Is Jupiter in the Seventh House?

On "Star Trek," they'd called it a rift in the space-time continuum. I prefer the less-dramatic notion that the apocalypse is upon us, but the full-moon theory could also fit. Clearly something paranormal must be happening to generate headlines like the ones we've been reading on the wire services all week.

Consider, for instance, the lethal dispute that erupted at a Wendy's unit in Miami over pepper sauce. A drive-thru customer wanted to singe his taste buds with enough of the chili-based condiment to fill a wading pool. But the crewmember reportedly held the line at three packets, citing the store's sauce-distribution policy. The patron insisted that he needed more sizzle, and demanded at least 10 packets. The employee astutely decided to bend the rules and handed over seven more of the foil containers, but the customer still wasn't happy. A manager went outside to defuse the situation, and was promptly shot in the arm by the guest, who zoomed off with his meal and 10 packets of hot stuff. News reports noted that the culprit was accompanied by a woman, who must have thanked the fates for bringing her such a catch. Fortunately, the manager's injuries were not life-threatening, according to the accounts, which noted that he was treated at a hospital and released.

It's a shame the guy with the smoking mouth (and gun) couldn't be used to demonstrate the new market-research tool that was rolled out of the lab this week by some white-coated types in New York. The technology gauges consumers' reactions to brands, products and packaging by scanning the brains of subjects as they look at the items, thereby revealing their "secret thoughts," the promoters explained. The approach is based on the sound science that different areas of the brain kick into motion for pleasure, while others rev up at times of revulsion or retching. By taking a snapshot of the mind in motion, marketers can tell what consumers really think of their products or advertising, instead of merely asking them. Mr. Sauce, I suspect, might've yielded a scan that could double as a desert-scene screensaver.

On their own, those news developments would have been shrugged off as mere curiosities. Suspicions of a pattern arose because they came too soon after an incident that prompted several of us to wonder if we just weren't getting some elaborate joke. Indeed, the editor who covered the situation for us filed her story with the preface, "Let the puns begin." You just don't get that many chances to write a restaurant-related article that pivots on the word "anus."

Yet that was the case when CKE Restaurants sued Jack in the Box last week for running commercials that knocked competitors' Angus burgers. In the opinion of the Carl's Jr. parent, the spots suggested that the name "Angus" is based on cattle anatomy, not breed. Jack owed it to the chains now selling the premium beef to point out that the meat isn't anus-based, CKE insisted.

If the situation had erupted one week hence, we might've indeed shrugged it off as a late April Fool's joke, or some tongue-in-cheek volleying by two arch-rival Southern California chains. But it did happen last week, and the moon won't be completely full until tonight.

It's good. But what is it?

Forget the light bulb queries. The question right now is how many restaurateurs it takes to agree on a definition. Clearly 73,000 aren’t enough, because attendees of last week’s restaurant convention in Chicago couldn’t decide on a label for the trend that colored the gathering. Yet designations were thrown around like restaurant recommendations, leaving no doubt the event marked a turning point for the trade. If only it could decide what to call the phenomenon.

“Going green,” maybe? Nope, snipped skeptics who don’t see that term applying to issues like how chickens live before they end up in a KFC bucket, or whether the day’s fresh fish is a species in danger of being wiped out. Ah, “sustainability,” then? No, not exactly, since what does the use of non-recycled building supplies have to do with fertilizer-free produce or buying from local growers? That’s sustainability. Of course, if you went to the seminar on sustainability and organics, you also heard about matters like truck-fuel consumption, and the use of growth hormones on dairy cows. Which shouldn’t be a surprise, given how much time was devoted during the going-green seminar to the popularity of organics.

The convention’s planners must have seen sustainability and green as two very different things. Why else would they have scheduled the sessions at exactly the same time, as if those topics appealed to audiences with far different sensibilities? Not that it mattered. One was standing-room-only; the other about 80 percent filled, or a box-office smash by NRA seminar standards.

Clearly the industry has awakened to an environmental responsibility—a sense that actions have to be adjusted to do the least harm to the globe and the carbon forms inhabiting it. But it’s still groping for the right vocabulary to designate its concerns and actions.

The problem goes beyond semantics. As several speakers noted, some charlatans are exploiting the lack of agreed-upon terms to designate their products as the greatest boon to the environment since Al Gore bought a Prius. If no baby seals were hurt in its production, why not label it “eco-friendly?” And it could conceivably be melted down and turned into plowshares. Why not market it as “recyclable,” even if not a one has indeed yet been recycled?

With that sort of medicine-show grifting, restaurants could act in good conscience yet still find themselves being picketed by activists with a different read. Or they could just get turned off by all the hucksterism and step back from what is fast becoming a movement.

If the industry is serious about being more environmentally responsible—and the gathering last week in Chicago strongly suggested that it is—then the trade would be smart to draft its own eco-definitions and terms. It needs a language, a set of common terms used and understood by operators and suppliers alike. Only then can it determine what will truly fertilize the movement, and what's your garden-variety BS.

Save the pool table!

The foosball table, I regret to inform you, is in grave danger. Once as important to a bar’s success as a good jukebox, the tavern athlete’s game of choice is being hustled off to basements and store rooms by a movement that could ultimately jeopardize the pool table or bar TV if it goes unchecked: The neighborhood watering hole is being gentrified. Give it a better menu, hire a genuine chef to handle the kitchen, and suddenly it’s a gastro-pub. So long, foosball. And don’t even ask about the pinball machine.

The trend started off with great promise in New York. The prototype was The Spotted Pig, which reigned as my favorite restaurant after its opening in the far reaches of western Greenwich Village. This was truly a pub, and truly deserving of the gastro designation. It’s corn soup was the stuff of daydreams. And its gnocchi-like signature dish was something to build a vacation around. Then it became so popular that I couldn’t get near it, even at lunch. Not exactly the true pub it purported to be.

Later incarnations of the trend seemed more diner-bar than gastro-pub. The menu might have aimed far higher than nachos, burgers, chicken wings and sandwiches. But the execution was a different matter. And the ambience didn’t have that coziness of a pub. They were dressed up bars trying to ride the latest foodie fancy.

A visit last week to what claims to be Chicago’s first gastro-pub did little to revive the hopes that were kindled by The Spotted Pig. Called BB’s, it sported a menu of comfort foods ranging from tiny burgers to chicken schnitzel, mac and cheese, chicken pot pie and beef stroganoff. If the latter was any indication, the place earned a big check next to the gastro descriptor.

