PETA's ventriloquism act

More than 230 stories were written today about Burger King’s switch to pork and eggs from animals raised outside of cages, according to one of the news-gathering systems we use. I’ll bet 90 percent of the articles suggested Burger King was the source, which is kind of perplexing. The chain didn’t issue a statement, or at least not one that I could find during the considerable time that I spent looking. Nor did I see a statement quoted in any of the stories. And the last article posted, by Reuters, specifically noted that the franchisor wouldn’t address the matter. So where did everyone get the news? From PETA and the Humane Society of the United States, two animal-rights extremist groups that were pressing BK to promote more humane farming practices.

It’s not surprising that such publicity-savvy crusaders would crow about their victory. What’s dismaying is how they assumed the role of spokes-groups for BK, airing the news as if they were the chain’s public relations department. Indeed, an announcement posted on a service called the Restaurant News Resource is tagged as coming from Burger King. The electronic document carries the chain’s familiar logo, as if the home office had released it. Yet the content is all about PETA, a.k.a. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and it was exactly the statement that the group had directly sent to us this morning. Yet a casual reader would initially think the release had come from BK.

It’s such a blatant encroachment on BK’s turf that I can’t help but wonder if the statement was the result of more than mere audacity on PETA’s part. Was making the announcement part of a deal struck with BK? Did the chain agree to let PETA and the Humane Society do the talking? I have no concrete evidence, but that would explain why PETA and the Society recounted the exact same points of BK’s “decision” (though the language did vary slightly). And why BK was silent on a development that many consumers might see as a positive move by the chain.

If it’s so, and the animal groups indeed become the party framing announcements like today’s head-turner, the industry would be ceding an important safeguard. Instead of hearing the applause it deserves, the trade would have to listen to lot of self-serving chest-thumping from a bunch of roughnecks.

Shots heard 'round the industry

Let it be noted that the restaurant industry made its stand not in the libertarian strongholds of Texas, Idaho or Maine, but in that cradle of social activism, the Bay Area. In case you missed Monday and Tuesday’s news reports, operators there are in open rebellion, having crossed the line between frustration and roaring outrage. Restaurateurs, unite! The revolution has started.

The flashpoint was San Francisco’s paid sick-leave proposal, a measure that will require operators there to provide an hour of sick leave for every 30 hours that an employee works. That equates roughly to paying for an extra hour of scheduled time, without the actual work, per employee per week. And the July 1 mandate will follow a hefty increase in the local minimum wage and staggering new health-insurance costs. The local industry decided enough was enough and that it was time to push back.

As was reported in this space Friday, restaurateurs have decided to fight back with a one-day lock-out of customers, without any warning, and possibly on a day when the city is packed with conventioneers. They want their hometown to get a taste of what life would be like without the economic engine of its restaurants.

Things have only worsened since then. When mayor Gavin Newsom met with locals about the new sick-leave measure, he was shouted down for much of the two-hour confab, The San Francisco Chronicle reported today. Demonstrators showed up in chicken outfits, apparently to make the point that the mayor is afraid to talk substantially about the mandate. “About every 10 minutes or so, [Gaven and his health-department director] were drowned out by shouting from the crowd,” the paper reported. “’Let the people speak!’ they chanted.”

The story continued, “’Nice dialogue and discussion!’ one of them told Newsom. ‘Thanks for letting us talk.’”

But that dust-up was only part of the backlash from the industry. Across the bay, in Oakland, the industry scored what may be its first victory in the fight over trans-fat bans. Oakland County commissioner Marcia Gershenson reportedly withdrew her proposal to ban the artery clogger’s use by restaurants because of lack of support from her legislative peers. They, in turn, cited indications from the county’s 4,400-member restaurant industry that the ban would raise their costs and prices and thereby hurt tourism. The industry’s argument had prevailed, a rare occurrence in the debates raging at all levels of government over trans-fat bans.

A pundit once said that trends start in California and roll east. Might a better metaphor for this week’s developments be a match set to tinder?

A restaurant's own private Idaho

As Congress hunkers down for the donnybrook over immigration reform, a restaurant in Idaho is learning why that discussion may leave the nation wincing. Chapala had been tending to its business when a pack of bigots tossed a shovelful of mud its way, for no other reason than the place’s name and menu are Mexican.

Worst of all, the little brains weren’t Archie Bunkers in hoods and sheets. These were college students, the group that traditionally tests the outer boundaries of tolerance.

Not the Young Republicans from Boise State University, who figured a little immigration humor would be a hoot. The political organization produced and circulated a mock flier to illustrate its position on immigration reform. Among the events touted in the document was a food-stamp drawing, eligible to immigrants who first crawled through a hole in a fence and presented fake identification. The winner, said that slice of hilarity, would get a dinner for two at, of course, a Mexican restaurant.

The group subsequently apologized to Chapala, but the effort is almost as offensive. “It is one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, and we love eating there,” Young Republican Jonathan Sawmiller was widely quoted as telling the Boise eatery. Why didn’t he say, “Why, some of our best friends are Mexican, and we treated our Mexican housekeeper as if she was a member of the family.”

The matter drew the wrath of the Democratic National Committee, which demanded that its Republican counterpart condemn that action by the Boise Young Republicans. As of Thursday, the DNC said, it had yet to receive a response.

But this isn’t a Democrat-versus-Republican matter. Nor is it even a tussle between those who want a liberal new immigration policy and those who prefer a more conservative, less-forgiving approach. In this case, it’s xenophobia versus an open mind, and discussion versus stereotyping and disparagement. The restaurant industry has been a leader of the progressive side in this matter. It’s a shame that one of its own had to feel the harshness of such a reactionary, dim-witted attitude.

Fray by the Bay: Who'll Pay?

San Francisco’s restaurants are squaring off with the city, and the fight is turning decidedly ugly. A story in today’s San Francisco Examiner said the local trade plans to shut for a day to give residents a taste of what their town would be like without its celebrated eateries. It might even spring the lockout as a surprise, Kevin Westlye, head of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, told the newspaper. Participants might choose a day when the city is packed with conventioneers, who’d be caught by surprise, without the fallback of their home kitchens.

The notion grew out of a meeting last week by an estimated 100 restaurateurs, who gathered to consider responses to recent cost increases that have been foisted on local businesses, including a wage hike (to $9.14 an hour) and a mandate to provide paid sick leave.

The possibility of a shutdown drew a slap from a proponent of the sick-leave measure. “They’re having a two-year-old tantrum, embarrassing themselves and San Francisco,” supervisor Tom Ammiano said of the town’s restaurants.

The story also resurrected earlier local press reports that restaurants there are considering the widespread adoption of a service charge, an extra fee that would be automatically tacked onto guests’ checks. After a local business paper suggested the restaurants might act in concert to lessen the chances of a public backlash to a surcharge, industry leaders were quick to refute the assertion, noting that such a thing could run afoul of anti-trust regulations. They apparently feared accusations that the eateries were fixing prices.

In today’s Examiner story, Westlye is cited as saying that restaurants have indeed considered a service charge of 3 to 5 percent. “If all we do is raise prices, the public would just think we’re being greedy restaurateurs,” he’s quoted as saying.

Walk-offs and shutdowns have not worked well for restaurant staffers in the last few decades. A strike by restaurant and hotel employees in New York City in the 1980s was seen as a pivotal moment in industry labor relations, with the trade’s main union almost universally cited as the loser in that confrontation. The outcome was the same in a strike in Las Vegas.

But a strike by restaurant owners? Only in San Francisco. Or at least that’s what we all should hope.

Take this McJob and--well, you know

Rumors that McDonald’s has demanded the stand-down and de-nosing of all clowns except Ronald McDonald appear to be flights of fancy, but not so the reports that it wants the English language adjusted. News stories coming out of the United Kingdom indicate that the fearsome burger chain and sometime linguist is mounting a campaign to purge “McJobs” from the dictionary.

The cause will be regarded by many in the U.S. foodservice business as valorous, if not the sort of gallantry of which schoolchildren will someday sing. Perspective, people! Sure, it’s an admirable effort from the industry’s standpoint, a defense against the sensational sound byte that tars entry-level restaurant jobs as a sure sign off loser-dom. (No word yet on whether Burger King is similarly trying to expunge “whopper flopper” from the vocabulary.)

But you have to acknowledge the audacity and sense of might that would give rise to such a push. Remember, this is the corporate entity that gave the world the Hamburglar and wrote “supersize” into the vernacular. And, when all is said and done, it sells burgers, drinks and fries. Those aren’t the ideal credentials for a party that asserts the right to police the English language.

There’s no doubt that McJobs is a term that denotes the user’s ignorance. It’s just a shame that we need a fast-food chain to lead the charge against the formal recognition of such a derogatory word as a part of the language. And it’s more than a bit scary that the chain is probably going to prevail, with or without the blessing of the tweed-clad real guardians of the mother tongue.

Cut, now finally pasted

Editors. Pffft.

Never mind that I’m one of them. As a lot, we’re way too anal-retentive. More often than is statistically possible, a great line is excised from a story because “it’s not our style,” or “it really isn’t consistent with what you’re saying,” or “there’s absolutely no proof that extraterrestrials exist.”

This installment is my revenge. Here are some of the lines they’ve refused to let me include, or that I’ve yanked myself in a fit of pre-emptive self-editing. If only I could remember the context for each.

“They could make the numbers dance like Chita Rivera.”

“He ate his first meal in an American restaurant on Dec. 8, 1970. His second was on Dec. 9; his third, Dec. 10. Some 3,412 meals (and 3,412 days) later, he’s still visiting the restaurant every day, sitting at the same table, often ordering the same thing.”

“Even Stevie Wonder could have seen it.”

“In trying to eat all five of my recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables, I’ve often counted popcorn and corn chips. But that damned doctor red-carded me.”

“They had shifted most of the functions in-house. But a key one remained out-house.”

“Some are born to cured meats. Mario Batali had it thrust upon him.”

