Alinea Caught in McDonald's Menu Stealing Scandal

By: Dylan Siegfried

Chicago IL - The Chicago culinary marvel, Alinea, became known for something other than inventive menus and long wait lists last week after it came to light that they've been time-traveling to the future, and stealing McDonald's menus from the year 2073.

"We first caught wind after a power surge that hit 5 city blocks away from the restaurant," said CPD investigator, Tony Willis. He continued, "They claimed it was caused by a new ice cream machine that gives you a flavor based on your feelings."

The Machine sent a reporter undercover, disguised as a busboy, in order to find the truth. His investigation uncovered the startling revelation that the outage was actually caused by the use of a time machine.

"A Time Machine?! That's preposterous!" exclaimed the head chef when confronted. But our intern already had undeniable proof of blatant misuse of time travel for personal enrichment, timeline tampering, and poor food safety conditions.

Yes sadly it's true, the cutting edge restaurant is nothing but a cheap knockoff restaurant at best. Foams, crumbles, and other molecular gastronomy innovations are merely done-up cost saving measures from a future fast food restaurant. It might be 2019's chic meal, but its 2073's chic'-ken nugget salad.

One 25 year old patron was particularly appalled with the process stating that "Stealing menu items from a future restaurant is not ok, I might be managing that McDonalds in 53 years, and I'm not charging Alinea prices."

Alinea only had one comment, "If you all let this blow over you'll be very happy in about 10 years. Trust us."

Meanwhile, McDonalds issued a statement, "We are shocked and appalled at this theft of intellectual property. However, we'd also like to advise anybody who ate the Mountain Dew-spiced filet of blabberfish with cabernet sauce, to immediately seek medical attention. The human digestive track is still decades away from evolving enough to be able to process that.