But it was no pub. Though it was described as a neighborhood bar, it would only fit the bill if Thurston Howell III lived nearby. Gastro-bar would have been a better description. Restaurant-with-big-bar would be closer to the truth. Ambience-wise, it just didn’t deliver the same low-key feel you’d expect after reading about the gastro-pubs of London, where the concept is an integrated part of the culinary array.

And—need I say it?—I didn't spy a foosball table.

Strands of industry DNA

In Phase 1 of his immigration, Atour Eyvazian kept himself alive by scraping snow off the Iranian mountainside and eating anything green he could scavenge from the frozen ground. The grass diet kept him from losing more than 40 lbs. as he clawed his way up and across the mountains for 20 hours each day. His motivation was hardly the love of adventure that drives people up Mount Everest. Iran’s fundamentalist thugs were chasing him, eager to pull him back to his possible death. And he wanted to get to the America.

The 19-year-old evaded the Revolutionary Guard—only to be nabbed on the other side of the mountains by the Turkish police. This is a bit of conjecture, but they weren’t hung up on that Miranda thing back in 1984. Eyvazian had to bribe them with $200 his mother had sewn into his pair of 501 jeans. He was already dressing the part of an American. And now he was a step closer to becoming one.

Eventually he would get there. And just as he’d suspected, there was a great opportunity awaiting him—as a janitor in a Jack in the Box.

Today, some 23 years later, Eyvazian is still with the West Coast chain. Indeed, he now owns 10 franchises in Sacramento. The distance he traveled can’t be measured in mere miles.

In any other industry, people would nudge one another and point to him as he moved through a crowd. Here, beyond a doubt, was a person with a story to recount in hushed whispers. But such tales are as common as forks in the restaurant business. It’s a unique but uncelebrated distinction of the business.

And now a bunch of those stories are being told, out loud and for thunderous applause. The National Restaurant Association has instituted a new program called the Faces of Diversity Awards, recognizing industry members like Eyvazian. He was the inaugural winner of the American Dream prize.

But his selection couldn’t have been a slam-dunk. In announcing the winners during its convention here, the NRA provided the stories of 48 finalists for the Faces of Diversity honors. Whole movie studios could be built around the collection of accounts, with enough riveting scripts to keep audiences enrapt for decades. Like Klara Cvitanovich, the owner of Drago’s Seafood Restaurant in Metairie, La. As a girl in Yugoslavia, she watched the Nazis burn her father’s business. They were succeeded by Tito’s Communists, who jailed him. Decades later, after a life of poverty, she came to the United States with her new husband, Drago, and eventually settled in the New Orleans area, opening up a restaurant that’s now a pillar of the local dining scene.

Or Joe Machicote of Compass Group, a familiar figure to anyone who attends the industry’s human-resources-focused conferences. Lesser known is his rise from difficult circumstances in Harlem and the Bronx, with ugly instances of prejudice mixed in along the way.

Or Koshy Chacko, who grew up in a mud hut in India, leaving that bleak situation in his teens to scavenge for food in the streets. But a stint as a soldier taught him how to type, and that was the springboard to eventually getting his Ph. D. in world economics. Yet when he came to the United States, the only job he could land was in a deli. Now he owns a humming restaurant in the northern suburbs of New York City, called the Fair Deal Café. Its stated niche is serving good food for an affordable price to average people.

Remember, there are 48 accounts of that sort. And this is Year One of the program.

By the standards of anyone but a trophy-shop owner, our industry gives out enough awards to make even the un-cynical wonder what’s left to celebrate. But this program is an extremely welcome addition. Indeed, it’s overdue.

Who's turning green?

Is one of the big national chains about to market itself as "green"? During a seminar this afternoon at the National Restaurant Association's mega-convention in Chicago, Michael Oshman, executive director of the Green Restaurant Association, said he'd met with the CEO of a chain that ranks among the industry's 10 largest. Oshman didn't reveal the name, but cited it as an example of how restaurant operations big and small are looking to become more ecologically responsible. "The restaurant industry was not at the forefront" of the green movement, Oshman said, "But it's happening," and not just to land green-sensitive customers. "It's also about employees," he said.

His contention was amply supported by other developments during the first day and a half of the show. The NRA, for instance, revealed that its board is forming a new green task force, to look at what operators can do to address ecological concerns. Oshman's seminar on the marketing benefits of going green drew a healthy turnout; the session held simultaneously in the room next door, on sustainability and organics, had a standing-room-only crowd. The content of the two programs were almost interchangeable at times.

Meanwhile, a number of suppliers used words like "sustainable," "recyclable" or "ecologically responsible" to tout new products. Coke, for instance, unveiled a new bag-in-box concentrated syrup that yields more cups of soft drinks per container, which saves on cardboard and the fuel needed for shipping.

Oshman was guarded about what chains or independents have sought out the services of his non-profit organization, which helps operations develop the basis to market themselves as green. But he noted that Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a Southern California beverage chain with a cult-like following, is now the Green Restaurant Association's biggest collaborator.

He also addressed fears that going green can carry a prohibitive price, suggesting there may be some justification for the concern. But, he indicated, operators can push back on suppliers more effectively than they might think. Or such was the case with the $1,000 toilet.

Oshman explained that an operation looking to earn the GRA's green designation had been advised by the group to install toilets that use less water than standard models. The restaurant was quoted a price of $1,000, versus what Oshman said is a price of about $300 for a conventional toilet. It was a no-go. But, Oshman said, the GRA was able to convince the supplier to knock 70 percent off the price. Unfortunately, he didn't reveal why the vendor was cooperative.

Flooding the market with memories

Watching the chains churn out their new menu items for spring and summer, you quickly reach two conclusions: CKE Restaurants’ R&D team should be checked for steroids, and nostalgia is in.

Hardee’s, CKE’s southeastern chain, is where the two trends intertwine. Earlier this week, the burger specialist added a patty melt, a sandwich I first encountered when my folks took me to Howard Johnson’s. Hardee’s version is a bit different from the sandwich that shared the HoJo menu with specialties like Welsh Rarebit and the two-hotdog Daily Double. True to the prevailing current in fast-food, it’s more upscale than your father’s patty melt (the patty is Angus). Yet it also manages to fit the sector’s other key dynamic of heft (it’s the latest in Hardee’s Thickburger line). All for $2.99.

The patty melt follows the limited introduction just a few weeks ago of the Big Shef, the signature sandwich of Burger Chef, a chain that was ultimately absorbed into Hardee’s. For all extents and purposes, it’s not been on the scene for 20 years. Yet Hardee’s brought it back to play off fond memories.