“Sure signs the Apocalypse is upon us: My gym bag came with a 32-page User’s Manual. My grab-and-go breakfast now comes in a bag with handles. IBM no longer sells PCs, and McDonald’s execs have publicly stated that the chain may someday get out of the burger business.”

“You can now get ciabatta at Jack in the Box, espresso at Dunkin’ Donuts, a panini at Mobile gas stations, prime rib at Quiznos, fresh-baked bread at Wendy’s, organic pizza sauce at Shakey’s and even lattes at some McDonald’s outlets. Yet none of those seem as ambitious as Mimi’s offer of fresh asparagus as a seasonal offering. This, after all, is a family chain that once went waffle-to-waffle with Denny’s, Bob Evans and Friendly’s.”

“I was a little frightened by our editorial meeting today. A colleague was talking about molecular gastronomy and signs that the chemistry-in-the-kitchen craze has gone mainstream, a possible sign of ultimately cresting. ‘Of course, there’s still a lot going on with spherification,’ he noted offhandedly. Why not just tell us who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb.”

This just in from the social front

Item 1: At an IHOP in Grandview, Mo., a female patron kissed her partner and lover, one of the three other women in the booth. She later described it as “a kiss I would share with my uncle.” But other guests complained and the manager told the women to leave, explaining that he ran a family restaurant. The matter was spotlighted—sympathetically—in a popular column of The Kansas City Star, the major daily of a notoriously conservative state.

Item 2: A woman breastfeeding her baby inside Johnny’s Barbecue in Cullman, Ala., alleges that an employee threw a dirty towel over the baby’s head to hide the sight. Management said the towels were clean and were merely offered, and employees have alleged that the woman’s breast was in clear view. The outraged patron organized a protest of nursing mothers, but only three showed, according to local media. There was no indication of how many might have been scared away by the customers who filled the lot to demonstrate their support of the restaurant’s actions.

Item 3: Several months ago, an entry in this space noted that former longtime Church’s president Hala Moddelmog had been appointed chief executive of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, a group that fights breast cancer. A reader recently sent a note chastising me for not pointing out that the Foundation also supports abortion through funding of Planned Parenthood, an allegation that I can’t say is true or untrue. But I didn’t allow the comment to be posted because the writer went on to assert that supporting Planned Parenthood is the same as supporting abortion, and that encourages the rape of minors by adult men working in restaurants. It was not the mad raving of a yahoo writing from a cabin in Idaho.

As even the cave-dwelling neighbors of Osama Bin Laden are no doubt aware, we’re in the midst of a presidential election that’s likely to be a doozy. The industry fully expects the yapping by the various candidates to focus attention on issues vehemently opposed by the trade, like health-insurance mandates, wage increases or employee benefits like paid sick leave. But the preening and strutting for votes this time around is likely to touch on social matters that are hotter than Mike Tyson’s temper, from family values to abortion to gay marriage. And as the modern-day town square, restaurants will often be the stages for those heightened passions. Indeed, as these three examples suggest, the foodservice business is already serving as a battleground.

Which brings me to a few key questions, and the real reason for this entry: So what’s your policy on dining-room breastfeeding (if your state has even left that as an option)? How about public displays of affection by same-sex couples? And how are you going to react when employees, customers or neighbors don’t like the charities your operation supports (the Komen Foundation is one of the industry’s most widely championed groups, as my earlier entry noted)? For that matter, how do your frontline employees feel about these issues, and how are you going to handle the clash between their attitudes and yours, or theirs and customers?

I certainly don’t profess to know your business. But it seems to me that having the answers to those and other socially explosive questions now may be a whole lot better than having to come up with something when one of my colleagues in the media is thrusting a microphone in your face, asking for clarification for the local 6 o’clock evening news.

It’s not a task I envy you.

Harsh glare of the spotlight

A Chinese restaurant in Spring Valley, NY, is hoping to reopen for the weekend rush after being shuttered because health officials reportedly found 500 mouse droppings in the place. Which, of course, means that some poor schlub had to invest considerable time in counting rodent turds. We can only hope he or she was an apprentice or intern. “You start with droppings, then move up to taking a temp reading or two, and before you know it you’re going mano-a-mano with salmonella,” they were probably told by inspection greybeards in the department’s break room, which you have to assume is spotless.

I pass this along not only as fodder for choosing your dim sum source this weekend, but also to underscore how the health inspection, once the foodservice industry’s equivalent of a prostate check, is suddenly in the internet spotlight. The news-gathering services we use here at Nation’s Restaurant News have been as plump as Rosie O’Donnell with local stories about restaurant closings and appetite-dashing health-inspection results. No doubt it’s part of the fallout from New York City’s ongoing rat scandal, which no doubt left reporters and inspectors in the hinterlands smashing a fist in into their palms and wishing they could get a chance to test their mettle with a situation like that. So, they’re going out and finding them, which may not be that difficult to do.

The attention to health inspections and their effectiveness may be new to the Information Superhighway, but they’ve been hot topics among restaurant-business leaders for some time, and in far less-flattering terms. Perhaps no party knows better than the industry that the inspection process has been on a slide for sometime, the result of budget cuts, increased inspector workloads, high turnover of department personnel, no standardization, and, perhaps more than anything, poor training for a job that’s grown more difficult. Many health departments have smartly turned to the trade for its most-popular training curriculum, the ServSafe program; some foodservice leaders confess that they’ve investigated ways of giving the program to inspectors or crafting training programs for them, since restaurants actually welcome the scrutiny of an outside party, provided it’s competent.

The International Food Safety Council, a group formed under the auspices of the National Restaurant Association, got a go-ahead from the parent group in May 2005 to seek a standardization of safety standards on the state and local level. Establishing across-the-board safety criteria would spare chains the aggravation of having to customize their training from location to location. But it would have the added benefit of standardizing the training process from area to area, allowing inspectors and their instructors to be recruited across jurisdictions. They wouldn’t have to start in each new post as a droppings-counter because the system there was new to them.

In any case, perhaps all this newfound attention on the inspection process will have a salutary effect. If it’s in the spotlight, perhaps the job of inspector will garner some interest, if not a hint of CSI-like glamour. Perhaps the position should even be renamed. How about rat buster?

Once and future kingpins

Geez, who knew he’d be this sensitive? Toss a few barbs at a billionaire gadfly and he high-tails it into another trade—across the Atlantic, no less. Yet there it was, all over today’s wire services, one story after another about Nelson Peltz buying a 3 percent stake in the United Kingdom’s Cadbury-Schweppes sugared-treats conglomerate. With his attention focused outside the restaurant industry, Peltz, an investor mentioned a time or two in this space, may be ceding his distinction as the most-feared shareholder in foodservice.

But fret not, green-mailing toadies. Left to help your portfolios are plenty of other militants willing to bully restaurant companies into a live-for-the-quarter mindset. It’s not a matter of whether they’d fight for changes that boost stock prices in the short run, with no regard for the long term. All that’s left to be decided is what color shorts they’ll wear into the ring.

The leading contenders for Peltz’s crown include William Ackman, who has re-purchased a sizeable chunk of McDonald’s. And then there’s Richard Breeden. Much of our online news coverage in recent weeks has focused on Applebee’s attempts to appease the hedge-fund manager, who wears a brilliantly white hat because he once served as chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. His demands don’t sound outlandish, either. Franchising is a core strength of Applebee’s, which was carefully, purposely crafted by Abe Gustin to be a model licensor for the industry. Breeden wants it to franchise more and run restaurants less.

He’s also hammered management for indulgences like the use of a corporate aircraft to zip down to Galveston, Texas, some 29 times last year. Applebee’s doesn’t have a restaurant within 40 miles of the place. But former CEO Lloyd Hill does have a beach house. There, too, his demand isn’t unreasonable, though a tad nit-picky, given how often the company jet might have enabled Hill to sandwich business matters between reasonable familial commitments.

No, Breeden doesn’t sound like he’s cut from the same bolt of cloth used to make Peltz’s designer suits.

But then there’s Sardar Biglari, chairman of Western Sizzlin Corp., a collection of regional family steakhouse chains, and a 15-percent stakeholder in the parent of the family-oriented Friendly’s regional chain. Biglari has been very critical of Friendly’s management, which is led by yjr legendary Don Smith, perhaps best known as the man who gave the go-ahead for Pizza Hut’s Personal Pan Pizza when he was leading that brand. He was also a one-time president of Burger King.

Biglari is aghast that Friendly’s stock price has languished. Like Breeden, he wants more franchising from his investment. But, unlike Applebee’s, Friendly’s was founded as a restaurant operator, not a franchisor. Indeed, it came to licensing relatively late in the game.

Biglari is also upset about governance matters, again like Breeden. And, like the former SEC chief, he’s hoping to change things by securing seats on his investment’s board. His mark of distinction is how he’s gone about it. In addition to the now-routine techniques of sending letters to fellow shareholders and publicly criticizing the current board, Bilgari has forged the new activist weapon of going to the company’s employees. Local media reported last week that he had placed ads on billboards around Friendly’s headquarters in the Boston area, asserting that a change in management would be better for the headquarters staff, too.

Brilliant, just brilliant. It must make Peltz feel like Joe DiMaggio did when he saw a kid named Mantle take batting practice.

I’ll miss you, Nelson. But it’s never too late for a comeback.

Chinese checkers

Everyone worries about our relations with Iran and North Korea, but interactions with the People’s Republic of China haven’t been the stuff of love songs lately, either, at least from the perspective of the restaurant industry.

On Sunday, a motion was introduced in the Communist nation’s legislature to evict a 7-year-old Starbucks from the Forbidden City, the jaw-dropping palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties when the Western world was still eating with its hands. Officials don’t think it’s right to have milk being steamed for a paper cup of cappuccino or tourists lining up for Frappucinos in a 600-year-old facility that’s unparalleled in its historic and cultural importance to the Chinese. What’s reverence for a cultural landmark compared with the imperative to peddle lattes and coffees wherever eyes may be bleary from jet lag or currency is waiting to be plucked from wallets?

