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Season two of FX's The Bear premieres tonight. The show became a breakout hit for its gritty and realistic view of the hospitality industry. In the first season, we meet Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), who takes over a struggling restaurant after his brother dies.

In the new season, Carmy and his makeshift restaurant family attempt to reinvent the old sandwich shop in pursuit of culinary excellence.

The premise hits home for chefs Luciana Giangrandi and Alex Meyer, who opened Boia De in a Little Haiti strip mall. The restaurant, which celebrates its fourth anniversary next week, saw the couple trading in their La Polita food cart for the 24-seat Italian restaurant. For their efforts, Boia De earned a Michelin star. In addition, their second restaurant, Walrus Rodeo, has a mention in the Michelin Florida Guide.

Giangrandi and Meyer maintain that their focus isn't on winning awards, though Meyer admits that when they received their Michelin star, they were excited, but not much has changed behind the scenes." We made sure the team knew that nothing would change. We earned a star doing our thing, so why would we change course? The only thing we did change was we made sure we put ourselves in the customers' shoes when analyzing our business. Even though we were still going to be the same little place, the customers would be coming with higher expectations. We needed to make sure we kept that in mind with all of our decisions."

The similarities between The Bear's Carmy and Boia De's Giangrandi and Meyer have not gone unnoticed.

The couple was asked to be to star in a series of shorts sponsored by American Express and Resy that spotlight several independent restaurants across the country. Each restaurant's story was filmed as a short documentary, interspersed with scenes from The Bear. They will air during the show on Hulu (for those who pay for the streaming service with commercials). Other participating restaurants include New York City's Yellow Rose and Pijja Palace in Los Angeles.

Meyer tells New Times that he and Giangrandi are big fans of the show, adding, "I think Luci watched all of season one in two or three nights while I was at work.". When one of the senior managers at Resy reached out to them to be a part of the project, they jumped at the chance. "We love the show, so we couldn't say 'yes' any faster."

Meyer hopes Miamians tune in to The Bear to watch Boia De's part — and to get a feel for how a restaurant is run. "It does a great job showing what it takes to run a restaurant — the stress, the administration, the HR aspects, and of course, the cooking."

For all its accuracy, says Meyer, there are some less glamorous parts of restaurant life that even The Bear left out. "Ultimately, though, it is for entertainment, so some of the more tedious parts of the behind-the-scenes are omitted. For example, it doesn't show the several hours a week it takes to calculate payroll and pay staff, make sure our trash company picks up our dumpster on time, or take a monthly inventory of all the food and beverage we have, but it's understandable they wouldn't include that in a half-hour show."

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Delaware native Sophia Andrews has recently been chosen to be in the running for a $100,000 award in the 2023 Chegg.org Global Student Prize.

The prize recognizes an exceptional student who is “making a real impact on learning, the lives of their peers and on society beyond," according to Chegg.org.

Andrew’s selection comes seven years after her life changed in 2016.

At 14 years old, she was inspired to teach ballet to underprivileged kids after attending a trip to Kenya to visit a facility for abandoned children in Nairobi. It was there that she discovered that the students — who shared the same love as her for music, song and dance — lacked access to lessons. To help unlock the kid's passion for the creative arts, she created Ngoma Kenya, a nonprofit focused on bringing arts education to kids living in parts of Kenya.

Growing up in Bear, Andrews always loved helping others. When she founded Ngoma Kenya in 2017, Andrews envisioned the nonprofit as a creative way to combine her love for the arts and volunteering.

Now, Andrews is on the cusps of winning $100,000 through Chegg.org. The 21-year-old is one of 10 finalists selected out of nearly 4,000 students who applied from about 122 countries. She is the only American student among the 10 finalists.

If Andrews wins, the prize money will go toward her nonprofit's work, which has impacted at least 5,000 kids in Kenya. The winner will be announced later in the year, according to Chegg.org.

The Varkey Foundation partnered with Chegg.org to launch the annual Global Student Prize in 2021 to highlight students who make the world a better place. The prize is open to all students who are at least 16 years old and enrolled in an academic institution or training and skills program.

Delaware Online/ The News Journal caught up with Andrews to discuss the prize, her nonprofit and the joys of creative expression.

The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Question: What was your reaction when were told you had been selected as a top ten finalist in the 2023 Chegg.org Global Student Prize?

Answer: I was really speechless and trying not to cry because you just never think it's going to be you, especially with the contest having so many applicants. I'm really honored and excited that the work we're doing is being recognized. It's also really cool and exciting to represent Delaware and the United States.

Question: When did you initially become interested in advocacy work?