It’s hardly alone in taking that tack. Wendy’s is expected to introduce what amount to ice cream floats—soft-serve ice cream mixed with cola or root beer. Jack in the Box added a grilled-cheese sandwich. Bennigan’s recently promoted fajitas, a staple of casual dining since the 1980s.One of the latest additions to the menu of Shari’s, the Northwestern family chain, was kielbasa, the Eastern European comfort food. Burger King is embracing iced coffee.

Perhaps those chains are reaching back for updates on classics in part out of sheer necessity. Chain R&D teams seemingly need to come up with so many more menu additions or limited-time offers these days. Not a day seems to go by without some system fly-casting a potential new customer lure into the market.

The volume leaders in that respect have to be Jack in the Box, which seems to introduce new products the way an independent spotlights specials, and Hardee’s. On the same day the introduction of the Big Shef was introduced, Hardee’s also aired plans to start serving turkey at breakfast as part of yet another nostalgic item, a club sandwich. And that intro came merely a few months after the launch of a spicy Buffalo-style chicken sandwich at both Hardee’s and its CKE sister, Carl’s Jr. Which, in turn, came just weeks after Hardee’s resurrected its Monster mega-burger.

Maybe there’s not much else to do in Hardee’s hometown of St. Louis except develop new menu items.

Buy or birth?

Not a word will be said here about that baseball team from the Bronx that looks phenomenal on paper but somehow fails to deliver in the field. Nope, this is an installment about Darden Restaurants. Which, these days, might be especially sympathetic to the Ya—oops, almost said it. I have to remember I’m writing about the other party that’s having a tough time developing young talent to complement the aging all-stars who stud its roster.

Not that Darden doesn’t have an astounding rookie in Seasons 52, the all-fresh-ingredients concept that it’s been cultivating as carefully as a patch of heirloom zucchini. But it was only a week ago that it decided the slightly older Smokey Bones would never meet home-office hopes, 86ing it like Albert Bell. More quietly, it also cut its next-youngest brand, Bahama Breeze, by nearly a third, shuttering nine of 32 units. Despite its indisputable and long-time success, Darden hasn’t exactly bedazzled as a farm system for tomorrow’s brands.

But the failure of Smokey Bones calls into question more than Darden’s ability to develop new concepts. Indeed, it raises a larger question, of whether casual-dining’s dynasties can still hatch big-league new brands. As multi-billion-dollar companies with the extensive infrastructures typical of Fortune 500 institutions, can they still come up with the winning idea?

Already, many of the leaders are acting in a way that barks “No!” Outback parent OSI gave up on the home-grown route long ago, extending its roster since its ill-fated New Orleans concept by buying young brands with promise. Roy’s, Fleming’s, Leroy Selmon’s, Bonefish Grill, even the new Blue Coral—all were the brainchildren of outside entrepreneurs, not a corporate new-business team. Ditto with Brinker International, with Maggiano’s, On the Border and Romano’s Macaroni Grill.

And now Darden is taking the same on-ramp. Two days after the company’s weekend announcement about Smokey Bones, CEO Clarence Otis confirmed to investors that the divestiture of roughly half the chain and the closing of the rest would facilitate the company’s purchase of a new growth vehicle. For the first time since it collaborated with the legendary Thad Eure on the development of a now-divested casual concept called Darryl’s, the company is going to let someone else do the development and incubation.

The drama arises from more than a big-name player’s break with tradition. For one thing, OSI and Brinker have had mixed results with the adoption approach. Before greenlighting Blue Coral, a seafood concept conjured up by Paul Fleming in collaboration with longtime partner and current OSI CEO Bill Allen, the company scrapped Fleming’s notion of a lower-priced P.F. Chang’s, called Paul Lee’s Chinese Kitchen. And Chili’s sold Corner Bakery, a venture it’d purchased from Rich Melman, the Dumbledore of restaurant concepts.

There’s also the sport of having two top challengers stick with the self-development approach. Last fall P.F. Chang’s banged the dinner gong of its new Taneko Japanese Tavern, its home-cultivated take on the neighborhood bars of Japan. And just a few weeks ago, The Cheesecake Factory disclosed that it’s cooking up a new venture called Rock Sugar Pan Asian Kitchen, featuring an eclectic Southeast Asian menu.

So which method is going to be the big winner, buying a starter kit, or developing the prototype in your own garage? Why don’t I just predict how many games ahead of the Sox the Yankees will be by September?

Spin doctor, heal thyself

I keep scanning the offbeat sections of the big news sites, but all I find is the same old stuff about Ted Williams’ head escaping from the cryogenics center and Kermit’s ill-advised visit to the kitchen of a French restaurant. There’s not a word about whatever death ray, killer fungus or genetically modified kudzu is eating the brains of some restaurant public relations people. And yet I see the terrifying damage every day.

Today, for instance, we were pursuing a story about a possible major setback for a chain that seemed to be going out of its way to push past a major setback without any public disclosure. Our queries appeared to upset the plan, so we played what amounts to a media version of Space Invaders, trying to hit a contact with a question as our deadline marched inexorably toward us. And yet we kept missing. Putting a bowtie on a yeti would have been an easier bull’s eye.

Finally, though we never linked up, information was provided about the brand in question. I kept thinking that I’d mistakenly intercepted some application for sainthood, because the effusive account of the concept’s situation and recent performance would have made Eddie Haskell blush. The PR person all but credited it with the decline in childhood tooth decay. Strangely, though, he made no mention of the very matter we’d called to probe, which was damning. Nor did he mention the Tooth Fairy or Tinker Bell, though either would have fit the Candy Land he described.

I don’t understand how he could believe that splash of whitewash would work. Once upon a time, companies might’ve controlled the information circulating about them. They, of course, were the major source of it. But with the blog- and media-studded web, that’s just not going to happen any more. I could probably learn about a bruise on one of the strawberries sold at Ed’s Grocery in Myrtle Hills within three Google searches.

To be sure, I don’t intend to use a broad brush here. There are many, many fine and capable chain communications contacts with whom we deal day in and day out. But the best among them understand that smoke screens just don’t work anymore. The web turns every one of your employees—hell, each of your customers, too—into a prospective source for us. They know that the media abhors a vacuum, and if they don’t fill it with accurate, complete information, grapevine.com will fill the void.

But I gotta run. Fox just reported that Ted Kennedy’s hair is actually an endangered seal pup that works for less than the minimum wage.

A penny for your controversy

A controversy has erupted in New York City over 10 cents. The amount isn't in dispute, but the form it should take is a topic of spirited conversation this morning, courtesy of a high-profile story in The New York Times. It seems that a mom-and-pop Chinese restaurant in the Bronx, an area you probably won't see as a backdrop to "Friends," refused to accept 10 cents of a customer's payment in the form of pennies. It was unclear why the counter-server balked, but it was suggested that she didn't want to count that much change, or go through the hassle of placing 10 coins in the till.

