“Why you gotta fight with me at Cheesecake? You know I love to go there.”

A former server at the Wisconsin Avenue Cheesecake Factory has plead guilty to organizing a fraud ring to steal customers’ credit card information, reports NBC4. Nicole Ward was charged with bank fraud last May after two fellow servers attested that she had recruited themin the scheme, racking up $117,000 in charges from June 2008 to May 2009 and taking information from nearly 90 credit cards. Sentencing will occur October 29; Ward faces nearly 30 years…

Photo by cstein96 A former employee of the Cheesecake Factory on Wisconsin Ave. has been charged with facilitating a fraud ring that led to $117,000 worth of bogus charges on the credit cards of diners, Freeman Klopott reports in the Sunday Examiner. Nicole Ward was arrested and charged with bank fraud last week after two of her fellow servers told prosecutors that Ward had recruited them to be a part of a credit card…

We start off this Monday morning with the very sad news that Star Foster, a co-editor of sister site Phillyist, passed away unexpectedly on Sunday morning. Phillyist will be going dark for a few days out of respect for Foster, who was with the site since its inception. Here at DCist, and across the -ist network, we offer our condolences and thoughts for her friends and family. Gallaudet Taps New President: The board of…

It may not be possible to resolve the great Nearlington vs. Farlington debate. But there’s a compromise available: apparently we can start calling both halves of the county Smartlington. If for some reason we wanted to. Via the Examiner, it seems that Money Magazine has named Arlington the most educated city in the country thanks to an impressive 35.7 percent of its citizens holding graduate degrees (apparently this was enough to make up for the…

Nationals Mascot Announced: In a surprising move, the Washington Nationals presented the team’s new mascot to reporters this morning. The choice? A giant walking bow tie. Meant to memorialize the efforts of D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams in bringing baseball back to the District after a three-decade absence, the “Nat Cravate,” as the mascot is to be known, will spin every time a National hits a home run and will loosen slightly during the seventh-inning stretch….

(From DCist contributor Amadie Hart) Clarendon, a historic shopping hub in Arlington County that was devastated by the construction associated with the construction of Metro’s Orange Line in the 1970s, has undergone a wholesale transformation in the last decade. Small storefront retail and ethnic restaurants have been giving way to larger, chain developments. In recent years, stores such as Crate and Barrel, The Pottery Barn, the Container Store, and Williams Sonoma, and restaurants such as…

A recent eGullet exchange notes the sudden ubiquity of the mini-burger at many of the “hip” restaurants in the D.C. area. The smaller-than-average burger, popular as an appetizer at the Chinatown bistro Matchbox, has apparently made appearances on various menus at 15 Ria, Fado, the newly opened Tallula in Clarendon, Silver Spring’s Jackie’s, as “twin burgers” at 701 downtown, and at the Hotel Monaco’s Poste. Although the mini-burger has long been a staple on the…

We realize that some of you may have taken an extended four-day weekend for the Veterans Day holiday, so here’s some of what you may have missed since your last visit. (DCist photo of Reflecting Pool at dusk Sunday by Mike Grass) >> Center for Science in the Public Interest classifies Cheesecake Factory no-carb cheesecake as “food porn.” >> The NTSB scolded WMATA back in 1996 about the possibility of train cars falling apart…

We at DCist are happy the low-carb craze seems to be fading, however slowly. We just love our carb-filled lifestyle too much to give it up, although we credit the scientifically dubious movement with coining the term “carbolicious” and some funny t-shirts. Even suburban D.C. institution The Cheesecake Factory got into the act, and since July has offered a 6 Carb Original Cheesecake The “upscale casual full service” restaurant’s low-carb cheesecake is baked with no…