My aspirations started at a young age. I started at a performing arts group in Delaware called The Imagination Players. We would perform all over Delaware at different hospitals, schools, and nursing homes. We would perform music and dance in its largest repertoire and every week we would perform at different places. I did this from around 7-years-old to 16-years-old. During this time, I fell in love with using the arts of dance/song as a tool for advocacy and using it as a way to connect with people and improve their lives.

Question: What doors have been opened for you since starting this advocacy work in Kenya?

My work has opened up a lot of opportunities for me to meet new people. I ended up going to a American University in D.C to study international relations and Swahili. Also, I've had the opportunity to talk on various talk shows, meet new peers and connect them with work that we’re doing in Kenya and get young people from not only Delaware, but across the United States involved in the work that we're doing.

Question: What type of programs does your nonprofit, Ngoma Kenya, offer?

We have a few different types of programs. We have a menstrual health and hygiene program for girls called "Stand By Her." A few times a month we meet with girls mostly from marginalized communities and we use dance and music to connect with them in an empowerment session. Then we would give each girl three to four months' worth of pads. This is something we've done in jails, schools and churches. Also, during COVID we have worked to help single mothers and struggling families in a different communities across Kenya.

Question: If you won the $100,000 prize money from Chegg.org, how would you use the funds to support Ngoma Kenya?

The funding would be amazing because there are a lot of things on the horizon and a lot of impacts that we want to have, not only in Kenya but in other parts of the continent. A lot of it would go into the community center that we’re building and the work we already doing right operating with our classes and art education. It would help heighten those programs and expand our impact to different communities in Kenya and also help fund our fellowship program that we're looking to launch next year as well.

To learn more about Ngoma Kenya, visit www.ngomakenya.org.

More:DSU students offered chance for scholarship & career after military during college tour

Contact local reporter Cameron Goodnight at [email protected], or by calling or texting 302-324-2208. Follow him on Twitter at @CamGoodnight.

More than two years after Lidl received approval to build its third Delaware store, it's still unclear when the German grocer's Bear location will open.

Construction of the store has appeared complete since the middle of last year, but the store is "still in the planning phase," according to company spokesperson Chandler Spivey.

Spivey said Lidl expects to "have more of an update over the coming months."

The nearly 30,000-square-foot store took the place of the Countryside Nursery and Garden Center at Pulaski Highway and Salem Church Road. The store's signage and other details, such as shopping cart corrals and some landscaping, have been in place for several months. A "coming soon" sign was recently placed along Route 40.

At one point, Lidl planned for the store to open in July 2020, according to New Castle County planning documents. At that time, the company was still in the process of gaining county approval.

DELAWARE GROCERY STORES: Delaware's first Wegmans is taking shape. The store will be smaller than Concordville one.

The county eventually approved the project in May 2020. Months later, the Bear store appeared on a list of 50 Lidl stores expected to open by the end of 2021.

Today, 45 of those 50 stores have opened.

Lidl pushed the timeline for the store's opening back by a year to fall 2022 when asked about apparent construction progress in September 2021.

"Like thousands of businesses, we have seen that COVID-19 has put pressure on the materials supply chain and that does impact our planning," Will Harwood, Lidl's director of communications, said at the time.

Lidl still needs to pass a final county inspection before it can open. County planner Janet Vinc said there are "several interior fit-out items that need to be addressed and all required landscaping needs to be installed." Once those items are addressed, the company can request a final inspection for a certificate of occupancy, which is needed to open the business.

Lidl received its commercial building permit in December 2020. After getting an extension in January, the permit is due to expire June 10. Vinc said the land use department generally allows two permit extensions "provided that the project is still advancing towards completion."

If Lidl receives a second extension, its building permit would expire near the end of the year.

Lidl bills itself as a low-priced, high-quality alternative to traditional "cookie-cutter" grocery stores. Similar to its German counterpart Aldi, Lidl's offerings are more limited than traditional grocery stores and are displayed in the boxes they were shipped in. Around 90% of Lidl's products are produced by its own private-label brands.

Both companies have more than 10,000 stores worldwide, but Aldi has a much larger presence in the U.S. With more than 2,000 stores, Aldi is the third-largest grocer in the U.S., according to JLL data. Lidl has about 150 stores in the U.S. concentrated on the East Coast.

In the time since Lidl announced its Bear location, Aldi has added more stores in Delaware, located in the Christiana Town Center off Route 273 and off Coastal Highway in Rehoboth Beach. The company has plans for another location in Millsboro, which would bring their Delaware count to eight.

Lidl has stores off Middletown Warwick Road in Middletown and on Route 13 in Dover.

Like knowing what stores, restaurants and developments are coming and going in Delaware? Join our Facebook group What's Going There in Delaware and subscribe to our free What's Going There in Delaware newsletter.

Bear River Dispensary has opened its doors in Delaware as the city’s first medical marijuana dispensary, and during Monday’s meeting of the Delaware City Council, representatives of the dispensary were on hand to give a presentation of their business and what the community can expect from it moving forward.