The Great Wall Chinese Restaurant later denied the incident happened, but by that time the outraged patron had already alerted politicians, hoping to trigger some sort of official reaction.

Sure enough, a state senator held a press conference outside the restaurant, calling for legislation that would require restaurants to accept any form of legal tender that's provided. Ruben Diaz cast the issue as a matter of discrimination against the less fortunate, presumably because they'd be more likely to scrape together change.

This must be an echo of the conversations that took place when some restaurateur of yesteryear suggested the hitching racks out in front be torn down to provide parking spaces for Model A's. The penny is becoming an anachronism; before long, even wishing wells will be accepting cashless payment via card, cell phone or EZ Pass. The changeover is certainly happening fast in the restaurant industry, but until currency-less payment becomes the norm, why quibble over pennies, one way or another. The place should've either taken the coins, even if they ended up in a help-yourself cup on the counter, or refused them and eaten the 10 cents.

Then we New Yorkers could've spent our time at the coffee machine debating the controversial memo sent by Morgan Stanley to its executives, forbidding them from entertaining customers at a local restaurant called Hawaiian Tropic Zone. The place is the brainchild of famed chef David Burke and veteran local operator Dennis Riese, the one-time owner of Houlihan's. But it's perhaps better known for putting its female servers in bikinis and sarongs, which the old-line financial institution has adjudged to be inappropriate stage dressing for the negotiation of serious business deals. We tried to get our hands on the e-mail memo, but employees were too scared to forward it, given the brouhaha that has erupted. Morgan Stanley has been portrayed as being puritanical, though some media reports say the same no-lei policy has been set by Lehman Bros. and Smith Barney.

At least it's likely that the employees wouldn't be paying in pennies.

'Delivery for the Palace again?'

Pizza discounting is going a little too far. Tomorrow, a slice of Pizza Hut's updated New York-style Hand-Tossed pie will cost you zero, provided you can elbow your way into a unit between 3 and 5 in the afternoon. If you're a member of Britain's royal family, you can get an even better deal, assuming the coach-and-six can navigate the drive-thru of a Papa John's. The rival system is offering the Queen and her notoriously combative kin free pizza for life in honor of the regent's visit to the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Presumably Helen Mirren might be entitled to a pie or two as well.

The Derby, of course, is held in Louisville, headquarters of Papa John's—and, of course, Pizza Hut parent Yum! Brands. Indeed, Yum! signed a pact last year to rebrand the race as "the Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands." The marketing effort was supposedly conceived to lure more investors to buy stock in the quick-service restaurant franchisor.

Strangely, the race wasn't cited that way in Papa John's press release. But the announcement did note that the chain's chief executive, Nigel Travis, is a Brit himself.

But that head-turning announcement may have been lost in the buzz generated by Yum!'s promise to pony up $1 million if the Derby winner finishes more than 6-and-a-half lengths ahead of the show horse. That was the margin of victory last year for the late Barbaro, who was put down a few months ago after breaking its leg in the Belmont.

The name Yum! has given its promo: The Yumfecta.

All of this boils down to one incontrovertible fact: The chains' marketing departments clearly have too much time and money on their hands. Instead of trying to turn a race noted for roses and mint juleps into a promotional opportunity for pizza, both brands should dispatch their marketers into units that would benefit from a little more attention to quality. Or, of course, they could offer their delivery services, to cut down on the wait time for people wanting to munch a slice while they watch the race.

But Pizza Hut might have the edge there. A local business publication reported today that sister brand KFC has the pole position for landing a major NASCAR sponsorship.

No word yet on whether Papa John's will offer free pizza to the Erhardt family.

They have ways of making you talk

Sometime after May 18, government regulators will likely order the nation's major fast-food chains to turn over proprietary information about how they solicit business from kids. The biggest names in the trade will be directed to disclose strategies and tactics they've diligently safeguarded almost from their first day; it'll be like ordering Coke and Pepsi to post their secret formulas on MySpace.com.

I may be going out on a limb here, but it's not going to be a fun experience for the chains. But they'll have no choice. As the Federal Trade Commission said last week in an official government posting, it asked nicely for the input awhile back, but got "minimal information," and virtually no hard facts or figures. Now it's using its power to compel disclosure, including how much the chains spend in their marketing to children and adolescents.

The only thing that could stop them would be a public outcry. One of the weirder formalities of regulatory changes is the requirement that input be sought from affected parties and the general population. So the FTC dutifully filed an announcement last week in the Federal Register, a medium that tax lawyers and CPAs shun because of its dullness. The agency asked for feedback on its plan to wrest the info from food sellers. But why am I bothering to point that out? You no doubt noticed the invitation yourself as you were leafing through your home copy of the Register, if you can manage to grab it from your kids. It was the item right after the heads-up about a Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting, near that sizzler about a change at the Federal Reserve of Kansas.

Amazingly, the FTC's demand for information probably will trigger a public outcry—for curbs on the chains and the other marketers, not on the agency's actions. The restaurateurs will almost certainly be required to turn over data on how much they spend in marketing to children, and those numbers are going to seem gargantuan to people unfamiliar with prevailing advertising rates. At best, the public is going to come away with the sense that the big national brands are buying the loyalty of unsuspecting children; at worst, it'll be convinced the fast-food chains are deep-pocketed villains who've been stoking an obesity epidemic with their diabolical marketing schemes.

Either way, there very well could be a call for regulation, or what the FTC was conceived to do. All it needs to do is force the process forward. And apparently that's exactly what it plans to do.

Those pesky flashbacks

The industry is living through its own "Night at the Museum" this week, with bygone brands coming to life for one more star turn. No doubt you'll hear all about it tonight on Carson.

Or maybe you live in one of the Midwestern locales where you can ride the time warp for yourself. Just wheel your Rambler into one of the Hardee's units that's featuring the Big Shef, a name that no doubt divides you readers into two groups: The ones now thinking, "I've gotta clean my contacts. I could have sworn I read 'Big Shef.'" And the others, of a spryer vintage, shrugging and muttering, "What the hell is a Big Shef? Dumb name."

For you impertinent twits, the Big Shef was the Big Mac-like signature of Burger Chef, a fast-food chain that was once the also-ran to none but McDonald's. It was where you ate before places like Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, KFC or even McDonald's itself came to town.