Okay, maybe the officials have a point. But is it really a coincidence the Chinese government suddenly has a beef with the U.S. restaurant chain that has the largest presence over there? The Chinese media have reported that the nation’s health officials are investigating KFC’s use of talc as a filtering medium for the oil in its fryers. The press reports say the powder is being used in a way that could pose a health hazard, according to interpretations that were widely reported on U.S. internet sites this weekend.

Lost in translation was how the use of magnesium silicate, as it’s scientifically known, had roused concerns about KFC. Many of the domestic stories noted that McDonald’s also uses the compound as a filtering medium, and yet its operating procedures are not being examined.

And KFC issued a statement saying the Yum! Brands-owned operation welcomed the safety check and pledged full cooperation, according to U.S. news reports.

KFC has had a presence in China for decades, with 1,700 of its outlets now operating there. All of a sudden the government has a problem with the chicken chain, just because of concerns that an operational practice could potentially pose a health hazard?

Um, okay, maybe the officials have a point there, too.

Considered together, the situations are proof that the land-rush stage of international development is certifiably over for U.S. chains, and local control is going to be exerted far more forcefully for cultural considerations. The occasionally ugly American brand may have to get much prettier to keep international relations harmonious.

Setting back international relations

If you had any doubts, it’s now official: New York is the center of the universe. The European Union, the confederacy of all those nations whose cheese exports we had to learn in grade school, has turned to the city for advice on banning smoking and trans fats. It’s just a matter of time until the French are asking Gotham-ites for a good bread recipe.

This is a matter of button-popping pride for those of us who wonder what really does play in Peoria—or, to be truly New Yorker-ly about it, who ponder why anyone would care. But the smugness is tempered by concerns about the representative we dispatched to meet with the EU’s health commissioner, Markos Kyprianou. The Big Apple's counterpart, Thomas Frieden, has lately been running neck-and-neck with Lord Voldemort and shower mold in his estimation among local and national restaurateurs--and not a few rank-and-file New Yorkers. Yet he was tapped for a turn as diplomat. We can only hope they didn’t ask him about rat control.

Truth be told, a few of his other efforts haven’t been going so well, either. As we reported on www.nrn.com, one of the most celebrated initiatives from Frieden’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene backfired miserably last week. He should consider himself lucky that more restaurant chains didn’t realize what had struck White Castle and Wendy’s, though the latter stopped just a tad short of getting all the way through the loophole. Otherwise, Frieden would have had a full-scale scandal on his hands.

What those two chains figured out was a way to beat Frieden’s pendate requirement that restaurant chains disclose the calorie counts next to each choice on a menu or menu board. The new regulation, a rider on the health department’s edict to limit trans fat as of next July 1, mandates that the info be posted roughly as large as the prices, so customers can more readily handle their own waist management. The obligation is binding on any multi-unit operation that had the caloric information available in other forms, like in a brochure or on a website, as of March 1.

Late in February, Wendy’s and White Castle had an idea. (Curiously, both are headquartered in the Columbus, Ohio, area, which I believe is somewhere near Peoria.) Why not stop making that information available and beat the system?

So they quietly yanked the calorie information off the posters they erected in their New York restaurants some time ago to do voluntarily what the minions of Voldemort—er, Frieden—had set out to do by fiat. Asked by Nation’s Restaurant News deputy managing editor Paul Frumkin if the evasive action would succeed, the department gave a definite no. Those chains still offer the calorie information via their websites and the placards in stores elsewhere, don’t they? Well, then, the department said, they’ve met our criteria of having the information available. No one specified it had to be available in New York.

It looked like a noteworthy but somewhat foolhardy gambit on the part of Wendy’s and White Castle, since now they had to contend with a backlash of negative publicity along with the posting obligations. But then White Castle informed Frumkin that it had indeed retracted the information every where it had appeared, including from its website and stores outside of the city. Another call to the health department yielded an indication that White Castle may have successfully dodged the mandate, though NRN was the only publication to note the success of the maneuver.

Just to recap: White Castle had been providing the information Frieden’s posse had wanted customers to see. It just wasn't on the menu boards of units in New York. Now, because White Castle felt the menu-posting mandate would be too costly and cumbersome to meet, calorie information won’t be available at all to customers.

And this is the man to whom all of Europe is turning for advice on how to regulate its restaurants.

Maybe we could eventually give them Peoria, as a peace offering.

Bernie Williams, restaurateur?

When spring training opened for the Yankees, hardcore fans almost sprained a tonsil in rooting for Bernie Williams to be put on the roster for a 26th year. Only the truly fanatical fans held back, knowing his retirement could mean having dinner with the legendary pin-striper—in his very own place, no less.

Williams has yet to utter a word publicly, but industry insiders say the Bomber and his wife plan to open a restaurant if Bernie decides the 2006 baseball season was his last as a player (he was offered a minor-league contract by the Yanks but declined, maintaining his class to the end.) Waleska, known as Wally, would be the back-of-the-house talent, using the culinary skills she fire-hardened during her recent schooling at the Culinary Institute of America. The Williams live in nearby Armonk, N.Y., so Bernie would often visit the campus, located about 90 minutes north of the stadium where he whacked a horsehide for a living. Faculty members describe him as a warm, down-to-earth guy who just happened to bat .297 lifetime for the greatest sports franchise in history. In short: A perfect front-of-the-house partner, who could roam the dining room as gracefully as he once prowled center field.

Unclear is where the two might open a place. New York City, where Bernie could follow the lead of such sluggers-turned-restaurateurs as Mickey Mantle? Or how about the upscale communities near their home in Upstate New York? Or what about Williams’ native Puerto Rico?

That’s assuming, of course, that Joe Torre doesn’t pick up his phone one day in Florida and summon Williams to the squad one more time. If so, the Yankees might get a repeat of Bernie’s outstanding 2006 season, when he compensated admirably for the loss to injuries of several younger and more celebrated Yankee stars.

It’d be great for Bernie, the Yankees and the game. But the industry would have to wait a long, long year for such a notable addition to its ranks.

This just in from overseas

Reality-show producers are missing an opportunity for a big ratings win. Instead of locking strangers in a house, finding dates for Flavah Flav or airlifting a disparate pack of people onto a remote island to see who survives, the programmers could provide a winning blend of the strange and the compelling by merely scouting the news wires on a Sunday night for restaurant-industry developments. The American market is too preoccupied with surviving its busiest time of the week to generate the sort of head-turning news that makes you wonder where the business is heading. But the news coming to light in Asia or Europe is another matter. Consider, for instance, the revelation this Sunday night of an addition to the menu boards of McDonald’s units in Thailand: the McNuggets Seaweed Shake Shake.

The big burger chains are scrambling to develop products for the U.S. market that will truly set them apart from the herd. This one would certainly do that for McDonald’s, the way a salt grass malted achieve the same end for Burger King or Wendy’s. The Shake Shake—and no, that’s not a typo—reportedly consists of the same chicken meat that McDonald’s uses for its McNuggets, though mixed with a secret flavoring agent. The chicken bites are coated and fried until crisp, then shake-shaked with what press reports said is a “seaweed seasoning.” Millions of Americans gobble nori each day in the form of maki rolls. But a seaweed-flavored McNugget may not in the picture for the domestic market, even with a really buffo ad campaign.

Less of a jump, though, is what the Thai media describes as a new concept for the Oakbrook, Ill.-based burger behemoth, called the McDonald’s Esplanade. Like the new-generation McDonald’s outlets already sprouting in the United States, the Esplanade features different zones to match the different sorts of clientele that might frequent the unit. The U.S. prototype, for instance, features an area specifically for families. Ditto, apparently, does the new Esplanade. Starbucks expatriates might be drawn to a hanging-out area with overstuffed chairs, while patrons in a hurry will find a different set-up to accommodate their time constraints.

But the Esplanade goes further than the new design being used here in the States in what it offers as services and entertainment. Thai press reports say the prototype allows patrons to reserve movie tickets for a show that evening, or even to load up some tunes at a “music station,” a feature that a few U.S. outlets tried but subsequently scrapped because of insufficient downloading.

Thai press reports stress that the format is only about a week old, but that McDonald’s officials there are already heralding it as a new direction for the brand.

And, indeed, it has passed the major test of importance, or at least a big one by U.S. standards: A competitor is already copying the approach. New reports out of London say Pizza Hut’s British operation has retrofitted a restaurant with the chain’s new look for units across the pond. A signature of the updated design: Zones, where different sorts of diners will find different accommodations.

The stories say that 80 of the 435 sit-down Pizza Huts in the United Kingdom will be outfitted with the new look this year, with the remainder to be given the facelift by 2009.

No word on any Pizza Huts trying a Seaweed Shake Shake Pizza, though.

Quick, sacrifice a Day Planner

The calendar gods have not been kind to Yum! Brands these last few months. The December morning after the world learned of an E. coli outbreak within the company’s Taco Bell chain, executives had to meet with financial analysts at Yum!’s annual investment conference, having set the date months earlier. Then, last Friday, even primitive tribes in the Rain Forest were watching YouTube replays of rats dancing the big production numbers from “West Side Story” inside a Taco Bell-KFC combo unit in New York City. Two business days later, Yum! officials were once speaking into a microphone before a roomful of investors and portfolio managers, this time at the Bear Stearns investment conference. It was held in New York, about two miles from the affected store.

And, just to keep life interesting for the Yum! team, their appearance came as the stock market was starting its steepest slide since 9/11.

It’s all of course just an unfortunate coincidence. But on the day of Yum!’s next analyst conference or earnings call, I may dine with one of its competitors.

A stray tidbit of gossip from the Bear Stearns conference, which concludes Thursday: Among those in attendance was Dan Snyder, whose private-equity fund is in the process of buying the Johnny Rockets retro-diner chain. Snyder also owns the Washington Redskins, theoretically a football team. It was unclear if he was scouting for the Redskins, trying to learn the restaurant business, or hunting for other acquisition candidates.

