A hot bucket challenge. Nancy Chang has partnered with Why Me and Sherry’s House in a spicy bucket challenge. Nancy Chang will donate $10 for every $40 bucket it sells. The bucket is 40 skewers of food cooked in a hot pot of spicy broth. Nancy Chang’s is located on Worcester’s Chandler Street and is owned by Ignatius Chang.

New name, old place. Mahoney’s Pub on Park Avenue has been sold, and it will have a new name. The venerable Park Avenue bar will now be known as Brewski’s. The new owner is Stacy Blanchette, who has experience in the restaurant business. The name change should be happening shortly.

A bigger bushel. Bushel N Peck, a small family-owned chain of sandwich shops, has expanded and opened a new Westborough location on Route 30. This will be owner Michael Bartosiewicz’s fifth location. Bushel N Peck has been in business 37 years and was started by Tom Oliveri Sr., who currently owns several restaurants with his sons.

A new take on pizza. Brazilian Sweets and Specialty Pizza opened recently at 153 Stafford St. in Worcester. The owner is Rayanne Sabara, who gained fame as a candy-maker to the stars when her chocolate candies were included in the gift bags at the Oscars. She even features a Brazilian chocolate pizza.

Lots of worms working. We hear that Wormtown Brewery has increased its output more than 10 times since moving to Shrewsbury Street in 2015. This month, the Worcester beer-maker is set to grow even larger when its planned expansion goes online. The hometown favorite is adding a new $300,000 canning line, new bottling and kegging lines and six new tanks and fermenters.

The pieman is drinking. In other Wormtown news, Worcester’s landmark brewery has teamed up with another city institution, Table Talk Pies, to create a Table Talk Pumpkin Pie Ale, which is available at the brewery’s 72 Shrewsbury St. location.

Chicken little. Chick-fil-A opened its first location in Worcester at the end of October. The company announced the opening via the franchise location’s Facebook page. The locally owned eatery opened at 80 Gold Star Blvd. and features a drive-through and about 140 seats inside the restaurant.

I like carbs. Protein House, a Las Vegas-based food chain, will open at 145 Front St. in Worcester. This is in the new downtown apartment complex near Union Station. The 2,200-square-foot restaurant is aimed at the healthy eater.

Sticks and Broth may break my bones, but ramen will never hurt me. A multitude of ramen restaurants are about to open in the Woo. The first is Broth, which opened in the middle of October on Worcester’s Green Street, just a few doors away from Pho, another soup eatery. Broth will be brought to you by the folks behind the Hangover Pub, also on Green Street. Sticks, which will be opening soon, is located on Franklin Street in the Grid District, adjacent to the soon-to-open Beer Garden.

– Paul GIORGIO