Can You Beat This?

On March 22-23, Bust It Records artist M. C. Hammer will perform “Here Comes the Hammer” at a Tokyo stadium called the Big Egg Dome.

That’s a Deep-Dish With Everything,

Extra Lamb and Yogurt

Rep. Susan Molinari of Staten Island reports the top request she heard from American troops at the Kuwait front (before the fighting began, anyway) was for American-style pizza. “Let us do what we have to do,” they told her, “and get us pizza.”

Gypsy Java

Evidently anticipating a boom in doughnut sales, Sara Lee is buying a majority interest in Compack Trading and Packing Co., the largest coffee-roasting firm in Hungary.

How About a Nice Cold Jar of Coffee?

Nestle, which already markets two brands of ready-to-drink coffee on its own (Icebreaker and Mocha Cooler, both sold in cartons), has a joint venture agreement with Coca-Cola to do more of the same, with Coke to handle distribution. Meanwhile, Kraft General Foods is test-marketing a bottled cappuccino-type drink in Tucson and Phoenix. Called Cappio, it comes in three flavors: coffee, mocha or cinnamon.

Where They’re Always Glad You Came

Host International, which handles a lot of airport food concessions, is opening airport bars modeled exactly on the TV show “Cheers.” Well, fairly exactly--bolted down to their bar stools are two flesh-tone robots that bear an eerie resemblance to “Cheers” characters Cliff Clavin and Norm Peterson, except that the Norm-like one (whose name is Bob) has the mustache and the Cliffish one (Hank) has lots of hair, and they both wear glasses. Still, they move, they converse with each other, they wisecrack with customers (the bartender controls them with a joystick). The first two Cheers bars, opened Feb. 12 and 23, are in the Detroit and Minneapolis airports; New Zealand also gets one this year. Needless to say, all the bar snacks have “Cheers”-related names, and there’s a world of Cheers marketing involved: glasswear, cocktail mixes, embroidered sweat shirts, even dresses and satin jackets.

Faster Food

In its 729 Japanese outlets, McDonald’s is trying out a sort of prepaid meal ticket that works like an automated teller card. You stick it in a slot and the machine subtracts the purchase price from the amount on the card. If this flies in Japan, look for it here in a year or two.

Good News, Bad News

Name a food nobody’s allergic to. There aren’t many: Among the few are fat, salt and refined sugar. Sorry about that.