Wake up--you can't smell the coffee

A decade ago, when airports, colleges and other facilities were junking their no-name feeding operations for satellites of the big streetside chains, Starbucks was notoriously picky about whose calls it’d return. All the institutions wanted the hot (and then seemingly shiny-new) brand. Yet Starbucks wouldn’t consider a location if it required one stirrer to be out of its usual place. Plenty of would-be partners shook their heads in disbelief that the upstart would walk away from captive A++ sites for the sake of absolute concept integrity. But more than a few confided their admiration for a fast-growth company that would preserve its character with that sort of zeal.

Those days come to mind as the blogosphere dissects the memo that was intercepted last week from Starbucks conscience Howard Schultz to current chief executive Jim Donald. According to the version posted at http://www.starbucksgossip.com, Schultz doesn’t like the smell of today’s Starbucks—or, more precisely, the lack thereof.

In measured prose that suggests a passion running toward anguish, Schultz argues that Starbucks is sacrificing too much of its personality for the sake of growth, right down to the coffee aroma that once served as a halo. As the chain expanded further and further from its Seattle roots, its coffee had to be carefully preserved in transit, and that meant “flavor locked packaging,” Schultz writes, apparently referring to sealed transport containers. The freshness of the ground coffee was maintained, “but at what cost?” His answer: “The loss of aroma—perhaps the most powerful non-verbal signal we had in our stores.”

With fresh, bagged coffee now being shipped into stores, the concept no longer needs “our people scooping fresh coffee from the bins and grinding it fresh in front of the customer,” costing the brand “tradition and our heritage,” he asserts.

Similarly, he tells Donald, the stores have lost their “soul” and become “cookie cutter” and “sterile,” the results of efforts by the company to boost returns with more efficient, templated designs.

Schultz even laments the height of the automated espresso makers that Starbucks now uses. He doesn’t revisit the internal debate that raged over the switch to those machines, which led the chain away from its early insistence that a barista make each espresso base for a drink. The new equipment serves up drinks more quickly, but with the loss of the showmanship and sent of craft that set Starbucks apart.

Instead of reopening that discussion, Schultz notes that more “romance and theatre” was lost to the machines because of their height. Customers can no longer easily watch their drinks being made, which tempers “the intimate relationship with the barista.”

“Many of these decisions were probably right at the time, and on their own merit would not have created the dilution of the experience,” Schultz says. “But in this case, the sum is much greater and, unfortunately, much more damaging than the individual pieces.”

As a result, he asserts, the chain is losing “trial and loyalty” to “fast food operators and mom and pops.

“This must be eradicated,” he declares.

At this stage of the game, Schultz has enough money to make Bill Gates hesitate if both were reaching for the lunch check. The fact that he’s still trying to preserve the uniqueness of his brand seems to have less to do with money than with the pride that drove industry elders like Dave Thomas, Ray Kroc and J.W. Marriott. Wealth? Great. That kind of passion? Beyond dollars and cents.

The memo is extraordinary, for a lot of reasons. It provides a glimpse at the inner workings of a brand with an image strong enough to cast shadows. But, perhaps more important, it captures why Starbucks was so different, and why Schultz was successful—the emphasis on personality and distinction, instead of returns, returns, returns and returns. It’s a powerful lesson for the steward of any chain whose shareholders are constantly pointing out that a quarter has only 13 weeks to it.

Rat tales

Editor’s note: The Scoop regrets to inform readers that the interviewee originally slated for this installment, President George W. Bush, has been re-scheduled so we can bring you this exclusive conversation with the big newsmaker of the day. Here, without further ado, is our interview with the leader of the Taco Bell rats.

The Scoop: Thanks for making time for us on this monumental day for you and your team of rats—for all rodents everywhere, come to think of it.

Rat: Glad my agent could work you in. But I’m doing Conan’s show tonight, so we should get to it.

The Scoop: Were you surprised by how much publicity you drew by running around that Taco Bell-KFC combo unit in New York City last night, in plain view of passers-by and TV cameras?

Rat: It might seem like a case of overnight success and fame, Scoopy, but it’s really been a long, hard slog to get the public’s attention. We’d spent hours on our acrobatics and dance routines, though the mime was a mistake. Three hours of Rodent In a Glass Booth is too much. We were at it for more than two months, and we did get noticed, as the restaurant’s latest health inspection clearly shows. The report was dated Dec. 11, and it plainly states that we were in the restaurant. But if that buttinsky walking by hadn’t summoned the local TV-network affiliate to come down and film us scampering around like kittens, right there behind the plate-glass window, we might still be re-enacting scenes from “Willard.” Instead, there we were on this morning’s “Today” show, being intro’d by Matt.

Scoop: So what was it like to live in a Taco Bell-KFC combo?

Rat: Paradise, man. Really paradise. Chicken three days a week, chalupas and tacos the other four. Heck, with KFC’s newest item, I can even have fish on Friday during Lent, so I can stay okay with the Big Guy upstairs. And the restaurant was in Greenwich Village, el primo real estate and the coolest place to live in the city. One night Drew Barrymore stopped and peered in. I swear she licked her lips.

Scoop: Any idea why the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene continued to let the restaurant stay in operation even after it had found evidence that you’d set up a colony inside?

Rat: How can you expect them to deal with things like a rat infestation when they’re trying to safeguard the public with a trans-fat ban, or the requirement that restaurants like Taco Bell and KFC post calorie counts on their menu boards? They have some heavy public-safety matters on their minds, man. Though someone should rethink that “Mental Hygiene” part of their name.

Scoop: So, now that the restaurant has been shut down until it’s sanitized and certified as safe, what’ll you be doing? Any more TV appearances? Or will this matter die down?

Rat: Well, we’ll be on YouTube.com and the other video websites forever [laughs]. So no one is going to forget our appearance any time soon. Years from now, people will still be talking about the Taco Bell rats, even though we had a one-unit run. And other video opportunities will come up. You know how TV news works: If one station has something that gets attention, all the others will chase anything remotely similar for months. So you'll see Al Roker seguing to us again. Which is a shame, because I don’t want to get pigeon-holed as an on-camera performer. What I’d really like to do is direct.

A dusting of news

News sometimes arrives like an avalanche, at other times like snowflakes. This has definitely been a day of flurries, with a few intriguing developments that might have gone unnoticed without this accumulation:

Warren Buffett certainly supports the leveraged buyout of Outback Steakhouse parent OSI Restaurant Partners. He’s already tendered his 1.8 million shares, according to Lon Juricic, who spends far too much time spelunking SEC documents for StreetInsider.com.

Kentucky is considering legislation that would ban machines that allow consumers to inhale alcohol instead of imbibing it. I kid you not. The devices are called AWOL machines, for alcohol without liquid, and they’ve been around for several years now. Users press a mask to their faces and take a hit of hooch, absorbing it through their lungs. Supposedly you get a buzz without any of the taste issues that can turn off neophyte drinkers. Hence AWOL’s popularity among young people. Some of Kentucky’s leaders are determined to shut off that option for the state’s youth. Being the cornerstone of bourbon country had nothing to do with the ban proposal, I’m sure.

A New York City councilman plans to push through a local resolution that would press the federal government to mandate caffeine-disclosure labels for foods and beverages. We New Yorkers may have an exalted perception of our city’s importance, but few of us would have the audacity—some might choose a baser term—to think our elected officials could order the national government what to do. Councilman Simcha Felder says he’s aware the city lacks the authority to order Uncle Sam around, but said he wanted New York’s preference to be entered into the record. What more is necessary, huh? Now let’s see how the Yankees are doing in spring training. Of course, as ridiculous as this situation may seem, it’s a glimmer of a nightmare greatly feared by the restaurant industry. Some of the trade’s Paul Reveres have been warning for years that caffeine would be the next target of the health-thumping nannies. This is another sign that they could be right.

Famed chef Alain Ducasse is rumored to be opening a restaurant in Chicago. Joel Robuchon, another of Europe’s culinary super-heroes, has already confirmed that he’ll be adding a Chicago outpost to his cross-Atlantic operations. If this keeps up, New York won’t be able to tell Dayton what to do, much less Washington, D.C.

It gets worse: The industry’s most brazen act of civil disobedience in recent memory was logged last week by hotdog impresario (and a veritable X-Man to The Scoop) Doug Sohn, proprietor of the legendary Hot Doug’s tubed-meat emporium in—you guessed it—Chicago. Sohn became the first restaurateur to be caught violating the city’s foie gras ban. Not that the authorities could ignore it any longer. He was touting the offending special—Foie Gras and Sauternes Duck Sausage with Truffle Sauce Moutarde and Armagnac-Truffle Chicken Mousse—on his website. And he’d been warned before to yank the liver-adorned dog. He’d even framed the letter of warning from authorities and hung it by his cash register. Is this a man or what? And who’d have thought the first chef to get nabbed in the foie gras crackdown would take the hit with a $6.50 hotdog?

Maybe this Chicago deserves a second look.

Blast turns ad into a hit with legs

Indulge me one more look at the overreaction by the National Restaurant Association to the Super Bowl ad that depicted Kevin Federline as a fast-food worker who dreams of a rap star’s life, because the matter's not closed yet. The NRA’s initial harrumphing, explored here and from countless other online and newspaper soapboxes, was initially tagged as simple hypersensitivity. Now comes evidence that it was much more of a shoot-yourself-in-the-foot event, and a stellar one at that.

If you missed the spot, chances of catching a re-run are extremely high. The advertiser, Nationwide Insurance, has decided to keep airing the ad for about another year. That’s a routine lifespan for one of company’s ads, a Nationwide official told Columbus Business First, a publication serving the Ohio city. But, acknowledged VP of advertising and brand management Steve Schreibman, this spot was something special. Because of the controversy that the NRA ignited, Internet downloads of the commercial delivered another $22 million-worth of advertising for Nationwide. The article noted that some 1.2 million impressions were seen just at YouTube.com, and that’s merely one of the video sites hosting the ad.

