers to stay away from the organization. According to World Liberty Financial’s suit, Sun even used fake social media “bot” accounts to amplify the claims.

In a post that garnered over 2 million views, Sun claimed the company had built a feature that enabled them to seize users’ digital assets.

“This feature grants the company unilateral power to freeze, restrict, or effectively confiscate the property rights of any token holder—without notice, without reason and without any avenue for recourse,” Sun claimed.

Sun pointed to his own digital assets as evidence of his claims.

“The WLFI team’s conduct is eroding the community’s trust in the project. Unlock the tokens and uphold transparency to the community. Let us build with integrity, not with malfeasance,” Sun said in his post.

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The seal of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is affixed on a wall at SEC headquarters, June 19, 2015, in Washington. On Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024, a Houston man pleaded guilty to securities fraud for trading on inside information from his wife’s business conversations while both were working from home. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

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Notably, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused Sun in the past of selling unregistered securities, manipulating the market to inflate the value of his assets and paying celebrities to promote his products without disclosures.

In that case, the SEC and Sun reached a settlement for $10 million earlier this year, although Sun denied any wrongdoing.

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https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.f3680117.1778060698.699331e5

Prediction markets are on fire. Last year, there was about $51 billion in total transaction volume on prediction markets. This year, volume exceeded $60 billion in just three and a half months, including over 192 million unique prediction market transactions and over 865,000 active users in March. Some estimates predict this market could grow to $1 trillion over the next several years.

Given this massive influx of retail participation in these markets, we need to update the regulatory framework to protect investors, strengthen market integrity, and keep America at the forefront of this latest financial innovation.

On a prediction market, investors buy and sell contracts tied to whether a specific event will occur. Those contracts are powerful tools that often outperform polls and experts. Through them, collective knowledge forecasts future events, allowing businesses and individuals, from small businesses managing inventory to investors hedging portfolios, to protect themselves against uncertainty.

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Their prices also offer real-time observations about what the market expects to happen. There is no doubt that the data from prediction markets is newsworthy, and even trusted news sources have taken notice.

Bottom line: Prediction markets are here to stay. Consumers, investors, companies, and financial institutions are increasingly seeing their value. Congress should too, but we must also guarantee greater clarity and stronger protections for everyday Americans.

That is why I introduced the Prediction Market Act this week, along with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, to bring greater clarity and – pardon the pun – predictability to prediction markets. That framework is guided by three principles.

First, strengthen consumer protection. While prediction markets already operate under oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the current regulatory regime for exchanges was not designed with everyday retail participants in mind. My bill fixes that by heightening scrutiny on the types of event contracts available to users, increasing investor protection standards on exchanges, and boosting retail consumer protections. These provisions make clear that Americans already engaged in these markets can do so with confidence.

Second, set clear ethical guardrails to ensure the public trust. My bill ensures public officials will not personally profit from events they influence by prohibiting them from owning any event contract.

Third, keep America in the lead of this fast-growing industry. I know from my time running businesses that nothing stifles innovation like unclear and uncertain regulations. Absent clarity, we risk pushing this industry – and all its attendant benefits – overseas. The bill supports responsible development for the retail investors of today and tomorrow.

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As with anything new, there are disagreements over certain areas, such as the treatment of sports. However, even as the courts grapple with these questions and regulators work to update rules, it is clear that prediction markets are here to stay. The costs of inaction are also clear: risks to consumers and a growing likelihood that this burgeoning industry will move off-shore.

So the real question is, will the United States lead the way and develop strong, safe, and fair markets? Our legislation lays the foundation for that future.

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