Located at 26 Moore St., Bear River Dispensary is family owned and operated and offers a wide variety of products ranging from oils and concentrates to edibles, buds, and more. The dispensary is open seven days a week, and hours range from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Fridays, and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturdays.

“We have an amazing group of employees who are truly students of their craft,” Bear River representative Luke Beechum said during the meeting. “We often get fairly new patients, new to the industry, who come in looking for more natural remedies to things like arthritis, fibromyalgia, and even Parkinson’s disease.

“Our wonderful budtenders, as they’re called, are able to listen to these patients, understand their ailments, and recommend specific applications of the product, specific ways to treat, or specific strains that are known to have cannabinoid compounds or terpenes. These are naturally occurring chemicals within cannabis, and thanks to modern science, we’re realizing that these naturally occurring chemicals treat different things as specialized as gastrointestinal issues or sleep issues. It’s a really wide variety, and the science is moving very quickly in understanding and better helping patients.”

Beechum added that with the pace at which the science is evolving, the industry is moving even quicker and will continue to do so with the likely legalization of recreational marijuana coming to Ohio soon. He said his expectation is for recreational cannabis to become legalized “within the next seven months,” and with it will come a “tidal wave” of new dispensary licenses that will be distributed throughout the state.

“We know personally that there are several large, multi-state dispensaries that are targeting the Columbus area and the surrounding central Ohio area in an effort to open their new dispensaries around this area,” he said. “This is where we believe our goal will kind of align with your goals in that, obviously, we don’t want any more dispensaries in the area. And we believe your goal is to kind of protect the family-oriented community image that Delaware has worked so hard to present. And this is why we’re going to recommend limiting the number of dispensary licenses within Delaware to mirror something along the lines of the state liquor store license.”

Beechum offered up the model of having one dispensary license per 100,000 people in the city, a model he said has become common with cities in states where recreational cannabis is legal. “Obviously, we realize that this is clearly better for our business, but we also believe this is the best way to prepare Delaware for the future of the legalized recreational cannabis industry,” he went on to say.

Councilman Cory Hoffman scoffed at the notion of being asked to limit the number of dispensary licenses granted in Delaware, saying such a request seems like an attempt to protect Bear River’s income stream.

Councilman Drew Farrell inquired about the security measures in place for the dispensary, which is located in an area that is mostly residential. Bill Beechum, a board advisor for Bear River, said there is a third-party company that fulfills the state’s requirement of having a security officer on-site during all open hours.

Luke Beechum added that, per state regulations, there are security cameras that cover “literally every inch” of the property, and the products are stored in what he called a “very big vault.”

To learn more about the dispensary, visit its website at www.thebearriver.com.

Reach Dillon Davis at 740-413-0904. Follow him on Twitter @DillonDavis56.

Jim Rogers is bracing for the biggest market downturn in eight decades.

The 80-year-old investor issued the grave warning during a recent RealVision interview. He also cautioned the US dollar's global dominance is under threat, and higher interest rates will be necessary to rein in soaring prices.

The cofounder of George Soros' Quantum Fund also slammed US lawmakers for the current debt-ceiling debacle, touted commodities as the best hedges against inflation, and dismissed the idea that governments will embrace bitcoin.

Here are Rogers' 7 best quotes, lightly edited for length and clarity:

1. "The next bear market will be the worst in my lifetime, because the debt has gone up by such staggering amounts in the past 14 years." (Rogers said the 2008 crash was caused by excessive amounts of debt, and borrowing has ballooned since then, suggesting a far worse downturn lies ahead.)

2. "We should always be concerned about Washington. They don't have a clue what they're doing. And they prove it day in and day out." (He was discussing the current political gridlock over raising the debt ceiling.)

3. "You should be extremely worried. If you're not, you don't know what's going on. Many countries are starting to look for alternatives to the US dollar, partly because of its horrendous debt problem. I'm looking every day, because I know that something bad is going to happen in the currency markets in the next two or three years." (Rogers was commenting on de-dollarization fears.)

4. "Interest rates are going to go higher worldwide. I don't know how high they have to go to kill inflation this time around. The world has never seen the debt and the spending and the money printing like in the last few years. So something is going to have to be very, very ruinous to solve this problem this time."

5. "There'll be trouble in all the markets — property markets, stock markets, bond markets, currency markets, everything. You have to learn about cash or selling short in order to survive what's coming."

6. "I don't think that the world is going to convert to bitcoin. It will be computer money, but it will be government computer money."

7. "The best place to be when you have inflation is real assets, and real assets are commodities. The cheapest asset that I know is still commodities." (Rogers said he owns some silver and gold currently.)

Check out: Personal Finance Insider's picks for best cryptocurrency exchanges