By publicly blasting Nationwide for depicting a fast-food job as the farthest possible thing from being a music star, the NRA ensured that the portrayal it found offensive would be shown to several million more people. It’s a backfire of monumental proportions.

Keep in mind that the NRA initially warned Nationwide to yank the commercial or risk a blow to its business. The association noted that it would tell restaurateurs about the insurer’s disregard for the industry’s image, and it suggested that many of those foodservice operations were likely to be Nationwide customers.

Instead of slapping Nationwide’s wrist, the NRA landed it an estimated $22 million in free advertising.

The saving grace for the association: Sensitive indeed would be the watcher who picked up a negative impression of a foodservice job from the ad. The joke was on Federline, not the industry, with the spot suggesting he’d fallen far from his days as K-Fed the aspiring rap star, and husband of Britney Spears. Nothing negative about the job was suggested, except that it doesn’t land you in furs, bling and the arms of arms of accommodating babes.

If that’s the worst that can be said about foodservice jobs, the NRA may want to pay for a few Nationwide spots itself.

Reaching guys when they least expect it

A person has to set some rules. Me? If I’m admonished by the urinal drain during a moment of repose in the men’s room, I know it’s time to skip the next drink and find a ride home from the restaurant. Amazingly, I’m apparently not alone in that conviction. Even more astounding is New Mexico’s plan to wield that code as a curb on car accidents. According to news reports, the state has just outfitted alcohol-selling establishments in several areas with 500 talking urinal cakes, those sanitizing disks that make you feel there’s a touch of the hospital in even the nastiest men’s room. They’ve been placed in the men’s rooms of restaurants and bars in hopes of reaching the patron who’s impaired enough to have trouble with his aim but is still planning to get behind the wheel of a car.

The devices are motion- rather than touch-activitated, negating the need for accuracy. The stroke of brilliance is loading the cakes with the purring voice of a woman, who actually refers to you as “big guy.” Put a big check on the safety punch-list next to “Step 1: Get impaired patron’s attention.”

Then the voice admonishes Lover Boy to “call a cab or ask a sober friend for a ride home,” according to an Associated Press story. First the flirt, then the hurt—she’s only playing with you, to get you to do the right thing. The voice may be simulated, but the situation is real life.

The AP story says that the talking cakes cost $21 each and have already been used in a number of other states, both as a way of curbing impaired driving and as an advertising medium.

Reports of a toilet sanitizer that yells at a user to put the seat down appear to be purely urban myth

What was he thinking?

Lapses in judgment can fall within a wide spectrum. There’s your simple gaff (forgetting a date’s name, say), the cardinal error (defending yourself by remarking that you never remember a woman’s name) and the certifiably blockheaded (trying to break the tension with a few jokes that Howard Stern wouldn’t touch).

And then there’s the blunder that belongs in a whole other league, if not a different dimension. Like deciding to hold a fund-raiser for a high-profile attempted-murder suspect who drove cross-country in a diaper to attack a potential rival for a co-worker’s attentions, earning herself near-universal designation as a lunatic. The people to whom she’s close, you decide, are going to be your beneficiaries. Even worse, you go ahead with the event even after the planning triggers a nationwide uproar of indignation.

Some might admire Silvestro’s restaurant in Cocoa Beach, Fla., for ignoring public opinion and doing what it thinks is right. But most of us just marvel and wonder, why? Why do you hold a charity dinner for former space-shuttle crewmember Lisa Marie Nowak after she’s accused of plotting a brutal murder out of jealousy, in an alleged fashion that leads the tabloids to christen her the astro-nut?

Proprietor Tony Bless said he wanted to stand by Nowak during her time of need, and noted how she’d been kind to his staff while eating in his place after her shuttle mission had returned to Earth. So he hosted 70 patrons on Sunday night to raise funds for Nowak’s family, negative publicity be damned. He didn’t say how much the event generated (Bless didn’t respond to calls or e-mails from Nation’s Restaurant News), but pre-dinner projections estimated the proceeds at $3,000.

Couldn’t he have just sent the family a nice fruit basket, or maybe a gift certificate?

Granted, he’s helping the woman’s family, and God knows they’re likely to need assistance and moral support after Nowak bumped Anna Nicole Smith’s death off the front page. But did he have to let word out, or even cooperate with the media in spreading it?

The intention might have been noble. But the judgement—well, did you hear the one about a shepherd, three Vegas dancers and Hugh Grant?

Death, taxes, now healthcare charges

With almost two years until the presidential election, the race is way too distant to handicap. But few political bookies would bet even now against an upsurge in restaurant labor costs after we round the bend into 2009. Regardless of who wins the Oval Office, the industry will likely foot a considerable bill for extending health-insurance coverage to more Americans. Or at least it seems unavoidable given the current field of candidates.

John Edwards, an aspirant for the Democratic nomination, unveiled a plan last week that would hit employers with a 6-percent payroll surcharge if they don’t offer coverage to employees. The contender he has to beat, Hillary Clinton, is the queen of healthcare mandates, and has championed similar pay-or-play provisions in the past. Barack Obama, the other big brand in the Democratic contest thus far, says he wants coverage to be universally available by 2013, but hasn’t detailed how the cost will be covered.

Don’t expect the Republicans to give restaurateurs and other employers a pass. Mitt Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, will likely tout the universal insurance plan he pushed onto the books of that state. It mandates citizens to get insurance, rather than obliging businesses to provide it. But to subsidize the cost for Joe or Joan Public, employers have to pay a per-head fee of $295 for every employee they don’t insure.

Then there’s Ah-nold’s model for California. Schwarzenegger isn’t expected to run for his party’s ticket, but plenty of admiration has been voiced for his plan, which calls for a 4-percent payroll surcharge for most restaurants.

Newt Gingrich, once the Doberman guarding businesses against staggering health-insurance mandates, is sounding far more like a Pekinese these days in his discussions of healthcare reform. He’s even appeared on stage with Clinton, literally, to promote healthcare measures they both champion. Once, the two presumably couldn’t agree on how to spell “healthcare.” Not coincidentally, pundits say Gingrich is evaluating the possibility of seeking the Republican presidential nomination. The former Speaker of the House has not renounced his dislike of employer mandates as a means to universal insurance coverage. But he’s sounding a lot more middle-ground-minded these days.

Sure, several of the more formidable presidential aspirants, including John McCain, have yet to bay for the sort of sweeping healthcare reform that would necessitate a significant contribution from employers. But the political climate coloring the presidential race, even at this extremely early stage, suggests the industry may have to pay a significant cost to help protect the 47 million Americans whom experts say do not have health insurance. The question is, how much.

Grin and bear it

Let the record show that the National Restaurant Association has no beef with Kevin Federline. We can only presume it’s also hunky-dory with Angelina Jolie, Clay Aiken and Madonna. But don’t be surprised if it takes to the mattresses soon in its ongoing feud with Nationwide Insurance.

As was reported here earlier, the association sent a letter to Nationwide before the Super Bowl, objecting to an ad the insurance conglomerate would be airing during the game. It blasted the company for running an ad that portrayed Federline in a fast-food job, a suggestion that he’s hit rock-bottom since getting the heave-ho from significant-other Britney Spears. The NRA said it’d heard the commercials were a real slam on working in restaurants, and demanded that Nationwide pull the spot. If not, it said, members would be told about Nationwide’s intransigence, and many of those restaurants are no doubt customers. As even Federline must have realized, it was a barely bridled threat.

Nationwide went ahead and aired the ad, which was milder than elevator music in a convent. It poked a little fun at Federline, noting how he daydreams about being a rap star when he’s actually scooping orders of fries. But many commentators thought the NRA had over-reacted, seeing malice where most found only humor, and I unhesitatingly include myself in that group.

Regrettably, the NRA couldn’t stop there. On Wednesday, it sent another letter to Nationwide CEO Jerry Jurgensen, expressing “deep disappointment” with the company’s decision to run the ad despite the group’s no-show request. At least Federline had apologized, the NRA noted.

The association acknowledged that the spot was probably not intended to be provocative, and it didn’t press the earlier warning that Nationwide’s foodservice customers would be told of the perceived slap at the trade. But then it folded to hypersensitivity and political correctness: “Using humor that offends others is not the right approach to take,” scolded NRA CEO Steve Anderson, who’ll be leaving the job on Feb. 23. “Implying that a certain job represents failure is simply not acceptable.”

He also challenged Nationwide to run a follow-up commercial that “more accurately portrays our industry and its workforce.”

So what would the spot show? That working a fry station is such a great job that the holder would never dream of being a rap star in the company of beautiful women? That he’d rather be wearing a quick-service uniform than sporting bling and the threads of a millionaire?

I greatly respect and appreciate the NRA, but I think it’s playing this situation wrong. It should just leave it be and move on, to real slights of the trade.

Read in triplicate

The IRS should cut the coyness and outfit its agents with hockey masks, chainsaws and meat hooks. Like the hacker movie villains who make their homes in vacant summer camps and creaky abandoned mansions, the collectors are determined to get you. And right now you can practically hear the music well up and a few bodies drop out of closets, because they have a new scare in the works for restaurateurs.

As The New York Times reported this morning, the tax agency, the Treasury Department and the now-Democratic Congress are intensifying efforts to collect on the estimated $109 billion that restaurants and other sole-proprietor businesses tend to under-report every year on their annual income-tax filings. Treasury has proposed that the IRS collect what the government is due by comparing the enterprises’ credit-card sales receipts with what’s reported on their tax returns. If your restaurants’ stated revenues are less than what’s been charged, or the reported sales seem low given how much was put on credit cards, you’ll soon be sitting across the desk from some guy with a mechanical pencil and an IRS Agents Do It By a Schedule poster on the wall above his leather-bound tax texts.