And now a taste of it is back, courtesy of the brave but eccentric souls at Hardee's who hit on the idea of resurrecting a big-name burger that was sold by another chain. Burger Chef was particularly fondly remembered, apparently, in parts of Indiana and Dayton, Ohio. So Hardee's decided to bring back the Big Shef in those areas, something it can do because it apparently owns Burger Chef's old trademarks. A former parent of Hardee's, the Canadian tobacco company Imasco, bought what remained of Burger Chef from General Foods Corp. in 1982 and merged the chain into the surviving burger brand. The last Burger Chef, according to what I can discern from internet searches, stopped operating under that name in 1996.

But that's not the only heady dose of nostalgia being served up in the restaurant industry this week. This Saturday, according to a story posted today on the Kansas City Star's website, some 300 former employees of casual-dining pioneer Gilbert/Robinson will gather for a reunion—ironically, in Overland Park, Kan., the current hometown of Applebee's. Gilbert/Robinson was the parent of Houlihan's, once the Burger King to T.G.I. Friday's McDonald's in what was then called the fern-bar market. Houlihan's became a holding of W.R. Grace, the chemicals company, which later extended its stable of concepts with the addition of Applebee's.

Houlihan's of course still exists today, but not with the same stature it enjoyed back then. Gilbert/Robinson was known as an operations-focused concern, with menus that were regarded as innovative. This, after all, was the chain that claims to have given the mainstream the spinach salad.

G/R has been gone for more than a decade, but many of its alumni have stayed in the business. They include such prominent figures as Phil Hickey, the much-respected CEO of LongHorn Steakhouse parent Rare Hospitality; Fred Hipp, relatively recently of California Pizza Kitchen and now the head of the AMF Bowling operation; Paul Khoury, a principal of the Kansas City multi-concept group PB&J Restaurants; and Don Lamb, chief of the emerging The Egg & I breakfast chain.

This is just a guess, but they may be enjoying some margaritas at the reunion. They just have to be careful about asking each other what their sign is.

A separate piece

A key feature of Ruth’s Chris’ “new generation” of steakhouse is what the chain calls its luxury lounge, a distinct area with an emphasis on “comfort” and “leisure,” in the company’s words. The notion of the place-within-a-place was hatched back in 2004, Ruth’s notes. But it’s no wonder the high-end chain is emphasizing the area as a cornerstone of its new look. The luxury lounge and similar concepts-within-a-concept are emerging as a mini trend-within-a-trend. Or two trends, actually.

About 20 branches of the arch-rival Morton’s chain now sport a Bar 12-21, a watering hole carved out of the restaurant, with its own identity and menu. Plans call for outfitting 15 more restaurants with the sub-brand, which Morton’s cited as a reason for its 6.7 percent comp-sales gain for the last three months of 2006.

Meanwhile, untold numbers of independents who rode the cigar craze of 10 years ago now find themselves with a distinct, sometimes even sealed-off lounge area. A match may no longer be set to panatela, but business is still smoking. Patrons seem to relish a high-energy but less-expensive sister to the posh mother ship that may be out of their price range as a regular haunt.

Even blues god B.B. King is feeling the mojo. His club in New York features a bar completely separate from his diner-theater main room. It’s named after his guitar, Lucille, and even offers its own line-up of entertainment.

It’s easy to see why the Mini-in-a-Rolls concept is catching on. For reasons that have not been adequately explained, consumers are abandoning moderately priced mid-market favorites, but still finding the bucks for higher-end options, especially luxury steakhouses. The parent of Outback Steakhouse is slipping vitamins and Chinese herbs to its mainstay brand to pep it up, but its Fleming’s big-ticket steakhouse chain is chugging. Ditto for Capital Grille, the white-gloves brand in the portfolio of LongHorn parent Rare Hospitality. Is it any wonder that the newest venture from Outback daddy OSI is the Champagne-budget Blue Corral seafood concept? It’s a definite trend.

It’s easy to see why the restaurant companies are welcoming that veer in the market. If you’re paying the same for a location whether it serves $40 steaks or $8 fajitas, why not go for the bigger ticket? The problem is maintaining traffic at those levels.

And that’s where the new sub-concepts can help. A distinct bar within higher-end places becomes a viable option for persons who can’t swallow a big ticket every night. They’re a stepping stone to posh.

Plus, for those of us who’d prefer a more casual setting at any price, we suddenly have a recourse that won’t draw sneers from our friends with upward-pointing noses.

The other trend in which the new sub-concepts nest is the second surge in Cary Grant-style drinking. The resurgence of the martini and cosmo gave cocktail culture a big boost a few years ago. Now the bar is being rediscovered yet again, not only as a source of those pleasers, but also because of whiskeys, gins, infusions, new margaritas, finer wines, pricey cordials, and even non-alcoholics made with fresh-squeezed juices and fruit. (Two of my younger colleagues recently were comparing notes about favored drinking establishments, and both lauded an establishment each for the quality of the fruit that accompanied their cocktails).

Couple that reignited interest in drinks with the boom of better bar bills of fare, and you have cocktail culture giving way to lounge culture.

Not every place may see the benefit of positioning the lounge as a separate entity, complimentary to but distinct from the restaurant housing it. But it’s something that will likely become more common as current trends continue.

It's not easy being green--if you're also big

The 48-unit PJ’s Coffee of New Orleans chain is switching to biodegradable cups for its cold beverages. Fifty-two-store Good Times Burger & Frozen Custard is airing TV commercials this spring to tout the chain’s use of all-natural beef. It claims to be the largest burger chain in the nation to use additive-free ground meat.

The Bon Appetit contract-feeding concern is a holding of Compass Group, a company barely smaller than Russia. Yet the division only operates 400 feeding accounts, a pittance by contract feeding standards. The company has pledged to do its part to combat global warming through modifications like lessening its beef usage, since livestock are big contributors of greenhouse gasses, and buying as exclusively from North American sources as it can to save shipping fuel. This comes just weeks after its shift to a menu that's trans-fat free and studded with more healthful choices.

Operations of their size are following the lead of diminutive green innovators like 40-store Burgerville, with its exclusive use of electricity generated by wind power, or Salad Spinners, the Texas start-up that features organic greens, furniture made from reclaimed wood, and even interior paint described as eco-friendly. With Earth Day just around the corner, more operations of their modest size will no doubt join the parade, adding momentum to a trend that must be shaking the gargantuan national chains to their gristle: When it comes to being green, an attribute shaping up as a key marketing strength in 2007, the littler guys clearly have the edge. Or as an exec from Good Times’ ad agency said of the chain’s new green-focused marketing tack, it’s not something “the big burger chains would do, or, frankly, could do.”

And that could be the best news for little guys since David Eckstein proved someone 5’ 7”, in shoes with a good arch, could play professional baseball.

