Maybe Bobby Bacala would do

Wendy’s best hope may not be Nelson Peltz, Bill Foley or a nameless twentsomething in a pigtailed wig. If the company wants to avoid a pitched two-front war with investors and franchisees, the person it really needs is Paulie Walnuts.

As any Sopranos fan knows, Paulie has his issues, like occasionally beating people into hamburger. But he was also the go-between when warring parties wanted a sit-down. Too bad the folks at Wendy’s apparently weren’t HBO subscribers, because they’ve been focused on sending messages instead of sharing some grappa in the backroom of the Badda Bing. Franchisees are clearly squaring off with the home office, if they’re not looking to buy the company and impose their own strategy. And how’s Wendy’s coping? By sending letters, like the feel-good click here it dispatched to licensees and employees yesterday.

In fairness, it should be noted that headquarters has instituted monthly webcasts with franchisees and employees to keep the whole system apprised of chain activities. CEO Kerrii Anderson also indicated in her letter that enhancements have been made to WeNet, presumably the chain’s intranet.

But neither of those media is face-to-face. Indeed, they tend to be used for one-sided disseminations than a true give-and-take.

What seems to be needed is a war council, where the parties can sit down and work out their differences in the spirit of Dave Thomas. Instead, franchisees and the home office have been using postmen as their proxies, sending letters back and forth. A dozen licensees sent a scathing one to Wendy’s home camp a few months ago, blasting management for lowering the value of their business. The executives denied it, and followed up with yesterday’s assertion that the turnaround is going well.

Does this sound like a system that’s talking?

In her letter, Anderson also noted that meetings were held in August with franchisees specifically to discuss plans for 2008. Why, then, was yesterday’s communication even necessary? Might it have been more of a defense than an explanation of what the home office has chosen to do?

Interestingly, in ticking off Wendy’s achievements during the last year, Anderson cites “enhanced communications” as an accomplishment on par with improving operations or bolstering sales and profits. Clearly the management team felt the need for an upgrade. You have to wonder if executives and franchisees still do, and if both sides are doing their part to ease tensions through conversation.

“We’ve made significant progress in the last 12 months,” Anderson told franchisees and employees. But “we have so much more to accomplish.”

Perhaps maintaining peace with franchisees through a true disarmament sit-down should be item No. 11 on her to-do list. With that problem allayed, the whole system could address the larger issue of bolstering finances, which might even make Nelson Peltz smile.

A second opinion on doctors' meals

It’s the industry’s equivalent of a tooth fairy with nothing smaller than a ten, an upgrade to first class on a trans-Atlantic flight, maybe even a snow day. If ever there was a sweet treat for the restaurant business, it had to be the free spending of pharmaceutical companies that believe the way to a doctor’s ears is through the stomach. Drug sales reps know their ticket into a physician’s office is a free breakfast or lunch personally delivered to the staff. That’s why some restaurant chains have organized sales squads specifically to sell their catering or function services to pharma field teams. Is there any doubt they’ll be sobbing louder than most when regulators try to take that boon away?

They’ve already succeeded in Minnesota. Lawmakers there have prohibited drug salespeople from giving a doctor more than $50 worth of food per year. That translates into a catered lunch from Panera Bread about every August.

Worst of all for the restaurant industry, the two-year-old curb has demonstrated that doctors are far more reluctant to open the door for an empty-handed pharma rep. Research suggests that the turn-away rate for pitchmen in Minnesota is double the decline in visits for counterparts in the other 49 states. And that’s exactly what proponents of the restrictions want to see. They believe the wooing prompts doctors to prescribe medicine that isn’t necessary or costs more than suitable alternatives. They want the reps to stop courting doctors in any fashion. And free food seems to be the equivalent of roses and jewelry.

No wonder a push for restrictions is arising in other states, according to a recent article in The New York Times. New Jersey formed a task force last month specifically to consider a measure similar to Minnesota’s, according to the article. It suggested that other states may be interested as well, but did not name them.

If the restrictions were to spread, chains ranging from Outback Steakhouse to Au Bon Pain could feel the pain. It’s a shame that such a lucrative source of business could be closed off at a time when the mainstream market is clearly in need of some strong medicine.

The Big Cheese?

A new title was bestowed on the grand metropolis of New York last week, in part because of its sizeable restaurant industry: City Most Likely to be Infested with Rats (Fall Season). And, no, the news didn’t come from the Big Apple Chamber of Commerce.

The distinction was pinned to the broad chest of America’s cultural and commercial titan by two figures who are acclaimed for their knowledge of rodents, Dale Kaukeinen and Bruce Colvin. The pair studied data from the 2000 U.S. Census to determine what makes a city attractive to rats. Among the factors they identified was the resurgence of cities as residential areas and a resulting gentrification, which in turn have bolstered urban areas’ service and entertainment offerings. “This trend is proving to be an ideal environment for rodents due to the density of people and the abundance of food waste from residents, businesses and local eateries,” according to a statement on Kaukeinen and Colvin’s research, which was sponsored by a “rodenticide” supplier.

Among the other contributors they identified are “wacky weather,” defined as unseasonably warm and wet, and an end to the $12 million to $15 million in subsidies the federal government once passed along annually to communities for the fight against rodents.