As the article noted, the Bush Administration proposed a nearly identical measure last year, but it died from lack of interest. But now the Democrats control Capitol Hill, and they need cash because of self-assumed new zero-net approach. If you want to launch a new program or extend the services of an existing one, you have to take the funds from somewhere else or generate the dollars through spending cuts. Each provision is pay-as-you-go—no increase in spending without an increase in tax revenues or spending cuts. And new taxes are right out in this political environment.

Capturing what proponents estimate as $100 million in uncollected taxes would pay for plenty of play in the new Congress. But it’s not as if those dollars are zero-sum from restaurateurs’ standpoint. They’re not paying the money now, and if the IRS hits them with a bill, for all extents and purposes it’s a new tax. And a potentially staggering one, even without the added costs of lawyers and accountants.

Makes a Halloween Night trip down to Camp Cut-‘em-up seem almost inviting.

15 minutes of infamy

It’s only right that we observe a moment of silence for all the chickens who gave their lives so Super Bowl fans would never see the bottom of a wings platter during this year’s game. And while you’re decompressing from what’s become a blockbuster event for restaurants, or at least the ones that offer takeout, delivery or catering, let me bring you up to date on the industry news of the day. The rest of the nation may be watching developments in Iraq. But our trade, strangely, is more hung up on wash-outs lunging for their second 15 minutes of glory. Which, of course, brings us to K-Fed.

For the un-cool among you, that’s shorthand for Kevin Federline, estranged husband of Britney Spears and current bane of the industry’s anti-defamation forces. He was impugned by association for starring in a Super Bowl commercial for the Nationwide Mutual Insurance, a part of the company’s “Life Comes at You Fast” campaign. The spots subtly promote the value of insurance by humorously noting how a person’s financial situation can be up-ended in a flash. The K-Fed execution shows the aspiring rap artist enjoying his wealth, fame and ability to dress like a pimp. Then it cuts to a fast-food manager yelling at him to snap out of his daydream and focus on boxing up an order of fries. Supposedly he’s gone from riches and stardom to working the fry station at some big chain, a tongue-in-cheek reference to how his real-life fortunes have changed since getting the boot from Britney.

The suggestion that a fast-food job is the other polar opposite of a dream career prompted the National Restaurant Association to send a letter to Nationwide’s CEO last week, besieging him not to run the spot. The communication suggested that the insurance conglomerate was seriously besmirching the trade. Even though the NRA acknowledged that it hadn’t seen the commercial, it gave Nationwide a pointed or-else: Yank the spot, or the association would let restaurants know how the insurer—in many cases, their insurer—had dissed the trade.

I wish the industry hadn’t done it. The letter generated a tremendous amount of local coverage and considerable discussion in the blogosphere. Much of it wasn’t favorable to the business. It made the restaurant trade, truly a collection of small businesses, seem like Big Business with a toothache—too cranky and highfalutin to bear even the mildest of jokes. And if you’ve seen the spot, you’ll know that it really didn’t slag restaurant jobs. It was a put-down purely of Federline.

He acknowledge as much in the apology he issued shortly before the commercial aired. He called it “a Saturday Night Live skit on myself,” and, in character, joked that maybe it would land him some big-time movie roles.

At least some industry chains got the joke. Taco Bell rode the wave of publicity by writing Federline to offer him a job. It cited a comment he’d made last year about wanting his pre-school-aged kids to learn the importance of working by someday taking jobs at Taco Bell.

“We're flattered,” Taco Bell wrote, “but obviously they're too young to work for us. So here's our offer to you: Come work for us, just for a one hour shift. We'll get you a uniform, a custom name tag and show you what a great place Taco Bell is to work.”

It was a take-off on a take-off. And it used humor to make a point. It’s a shame well-intentioned but louder industry voices hadn’t come up with that response first.

Let's hear it for carrots

This has been an exceptional week for carrots. First, lawmakers in Virginia decided to curb restaurant patrons’ exposure to cigarette smoke by leading consumers to places that voluntarily ban it, instead of ordering all establishments to snuff out the butts. A bill approved yesterday in one chamber of the state’s legislature would require places that permit smoking to post a sign forewarning customers of the proprietor’s choice. Proponents believe the measure will clear the air of more restaurants by giving them a business incentive to prohibit smoking.

Now comes word that Los Angeles County is trying to purge trans fats from the kitchens of its restaurants by offering a marketing incentive to places that voluntarily yank the heart clogger from their recipes. Under an agreement brokered by the local restaurant association, places that eliminate trans fats will be given a decal they can post in their windows, certifying that the establishment is heart-friendly. The signs presumably will shape consumer behavior, which in turn will lead more restaurants to rid their places of the partially hydrogenated oils.

By making a certain “go” more attractive, both areas may be able to avoid the flat-out “no” of bans.

You'll pay one way or another

Restaurants’ traditional sick-leave policy can be summed up in four words: No work, no pay. That hard-nosed stance may be scorned by employees and faulted by the public, but the trade insists it’s necessary to avert red ink. How can a restaurant afford to pay an hourly staffer who’s out sick and the person who’s filling in for him or her? What’ll that do to margins that are already thinner than a crepe?

The industry is about to find out, beginning in San Francisco next week. The city is the first place in the country to mandate paid sick leave from restaurants and other employers, but it certainly won’t be the last. If public disdain for the industry’s current sick-leave standard doesn’t force the change, well-founded concerns about the health risks certainly will.

By all accounts, residents of San Francisco didn’t vote in a referendum to mandate paid sick leave in their city because of concerns that an ailing restaurant employee might pass along the infection to them. Rather, all the observers say the requirement was approved by 61 percent of voters out of a sense of fairness. How can you expect restaurant workers to get by if the flu or some other ailment waylays them for a week? It just didn’t seem right, at least if you viewed the situation from the employee’s standpoint.

So, starting Feb. 5, restaurant staffers will accrue one hour of paid sick-leave time for every 30 hours they work. Assuming that a server puts in five hours a day, six days a week, that waiter or waitress would be entitled to one paid sick day every five weeks, or 10 per year. In one of the regulations few qualifications, businesses that employ fewer than 10 people are protected by a cap of 40 hours of paid leave per year. For all others, the maximum benefit is 72 hours.

And it applies across the board, to part-time employees as well as full-timers. Opponents not that even a babysitter or the kid who cuts someone’s lawn would be entitled to the benefit.

That considerable burden to small businesses might serve as a yellow light to other areas. But the bright green signal is the health risk of a non-paid sickness policy. If people have to forego their income if they don’t work, they’re strongly motivated to clock in even if they’re running to the bathroom every few minutes. They’ll just have to hope their fellow kitchen workers will cover for them during those frequent breaks from their food-handling duties.

With the current prevalence of hepatitis A and norovirus, that situation could pose a profound community health hazard. Three employees of an Olive Garden in an Indianapolis suburb reportedly came to work while stricken with the latter ailment, more commonly known as the cruise-ship virus. About 370 customers were said to have taken ill afterward. No wonder local health officials indicated that they were speaking with representatives of the restaurant about its sick-leave policies.

The big question is, how can a restaurant extend paid sick leave to its employees without making its investors more than a little nauseous? This is one were the pressure on the industry may be reasonable, but so are the objections about the cost.

At the very least, it should take action instead of waiting until it’s ordered what to do, as it was in San Francisco. The trade was caught entirely unaware, and I’d bet to this day that most operators are oblivious to what’s about to happen out there.

The trade should push hard now to prevent the Bay City’s set-up from being adopted as a model by other municipalities, counties and possibly even states. The benefit that was mandated there is out of whack with any business sense.

It also needs to develop an alternative standard that addresses the public-health implications of the no work/no pay approach. Short of solution from Hogwarts, any change is going to cost the trade. But it may be better to find a way of assuming a small burden now, lest it be really saddled in the next election or food-borne-illness outbreak.

Pizza chains see America changing

A flurry of recent nrn.com stories didn’t appear to have much of a connection beyond the mention in each of pizza. Yet the shared mindset given away by another common term suggests they’re actually as interwoven as the potholder a 7-year-old fashions at summer camp. Taken as a group, they’re strong evidence that the pizza posse is the first segment of the business to realize truly and zealously the potential of the Hispanic market.

And, most important of all, a number of chains in that sector are actually doing something about it. The industry has been squawking about the opportunity since right after Columbus arrived. Yet it took the apparent success of a concept that dared to leave the conga line and move to its own beat for others to give some bold moves a try.

Let’s pick it up with the story posted a few weeks ago about Peter Piper Pizza being purchased by a private equity company that specializes in businesses serving the Hispanic trade. The buyer, Washington, D.C.-based ACON Investments, indicated that it would intensify the Southwestern chain’s focus on Latinos. “We see a terrific opportunity to take advantage of the continued growth and expanding purchasing power of the Hispanic population,” ACON managing partner Daniel Jinich said in a statement announcing the deal, without revealing how much he and his partners paid for the 130-unit chain.

Now jump to today’s batch of news stories. You’ll find one about Pizza Hut adding a feature to the Spanish-language version of its website that allows visitors to order online, as far in advance as a week of when they want their pies. It’s likely to be a real boon for people planning a family gathering or other sizeable get-togethers.

No doubt the chain was “inspired” by the success that arch-rival Papa John’s says it’s had with a very similar set-up. That organization added the service in October.

In our Financial News section, you’ll see why so many pizza chains have suddenly become infatuated with the Hispanic market. For reasons that may have more to do with soliciting expansion partners than informing financial ones, privately held Pizza Patron disclosed that October-through-December sales at its units had shot past the tally for the last quarter of 2005 by an average of 34.6 percent. In case you’re not familiar with the concept, Pizza Patron (pronounced pa-trone, not pay-trin) was conceived as a brand that would serve Hispanic consumers and communities.

As we reported last week, as part of that effort, the chain undertook a limited-time offer in which it accepted pesos as well as dollars. It drew scathing criticism from people who believed it was pandering to illegal immigrants, but the brand let its targeted clientele know that it’s serving them.

And now, as we’ll likely to continue to report in coming weeks, it’s hardly alone in undertaking that mission.