The reasons for the inverse size advantage are obvious: The big brands need a lot of any green item they spec, or typically more than is available on the market as a whole. Switching to a product, even if the operational impact is slight, becomes a big deal when you have to reorient the staff of several thousand stores, stretching from coast to coast. Even slight changes become big, big deals.

Which means, of course, that the smaller players could have a key marketing advantage—both for attracting customers and employees—for some time to come.

The advantages don’t stop at marketing, either. When PJ’s announced its changeover to cups made from a renewable organic source that breaks down after the containers are thrown away, it noted that the switch helped the bottom line as well as the top one. “In addition to being fully biodegradable, corn resin offers more stable pricing, relying less on petroleum byproducts than plastic cups,” said Randy Hollingsworth, vice president and brand leader for the chain. Translation: None of the spikes that operators have seen this year in the cost of their packaging, even if the starting price is not as low.

Buying locally would presumably help Bon Appetit’s food costs as well by lowering the fuel-related expenses of its suppliers.


You wouldn’t tell Lance Armstrong how to ride a bike, or second-guess Warren Buffett’s stock picks. It’d be like telling Barry Bonds how to alienate people. So when Dave Thomas says unequivocally that the addition of even a second frozen drink choice would hurt the Wendy’s quick-service chain by complicating operations, you tend to heed it, even if Dave himself is no longer with us. And yet that’s not what the hamburger chain is doing, as nrn.com reported Friday. A vanilla version of the brand’s ultra-thick Frosty treat was added to the menu several months ago, and a Frosty Float—a chocolate or vanilla version mixed with soda—was introduced last week. That means four variations are now available, and new coffee-based choices are widely reported to be under development. The chain’s reverence for its founder is evident to anyone who’s had any dealings with the people from headquarters. But in this case, Dave’s words are not being heeded. You have to admire the system’s current leadership for having the courage to do what’s right, even if their gospel says otherwise.

Beverages are the new means of differentiation for the quick-service chains, while continuing to be a huge profit generator. Wendy’s couldn’t afford to sit on the sidelines and watch Burger King, McDonald’s and Jack in the Box give consumers another reason to visit their stores instead of the Place Dave Built. The Frosty is unique; why not parlay that product of distinction into a whole signature line? It makes sense, as Dave would likely agree if he were still with us. Sure, he was convinced that diversifying beyond a lone chocolate-flavored Frosty would be a problem. But that was awhile ago, before the market evolved to what it is today.

But breakfast—well, that’s another story altogether. Because of the chain’s past, tinkering with the morning meal would be like Bill Clinton hiring a few interns. I was covering Wendy’s for Nation’s Restaurant News when it rolled out its first a.m. menu, a collection of omelettes that would have been difficult to deliver within an acceptable timeframe for a sit-down place. Because of the operational issues, it proved a disaster, throwing the chain into a wobble that took years to correct. I can still remember the anger and pain of franchisees, how they felt the home office had forsaken its religion in a lunge for the newfound business that McDonald’s, Hardee’s and Carl’s were snagging with their grab-and-go morning offerings. The problem wasn’t marketing or communications, but operations, plain and simple.

That’s why it was chilling to read Wendy’s announcements last year that it was testing breakfast while already weaving a rollout into its turnaround strategy. The addition of breakfast was a certainty, not a possibility that would be validated or scuttled as a result of the testing. The introduction was a given; the only matter up in the air was how to get there. To quote the great Yogi Berra, it was déjà vu all over again.

Breakfast could supercharge sales for the chain, and there’s no reason it would have to be an operational quagmire. But it would certainly pose more of a risk than the mere addition of a vanilla Frosty to the chain’s one-flavor-fits-all shake line. You just have to hope, for the sake of franchisees and shareholders alike, that Dave’s caution is more of a factor in that endeavor.

It’s a situation that might have the big brands feeling a little green, though not in a good way.

When a what-if looms large

Biblical-scale rain, snow and wind kept consumers home in many sections of the country on Saturday and Sunday, but restaurateurs in those areas probably had a less stressful weekend than the management of two Whataburgers in temperate south Texas. An employee who worked at both outlets of the fast-food chain has tested positive for the hepatitis A virus, according to local press reports. No one else has reported being stricken, but the chain said it’s been fielding 20 calls a day since the state health department issued an alert about the possible exposure. And the worst may be yet to come.

The employee reportedly worked at the unit in Harlingen, not far north of the Mexican border, during the first 12 days of March, then switched to the store in Raymondville for roughly the last two weeks of the month. The virus can have an incubation period of about a month. That means the Raymondville operator won’t know for a few more weeks if the business will be subjected to the nightmare of an outbreak. Call after call, day after day, for two more weeks, always wondering if the next one will be the sign of trouble.

We seem to be writing about outbreaks of food-borne illness with greater frequency, often citing the tally of victims, how many lawsuits have been filed, or how the stigma has affected business. Tougher to peg is the mental impact, certainly on the victims and their families, but also on a restaurant’s staff, management and ownership. The situation in south Texas is a blurry but still telling snapshot of just how mind- and emotion-scrambling a food-safety problem can be—even when no problem has truly materialized. And, hopefully, there won’t be one there, today or in a few weeks.

Canadian health food?

McDonald’s Snack Wrap may be the mightiest small fry since Doug Flutie. And, like the legendary pint-sized quarterback, it’s proving every bit as versatile and tenacious. Executives cited it Friday morning in explaining how a 50-year-old chain managed to generate a 6.3 percent rise in comp-store sales for March. And the little sales engine that could shows no signs of faltering. Several alternative versions are in test, and new “occasions” for its purchase, to use the industry’s jargon, continue to be blazed by customers.

After all, this was a product that started as a deluxe extension of the chain’s line-up of everyday bargains. Priced at $1.29, or an inch upscale from McD’s Dollar array, it was intended to be a short step-up to something more luxurious—the fast-food equivalent of a Neon with power seats.

It worked on that basis, and also succeeded in generating more stop-bys between lunch and dinner, as it lived up to its name as a snack choice. But, to the apparent surprise of McDonald’s executives, it also drove up mealtime checks. As they’ve noted since the introduction, patrons have been popping for the Wrap as a complement to their Big Macs and Quarter Pounders at lunch or dinner. It’s become a savory dessert of sorts.

Now, with its rollout in Canada, the Snack Wrap is being positioned as yet another sort of sales driver. In introducing the product north of the border, local press reports note, McDonald’s executives are emphasizing the wrapped chicken finger’s healthfulness. One article quotes McDonald’s menu master Don Coudreat as touting the Wrap as a less-fattening alternative to the Big Mac, with a mere 320 calories versus the burger’s 540.

Although the chicken in the Wrap is fried, its fat content is also about half that of the burger, or 15 grams versus 29 grams.