Having a cow over rBGH

Keep this to yourself, but disagreements erupt fairly frequently within the editorial staff of Nation’s Restaurant News, just as they do in any other newspaper. But the one that simmered at a low level for several days last week should be of four-alarm interest to any restaurateur who uses a dairy product or sells a hamburger. It’s a preview of an issue that could become a hot one for the trade, in part because it’s the first to be fanned by that powerful new instigator of public outrage, the blogosphere.

For the sake of full disclosure, I’m compelled to note that I was one of the disputers. I’m not going to identify the colleague who took the other side. All you need to know is that we both have more than 20 years of experience in covering the business, and hold comparable positions within the organization. And that he was right, though both you and your potential adversaries—a formidable lot, to be sure—would probably both line up behind me. That’s precisely the problem.

The flashpoint was a news short I wrote up for www.nrn.com about a change underway at Starbucks. The coffee giant divulged that it’s switching exclusively to milk and dairy products that contain no recombinant bovine growth hormone, a controversial genetically engineered substance known as rBGH. Or as a spokesman told the Reuters news service, "We are actively engaged with all our dairy suppliers to explore converting our core dairy products to be rBGH-free in our U.S. company-owned stores.” That’s how the home office put it—a switch to rBGH-free milk, half-and-half and whipped cream.

That might be what they said, my colleague observed after he saw the item, but it makes no sense. rBGH is a compound that’s injected into cows to boost their milk output. There’s more milk coming out of a treated cow, but the fluid itself is as rBGH-free as the output of a non-injected animal, as the Food & Drug Administration and the scientific community has concluded. Indeed, dairies that market their milk as coming from untreated cows have to alert consumers that the milk is no different from what a rBGH-injected cow produces.

What Starbucks really means, my co-worker continued, is that it’ll switch to dairy products made with milk from cows that weren’t given the hormone. Authorities say the use of rBGH increases an animal’s chances of an udder infection, called mastitis, which is then treated with antibiotics. Watchdogs have contended that the antibiotics and pus from the infections can get into the milk from those cattle.

My position was, and remains, that my story had to recount what Starbucks said, not how it should have articulated the point. But my friend is correct. The trouble is, Starbucks apparently didn’t appreciate what he did. Nor do the bloggers and internet-focused advocacy groups who drove the chain to make its pledge to go rBGH-free.

A group called the Cancer Prevention Coalition has this posted on its website, as I discovered by Googling rBGH: “rBGH milk differs from natural milk chemically, nutritionally, pharmacologically and immunologically.”

The Ethicurean was one of the bloggers who urged consumers to participate in a virtual protest by calling Starbucks en masse on Dec. 5 to “let them know that you want your milk rBGH-free.” In other words, to pursue a fallacy.

Food & Water Watch also implored the public to participate in Starbucks National Call-In Day. “In fact, any day is a good day to tell Starbucks to switch to rBGH-free milk,” the advocacy group says on its website, www.foodandwaterwatch.org.

Clearly, the facts are getting lost. And it’s not just a matter of semantics. By suggesting there’s a genetically engineered growth hormone in the milk your child might be drinking, the advocates are conjuring up a danger that doesn’t exist.

One other thing the restaurant industry should consider: Right now the focus is on milk. But advocates assert that rBGH taints the flesh of injected cows as well, even though authorities have dismissed that contention as groundless. And 40 percent of the cattle whose meat is ground into hamburger are old dairy cows, as one of the anti-rBGH sites notes.

Is the King's a real Whopper?

Burger King’s mascot must not have apprenticed for his kingship in Great Britain, where you’d expect royal etiquette to be taught in the monarchy’s grade schools, along with jousting and defense against the dark arts. How else can you explain why the wooden-faced King and his minions keep getting into trouble over there?

As The Scoop reported, a high-level BK executive risked dungeon time a few weeks ago by asserting that the chain’s U.K. operation would probably lose at least 10 percent of its sales to a ban there on fast-food advertising during children’s telly programs. Within hours, BK headquarters in Miami was scrambling to halt the damage, asserting in a terse statement that the effect of the ban would actually be negligible. The quick sword work likely tempered the dip in the franchisor’s stock price.

Now comes word from across the pond that the King had turned knave again. The House of Whopper has been told to yank its television ads for the Double Whopper because of complaints that the specimen shown in the commercials is far larger than the sandwich sold in units. The Advertising Standards Authority agreed that the spots were misleading, and banished the King to darkness, at least for come-ons for that product.

There’s no word yet on how BK will close the gap between what’s shown in the commercials—or adverts, as the British call them—and what’s sold in the stores. Put another way, it’s not sure what the chain will upgrade, the floor model or the inventory.

Who's smarter, Ronald or the lobster?

Two of the industry’s largest and most successful companies divulged radically different strategies last week for maintaining those distinctions. McDonald’s acknowledged (with enough qualifications to please any lawyer) that it may indeed part with its Boston Market business in the near future to focus singularly on its resurging hamburger chain. Almost simultaneously, Darden Restaurants confided to investors that it may pursue the acquisition of a mid-sized chain—possibly even one that’s franchised—as a shot of Viagra for the greybeard of casual dining.

Two stellar successes, both hailed for their management acumen, each having changed the trade with their substance and styles, now reading the near-term future of the business in decidedly different ways. The question is, which one is right?

History clearly gives McD’s the better odds. Time and again, single-chain over-achievers have attempted to parlay their success into a foodservice version of the super-group. And with memorably few exceptions, the effort fails more miserably than NBC’s typical fall line-up. Burger King gave it a try with Godfather’s, Quick Wok and Haagen-Dazs, at a time when the burger chain was itself a part of a Pillsbury Corp. portfolio that included Steak and Ale and Bennigan’s. A bridge game on the Titanic would have been a more-reminisced gathering.

McDonald’s itself has tried its hand at empire building several times, starting in the days when Ray Kroc added a pie concept called Lisa Dobbins Pie Tree and a namesake gourmet burger venture called Ramond’s. More recently, its basket of brands has included Chipotle Mexican Grill, Donatos Pizza, Fazoli’s, McDonald’s with a Diner Inside, Golden Arch Café and McCafe, among others. If it indeed spins off Boston Markets, its lone remaining diversification would be a one-third stake in the Pret A Manger sandwich chain, a London powerhouse that has yet to wow Americans in its sole U.S. market of New York.

Fast-food giants aren’t the only ones who’ve stumbled in trying to add side projects. Applebee’s thought it found a new growth vehicle in Rio Bravo, a Mexican concept that had been started by its founder, Bill Palmer, who now runs the successful Up the Creek casual chain. It was more of a disaster than a teen bringing his tattooist home to meet the folks.

But there’s a profound argument in favor of growing through the addition of new brands: Darden itself. Its Olive Garden holding is arguably now overshadowing the company’s firstborn, Red Lobster. And Seasons 52, just now moving up from farm-league status for a shot at the big leagues, has been lauded as a Derek Jeter-caliber prospect. Diversification has clearly worked for the multi-billion-dollar heavyweight.

It took the company a long time to crack the code, however. At one time, its holdings extended to ventures like The Good Earth, a healthfood restaurant chain, and a higher-end T.G.I. Friday’s challenger named Darryl’s. And any observer of the sector knows that recent side projects have not gone well, from China Coast to Bahama Breeze and Smokey Bones.

Its experience underscores that it’s not a matter of acquisitions per se being helpful or detrimental. It’s more a matter of how astutely a buyer shops. Addressing investors and analysts last Thursday and Friday, Darden was specific about what kind of restaurant operation it might buy: One with about 100 units and a national reputation. And, presumably, a strong performer already in whatever nook of casual dining it plans to make its own.

Yeah, but every acquirer sets out to make a smart purchase. The issue is that few succeed.

So which is the better strategy, McDonald’s laser focus on one brand, or Darden’s scenario of buying a growth ticket if conditions are just right?

Bookmark www.nrn.com, and we’ll be sure to let you know.

Perfect pairings

Ever on the prowl for ways to serve the restaurant community, The Scoop has decided to give matchmaking a try. And what better way to start than with these obvious pairings, suggested by recent headlines?

David Rockwell and McDonald’s – Rockwell, the rock star of interior design, is know for the sense of theater he instills in his creations, be it a restaurant (Nobu, Ruby Foo’s), a casino (Mohegan Sun) or an actual stage (the sets for the Broadway hit “Hairspray”).

And now, The New York Times reported Wednesday, Rockwell is turning his attention to the sandbox. A page-one story noted that the much-in-demand designer has agreed to come up with a 21st-Century version of the children’s playground for the City of New York. Although details have apparently not been finalized, the plans call for features like wooden ramps that tykes can run up and down; a “water zone;” and a mini-crane the kids could use as a group to fill things with sand. A prototype will be built in Manhattan, with other areas of the city encouraged to copycat it at will.

Now consider what McDonald’s is doing with its Playland indoor rec areas, one of the sleeper factors in the chain’s success. Headquarters has said it wants to convert those facilities into mini-exercise centers, called R Gyms, where kids can pedal stationary bikes, zip through an obstacle course, work up a sweat at air hockey, or shoot hoops. The stated mission is encouraging mini-patrons to be more active. Cynics contend that McD’s merely wants to mute the criticism that it’s plumping up kids without a thought about their health.

Whatever theory you buy, there’s no disputing the chain’s intent to cop a more contemporary approach to play. What better way than having Rockwell come up with something that would be to indoor playgrounds what Starbucks was to the old coffee shop?

Bubba Gump and Chris Thomas – Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., a sleeper in its own right, announced yesterday that it’s willing to sell a stake in the 24-unit chain to generate expansion capital. Last week, Sizzler and Planet Hollywood vet Chris Thomas got together with his similarly seasoned partners, former Chart House chief John Creed and one-time Embassy Suites head Clyde Culp, to announce they’d amassed a bushel of cash for restaurant acquisitions.

Is this matchmaking stuff a breeze or what?

Thomas’ firm, Restaurant Acquisition Partners, raised the money through a stock offering on Dec. 15, without an operating business currently in its fold. As what’s known as a blank-check company, it generates capital first, then hunts for a business where it could be put to use.

Creed comes from a seafood chain that preferred showcase locations; Thomas knows about Hollywood-themed movies; and Culp is an old hand at franchising and site development. Gump is a seafood dinnerhouse brand inspired by a hit flick, and franchises its big, high-volume restaurants, often in tourist destinations.

Their families should meet.

Meth Coffee and Miss Manners– It is the policy of The Scoop to avoid supplier brand names so you won’t suspect me of whoring for an advertiser. I don’t think there’ll be much risk of that here. Yesterday brought the announcement of a new hot beverage, presumably for the grocery market, but possibly slated for a subsequent push into foodservice. It’s called Meth Coffee, a “hard-hitting coffee roast for energy addicts,” ideal for “boosting stamina and mental clarity,” the promotional materials explained.

Targeted customers, the announcement continued, include “thrill seekers” and “workaholics” in need of a “jumpstart.”

Okay, we get it. It’s the crystal meth of coffee. And what could be funnier or more clever than trying to push your product by playing off a drug epidemic? Why not market it with some Crack Cakes, or a line of doughnuts called Drunk Dunks?

Indeed, the product is noteworthy. It sets a new standard in poor taste.

Big chains go Islamic

In the beginning, one version had to fit all eaters. Restaurant chains were founded on the principle of menu conformity, in part because patrons equated variation with unpleasant surprises, and largely to lower prices through mass production. Their burger was the burger you got, regardless of how you wanted it.

But in recent years, even the mass-market giants have eased their insistence on one choice for all. You can not only custom-spec your burger, but also opt for products that were developed for a particular sector of the market, be it the health-conscious or the skateboard set.

Now the industry’s mass producers are going further and addressing an inch-wide but rapidly expanding splinter of the U.S. marketplace: Followers of Islam. As the Chicago Tribune reported last week, a number of the major chains, from KFC to McDonald’s and Subway, are revamping their recipes to offer signatures that conform to Islamic dietary law. That entails using halal meat, or the flesh of chickens and cattle that are slaughtered in an approved fashion.

And don’t forget lamb. Outback now offers a dish made with a type of New Zealand lamb that qualifies as halal.

It’s not as if a halal chicken is perceivably different from a typical unsanctioned bird, as I can attest from personal experience. At least once a week, deputy editor Paul Frumkin and I head down the street here in New York for some halal chicken. We could get it from any of probably 15 carts within a half-mile radius.

We couldn’t care less that the chicken topping our rice platters is halal. But halal choices tend to be offered in New York—and presumably a number of other major cities—by Middle Eastern immigrants who cook in the style of their homelands. That means marinated and highly spiced proteins garnished with fiery or palate-cooling sauces, and often both. The chicken tastes no different per se, but vendors of the halal version tend to spice it distinctively.

The U.S. chains experimenting with halal choices are holding to their current recipes; they’re merely using halal beef or chicken in place of the non-blessed variety. And those variations have been extremely limited in scale. McDonald’s has two halal outlets, according to the Tribune story, and other press reports indicate that KFC also has only two halal outlets. Subway reportedly has a lone outlet, in New Jersey.

But those limited endeavors have been enough to stir up controversy, because the halal designation requires those mega-volume feeders to veer far from their normal supply route. They have to buy the meat of animals that were blessed in accordance with Islamic law, then slaughtered in ritualistic fashion (i.e., the throat slit by a holy person, and the blood drained).

The halal KFC stores have been assailed by some Islamic believers for selling chicken that was blessed but mechanically slaughtered. The critics say that’s the reformed version of hala, not the true form. And that’s not kosher in their eyes.

It’s also unclear how a halal quick-service outlet would handle breakfast. Pork is patently a disqualifier, which means a store would have to forego bacon and pork sausage if it wanted to keep its halal designation.

The halal units opened thus far by the big U.S. quick-service chains are all in areas with sizeable Muslim populations. It remains to be seen how stores with that designation would be received in mainstream areas. But how could they miss? With the exception of some tweaks to the breakfast menu, non-Islamic customers would not have to sacrifice a thing. And they could count on the business of Frumkin and me, which is fairly considerable.

Dam that sentiment

Twang-g-g-g-g.

Looks as if the price of bottled water isn’t as elastic as restaurateurs might have thought. After charging as much for H20 as they once collected for a dinner’s complement of wine, the trade has triggered a full-fledged backlash, replete with an advocacy group, a deeply felt cause, and a loudly articulated action plan. The battle cry: Drink tap instead.

The only good news, at least from the restaurant industry’s perspective, is that the British-born crusade has yet to jump across the pond to the U.S.

If American restaurateurs are smart, they’ll try to contain the movement to Europe, like Mad Cow Disease, or the popularity of Jerry Lewis. Over there, a group calling itself the Consumer Council for Water—CCWater, for short—is arguing that patrons should forego the higher ticket of bottled waters, not only for the sake of economic sense, but also for ecological reasons. When you pop for a liter of spring water, you end up not only with dirty water glasses, but also a bottle that has to be channeled to a landfill.

What’s more, the group suggests, bottled water can be wasteful. With H20 diminishing in supply, it’s far more appropriate to drink as you go, glass by glass, instead of consuming in liter-sized increments that may not be entirely consumed.

The group isn’t a bunch of yahoos, as you can tell from a visit to its site, http://www.ccwater.org.uk. Its larger goal is conserving water, and it cites indications that 76 percent of British consumers don’t believe water companies do enough to conserve. It’s presumably speaking there about utilities, not water bottlers. But it’s just a slight extension to include those parties in their scope.

CCWater realizes that one of the major difficulties in getting consumers to specify tap water instead of the bottled variety is the stigma involved. Patrons are embarrassed about going with the free stuff because they’re afraid it’ll make them look cheap and uncouth.

But no one wants to look like a fool, either. And that’s how patrons might feel if they discover they’re paying as much for their water as they might for an entrée or dessert.

Bye to hockey pucks, cash, Peltz's silence

It’s a little-known nugget of trivia, but George Romero patterned the zombies in “Night of the Living Dead” after journalists who’ve just changed their calendars to a new year. They’ll stop for nothing—not a Tom Cruise meltdown, not a free buffet, not even an open bar—until they’ve sated whatever supernatural force compels them to greet Jan. 1 with a slate of predictions.

And who am I to shoo swallows away from Capistrano, or to deflect salmon from swimming upstream? In keeping with natural law, here are my prognostications for 2007.

Hockey pucks are doomed: If restaurant trends really do start in fine dining and trickle down, then we’re about to see fast-food chains reconsider those granite-like frozen rounds they plunk on their grills for conversion into what they now peddle as burgers. One of the dominant high-end trends of 2006 was a sharp interest among big-name chefs in the possibilities of the burger. Kitchen stars with names you usually see boldfaced in the consumer media were suddenly experimenting with new meats (think Angus or Kobe), new grinds (more fat content), or ingredients (especially foie gras and truffles. And, seemingly, it’s worked. The pack of high-end new burger places in New York are packed.

We’re already seeing it happen in the quick-service market with Carl’s Jr.’s Six Dollar Burger, which is several years old by this point. But look for more regional chains and upstarts to try upscale riffs on the American classic, followed by the mega-brands like McDonald’s and Burger King. We’ll soon be seeing menus studded with descriptors like “hand-formed,” “custom ground” and “never frozen.”

Cash, once king, heads into exile: Last year brought us what is probably the industry’s first cashless restaurant, a Washington, D.C. café called Snaps. The only green or silver it wants to see is the glint of a credit or debit card.

That’s a little extreme, given how few kids carry plastic, or even wallets. Ditto for lots of college kids. But more places—at the low-end, not the high—will likely urge patrons in subtle ways to forego the time needed to process a cash transaction. They’ll wager that whatever additional amounts they pay in processing fees will be offset by the higher volume they can generate during peak hours.

They key, obviously, will be new technology, like devices that allow servers to settle a credit-card tab right at the table, or EZ Pass-like automatic charge systems. That fits into the next big trend of 2007…

Transaction compression will be the new byword: Restaurateurs and customers may have different reasons, but both will celebrate new technology and procedures that streamline the necessary evil of settling tabs. Operators, and fast-food managers in particular, want to slash that time so they can handle more patrons, and make time-crunched customers that much happier. Guests just see no benefit in the process being dragged out, and will become more strident in letting that be known.

This is one of those rare situations where there’s no down side, provided the gizmos and set-ups work as promised.

Group business becomes the new takeout: Is there a full-service restaurant built today that doesn’t have a party room, or a space that could be turned into one? And would it likely forego catering?

Is there a sandwich chain or other fast-casual concept that enters the market without a strategy for landing big orders, be it a business’ lunch order for a meeting, a meal for the doctor’s office that a pharmaceutical salesperson wants to woo, or all the fixings for a Raven fan’s Super Bowl party?

Restaurateurs of all stripes have individually discovered the potential for those large orders. In 2007, the industry as a whole is going to awaken to the prospect. Casual concepts that don’t open for lunch may instead offer in-office catering services at midday. We’ll see innovation in packaging that allows big-order specialists to capture the soft-drink sales they’re currently failing to land, and anyone with an oven will be experimenting with travel-friendly new entrees, like lasagna, or casseroles rechristened with a sexier name. It will become one of the major targets of the new year, just as takeout zoomed out of nowhere to become a prized opportunity for casual chains a few years back.

Nelson Peltz socks Michael Jacobson: Angered by the profit-shaving cost of trans-fat-free oils, activist shareholders turn on the consumer advocates who pressed restaurant companies to adopt the healthier (but costlier) frying medium. In one memorable exchange, Nelson Peltz breaks his public silence to challenge CSPI chief Michael Jacobson to a joust—polo ponies at 20 yards. Jacobson declines, citing the potential for cruelty to animals, and they thumb-wrestle instead.

Actually, I don’t think that’ll happen at all. But a man can dream, can’t he?