The Wrap may be making the biggest bang we’ve seen from a small item since the invention of the cherry bomb.

By the way, Flutie played pro football for awhile in Canada, and was profoundly successful.

Avoiding nuggies for better farm life

There are two ways to eat a Whopper: The human method, and the one engineered by my younger brother, whom I'm sure my father won in a card game. While I ate my sandwich in the normal fashion, he'd occupy himself—no doubt by plotting some prank on the dog—until my sandwich was gone. Then he'd unwrap his Whopper with the loving attention of a parent fawning over a newborn. He'd stare at it for minutes, alternating between coos and ahhs before eating it at glacial speed, moaning with each bite, mixing in a few "oh, wow's", and sometimes even offering a muffled, "Don't you wish you still had yours?"

It would continue until I invoked the Bigger Brother Rule, which is seldom enforced outside of Mauritania, but holds sway in almost any situation where an adult isn’t present: To he who is bigger belongs the spoils. Of course, it'd backfire on me when a parent was summoned. My brother would get both his Whopper and the satisfaction of knowing I'd be delegated some of his chores as punishment. "I just want to enjoy what the Good Lord has provided for us," he'd say sanctimoniously, looking heavenward.

Burger King missed its shot at an ideal pitchman. But the crew that really whiffed on signing its Michael Jordan is the lot that's been forging headline after headline in recent weeks. Call them the eco-instigators, the righteous indignators, or maybe the demon spawn of Eddie Haskell. They’re the ones who want the industry to take a sharp turn toward ecologically sounder practices.

But however sincere they may be in that cause, their methods are another matter. Publicly, they’re holier-than-thou, a fervent army striving to foster a kinder, gentler society. Away from the camera lights, they’re a pack of Chicago union organizers, circa 1900, using a mix of taunts, goads and the occasional threat to wrest “green” concessions from whomever they’re bullying.

And those targets have lately run the gamut, from Wolfgang Puck to Burger King and Joe’s Corner Grill. Well, actually, I can't swear that Joe’s has felt the heat yet. But it's largely a matter of time until it does. Like a kid brother, they're not going away, as much as you might will it.

Then again, today not many people want to see them fade away. Certainly not your customers, if the anecdotal evidence is telling. When Burger King agreed to buy its eggs, chicken and pork from farms that employ humane cultivation methods, estranged relatives and classmates from grammar school were calling to say, “Aha! Finally, your industry is getting its act together! Save the seals!!” The public saw the eco-activists as heroes, not arm-twisters with an idiosyncratic agenda.
Since I’ve yet to spy a John Deere, a harpoon or a Feed Lot This Way sign inside a restaurateur’s office, I’m not sure why the industry had been villanized in the first place. But the calls kept coming, though, strangely, not from my brother.

But a few could’ve been placed by your employees. The green that tends to preoccupy employers is the sort that’s in the till, perhaps because they’re the ones who have to meet a payroll. You may be concerned about staffers tracking dirt into your dining rooms, but the youngsters themselves are focused more on their carbon footprints. That’s why being green is emerging as a recruitment strength. Does anyone doubt that Starbucks’ eco-focus has helped it land high-caliber employees?

So if customers and employees are at least secret sympathizers with eco-agitators’ effort to turn the industry green, does that leave restaurateurs as the sole opposition? Well, not exactly, because sentiment is turning decidedly eco-friendly within the operator community as well. Business sensibilities may still flatten support for measures like the polystyrene bans currently sweeping northern California, or purchasing changes that jack up food costs exponentially. But all indications suggest there’s a new openness to alternative procedures, supplies and policies that pack the benefit of being more green-hearted.

And yet the battle with eco-activists will likely intensify in coming months. The industry may agree with many of their goals, but the means pose a divisive issue, as do the strong-arm tactics. It’s a shame the groups wouldn’t stifle their attempts at manipulation in the hope of finding some room for cooperation. Or as my brother might have said, There’s a way to have your Whopper without the addition of a few atomic nuggies.

What would Dave say?

You wouldn’t tell Lance Armstrong how to ride a bike, or second-guess Warren Buffett’s stock picks. It’d be like telling Barry Bonds how to alienate people. So when Dave Thomas says unequivocally that the addition of even a second frozen drink choice would hurt the Wendy’s quick-service chain by complicating operations, you tend to heed it, even if Dave himself is no longer with us. And yet that’s not what the hamburger chain is doing, as nrn.com reported Friday. A vanilla version of the brand’s ultra-thick Frosty treat was added to the menu several months ago, and a Frosty Float—a chocolate or vanilla version mixed with soda—was introduced last week. That means four variations are now available, and new coffee-based choices are widely reported to be under development. The chain’s reverence for its founder is evident to anyone who’s had any dealings with the people from headquarters. But in this case, Dave’s words are not being heeded. You have to admire the system’s current leadership for having the courage to do what’s right, even if their gospel says otherwise.

Beverages are the new means of differentiation for the quick-service chains, while continuing to be a huge profit generator. Wendy’s couldn’t afford to sit on the sidelines and watch Burger King, McDonald’s and Jack in the Box give consumers another reason to visit their stores instead of the Place Dave Built. The Frosty is unique; why not parlay that product of distinction into a whole signature line? It makes sense, as Dave would likely agree if he were still with us. Sure, he was convinced that diversifying beyond a lone chocolate-flavored Frosty would be a problem. But that was awhile ago, before the market evolved to what it is today.

But breakfast—well, that’s another story altogether. Because of the chain’s past, tinkering with the morning meal would be like Bill Clinton hiring a few interns. I was covering Wendy’s for Nation’s Restaurant News when it rolled out its first a.m. menu, a collection of omelettes that would have been difficult to deliver within an acceptable timeframe for a sit-down place. Because of the operational issues, it proved a disaster, throwing the chain into a wobble that took years to correct. I can still remember the anger and pain of franchisees, how they felt the home office had forsaken its religion in a lunge for the newfound business that McDonald’s, Hardee’s and Carl’s were snagging with their grab-and-go morning offerings. The problem wasn’t marketing or communications, but operations, plain and simple.

That’s why it was chilling to read Wendy’s announcements last year that it was testing breakfast while already weaving a rollout into its turnaround strategy. The addition of breakfast was a certainty, not a possibility that would be validated or scuttled as a result of the testing. The introduction was a given; the only matter up in the air was how to get there. To quote the great Yogi Berra, it was déjà vu all over again.

Breakfast could supercharge sales for the chain, and there’s no reason it would have to be an operational quagmire. But it would certainly pose more of a risk than the mere addition of a vanilla Frosty to the chain’s one-flavor-fits-all shake line. You just have to hope, for the sake of franchisees and shareholders alike, that Dave’s caution is more of a factor in that endeavor.

Outback's other buyout offer

The industry has been abuzz with gee-whizzing over the pending $3.2 billion buyout of OSI Restaurant Partners, parent of the Outback Steakhouse and Carrabba's Italian Grill dinnerhouse chains. But a securities document filed this morning reveals the company had been approached with a buyout offer more than a year before the current deal was inked.

That time around, the would-be buyers included Blackstone Group, the private-equity behemoth that's in the process of going public. It was the deep pockets that would have funded the takeover casually suggested to OSI chief executive Bill Allen by another equity firm, Catterton Partners, at a trade show in October 2004. According to OSI's filing, a Catterton representative asked Allen if the company had ever considered going private through a buyout. Allen acknowledged that he hadn't. The representative followed up with a phone call in which he raised the possibility of a purchase by Blackstone and Catterton.

A non-disclosure agreement was signed on Nov. 29, and Blackstone and Catterton started kicking the tires, so to speak. By Dec. 2, OSI's board was meeting to discuss the possibility of a sell-out.

Conversations with Blackstone and Catterton continued through the early part of 2006. But on Feb. 15, the suitors alerted OSI's board that the firms couldn't top the $40.78 at which the company's shares were trading at the time. Discussions were terminated, and, according to the OSI filing, the dinnerhouse operator plunged forward with the three-year growth plan it had shared with Blackstone and Catterton.

But in April, the securities filing said, Allen was again informing the board of interest from Catterton. The filing doesn't provide details, other than saying the equity firm had been in touch with the CEO.

By May, according to the document, matters turned more formal. Catterton contacted Allen to let him know the firm was considering a buyout attempt in partnership with Bain Capital, the mega private-equity firm founded by current U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

Allen informed the board of the new overture in early June, and a motion was made to enter into a non-disclosure agreement with the suitors. As the filing noted, one director balked at the hush-hush deal because of fears that outsiders would learn of the negotiations. But he was voted down.

The dissenter needn't have worried. The world wouldn't learn of the Catterton and Bain's interest until Nov. 6. In the meantime, negotiations continued, with the suitors starting their bidding with an offer of $37.50 per share. The board rejected it almost immediately. Bain and Catterton countered with a $38.50 offer. A special committee of OSI directors was formed, and, after what sounds like extensive consideration, that bid was rebuffed, too.

A counter of $39.50 per share was termed as "disappointing" by one of the board's two financial advisors. But discussions continued, culminating in a take-it-or-leave-it offer of $40 per share from Bain/Catterton. "A representative of Bain/Catterton indicated that $40.00 per share was the highest value Bain/Catterton would be willing to offer, the document notes.

Some directors thought it was a bluff and asked for more money. But the bidders held firm.

On Nov. 5, after soliciting and considering several outside valuations, the full board voted to accept the offer. The agreement was announced the next morning.

The securities document was filed this morning to let OSI investors know of another key date: The offer will be subjected to the approval of shareholders at a special meeting on May 8.

Awarding the Goobers

Every baby boomer knows that Gomer Pyle was one of the great tuber-heads of all time, right up there with Tom Arnold, Gallagher and Dan Quayle. But he was a veritable Einstein—nay, a Woody Allen—compared with his cousin, the Mayberry fillin'-station mogul known as Goober. Only such a genetic mishap could be fittingly associated with recent developments in the restaurant field. So here, without further drawl, are the parties who deserve to be recognized as the first-ever recipients of the Goober Award.

In the Dimmest Bright Idea category: Whoever came up with New York City’s attempt to peg locals’ dining habits by swapping chain-restaurant receipts for a free ride on buses or the subway. Health officials are betting the technique will provide a snapshot of what people currently order in the places that will be mandated as of July 1 to post calorie information on their menus or menu boards. That way, they assert, regulators will be able to determine if the measure has its desired effect of leading consumers to less waist-ful choices.

It’s certainly an unconventional approach, but is it really science? For one thing, the incentive of a free $2 Metro Card, the pass used to enter New York’s transit system, won’t be much of a draw for Manhattan residents or higher-income residents who don’t take public transportation. That could skew the profile of what New Yorkers presently eat, and possibly distort the labeling regulation’s impact. The data is too limited, and the scope could be unduly narrowed. Nor would the total impact be captured. For instance, what if consumers forego chain outlets because they don’t want to know the weight load of their lunch, but get the same pizza, sandwich or burger from mom-and-pop places, which are exempt from the requirement? That effect would be devastating for locally owned franchises, yet it wouldn’t be reflected in the post-mortem. The “after” picture wouldn’t be complete or accurate.

Why don’t officials just give NPD a ring and sign up for CREST data?

For Biggest Fall-Down on the Job: Cats. If you believe the news reports, New York City's restaurants are awash with rats, as if we were in the midst of some biblical plague or the filming of "Willard II." This morning brought reports of the epidemic spreading to Washington, with the local media promising videos later today of rodents moonwalking inside the eateries of such dining-out centers as Adams-Morgan and Dupont Circle.

And where, in all of this, are the true offenders' natural enemies? I'm referring, of course, to TV critics. But cats definitely have to shoulder some of the blame. Our felines have gone soft, with too many hours spent imitating rugs or warming couch cushions. They wouldn't know how to stalk a meal unless it came with a pull-tab. Clearly their community needs a Jared Fogle to inspire the overly-plump whiskered masses. I personally plan to offer a Tender Vittle for each meal plan they submit, just to see where we're starting from.

For Best-Intentioned Blunder: The residents of San Francisco, for alienating their celebrated restaurant trade by voting in a requirement that employers provide paid sick leave. The effect, local restaurateurs lament, will be devastating. So, too, can be the fallout of unintentionally pushing food handlers to come to work when they should be staying home to recuperate from some infectious disease. If staffers don’t suck it up and come to work, they won’t get paid, so in they come, bringing germs with them. Advocates of paid sick leave have a point, but so do restaurateurs who cite the cost. It’s a complex problem that requires a well-conceived solution, not the knee-jerk of voting a requirement into law via a ballot initiative, as Bay Area residents did last November.

And now their restaurant industry has turned on them, with threats of a one-day lockout, and would-be newcomers thinking twice about opening in the city. It’s a classic example of good intentions gone amuck.

And the grand prize, the Lifetime Achievement Goober: Shared, by every New York (and, one can now presume, Washington, D.C.) restaurateur whose place was cited during a sanitation inspection for indications of rats on the premise, but did nothing. The stigma is likely to take years to live down, thanks to the media. And maybe a blogger or two.

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.