Wielding the criteria they’d developed, the duo then ranked cities by their expected hospitability to rats this fall. New York topped the listing, followed by Houston, Boston, Louisville and Philadelphia. Among the surprises on the roster were El Paso, Texas, at No. 9 and San Jose, Calif., at No. 19.

Kaukeinen and Colvin suggested that fall is typically the height of the rodent tourism season for many U.S. cities. “As the weather cools,” the statement explains, “rats and mice move inside in search of food and shelter.” It’s when infestations are most likely to occur and “rodents reach their annual abundance,” it noted.

Our beloved Yankees may have been eliminated from the playoffs this fall. But let Cleveland try to touch us in the rat rankings. No wonder pitcher-attacking bugs seem to be its signature pest.

It could have been you

Last Thursday afternoon, just after the lunch rush, a former staffer of a Moe’s Southwest Grill in Dilworth, N.C. decided to surprise his one-time colleagues. He walked into the burrito restaurant, pulled a gun, and shot operating partner Vinny Ferens and assistant manager Jeff Mahar. The police grabbed the 28-year-old gunman and learned he came to shoot up the unit, not to rob it. He’d been canned a few weeks earlier and had come back to exact revenge.

He succeeded in his quest; Ferens, 36, and Mahar, 34, both died from their injuries. The elder of the two left behind three children, ranging in age from eight years to six months. Mahar’s familial situation was not disclosed. He’d joined the crew just two months ago.

That account of the tragedy was provided to the media by Moe’s franchisor, Atlanta-based Focus Brands. Those of us with ink in our veins usually have to wheedle, cajole or feign a last request to get information from an organization that’s suffering through a nightmare of that magnitude. If the moon and stars are aligned, you might get the sparest of details. Focus is publicizing everything about the incident except the name of the employee-turned-accused-shooter (local news and police reports identified him as Derrick Lamont Gregory).

The reason for the company’s forthrightness is clear and commendable. It wants the industry to know what happened to two of its own because the pair’s successors may need help. Left unsaid is the trade’s willingness to aid the families within its ranks, regardless of whether they’re strangers or even affiliated with competitors. It’s something unique about the business that people in other fields probably can’t fathom. If you doubt it, ask someone in the grocery business if they’d ever help a counterpart limping through a crisis. They’ll probably take a swing at you.

Focus wants the business to know that it’s set up a fund to help the families of Ferens and Mahar with burial fees and other expenses. Contributions can be sent to the Moe’s Victims Memorial Fund, Wachovia Bank, 171 17 St., Mail Code GA4517, Atlanta, Ga. 30363.

Already, Moe’s management said in a statement, “the outpouring of sympathy and support that our customers have shown for these victims has been incredible.”

Hopefully Feren and Mahar’s professional peers will be even more generous.

Speaking of immigration

One of the highlights of last week’s Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference was a panel discussion of the nation’s immigration problem and what should be done about it. Discussion, debate, argument—why get hung up on semantics?

And yet semantics, as the panelists noted, is often what keeps tempers burning when the topic arises in any public forum. As National Restaurant Association chairman Dick Rivera observed, a hardliner on the panel referred to “legal immigrants” but “illegal aliens.” Clearly “aliens” is a more pejorative and loaded word, applied more often to mutant invaders from space than foreign students who over-stay their visas.

Rivera was brilliant in arguing for a moderate approach to resolving the issue of illegal immigration. And, perhaps not surprisingly, he suggested the process begin with the adoption of a new glossary. A key point of contention is whether the 12 million illegal aliens estimated to be in the country right now should be forced back to their countries of origin before they can begin to seek legal residence within the United States. To do otherwise, conservatives argue, would be granting amnesty to obvious lawbreakers.

“I prefer the term ‘plea bargain,’” said Rivera. The illegals should have to pay taxes and perhaps fees or fines, rather than get away scot-free, he explained. But they should also be allowed to stay, which he defined as “being on parole.” As long as their behavior remains lawful, why not let them continue to work and live here while they seek legal residence?

It was a dash of reason and level-headedness, elements that sorely seem to be missing from the discussion of immigration, if you can even call that screaming match a discussion.

One other interesting tidbit that emerged during the panel: One expert noted that about 7 million of the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants are currently working. The restaurant industry has estimated that it alone employs about 1.4 million of that illegal workforce, or 20 percent of the tally.

Clearly the “problem,” to use another loaded word, is a major one for the trade. It’s fortunate that Rivera has suggested a vocabulary that will serve the business well in its attempt to foster an actual discussion on immigration. And, thanks to that presentation at MUFSO, it’s a give-and-take that shouldn’t be alien to the trade.

MUFSO outtakes

I’m starting a relief fund for my colleague Lisa Jennings, who could be institutionalized by the assignment of crafting an overview story on Nation’s Restaurant News’ Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference. The meeting, held earlier this week in Los Angeles, crammed an MBA course on industry issues and trends into three days, with any downtime devoted to networking and sampling the latest in adult beverages. Lisa has the task of capturing that kaleidoscopic experience in a snapshot. You can only hope the food is decent at wherever she’s committed.

Fortunately for the other residents of Harmony Home, the show provided several moments that will serve Lisa well during Story Night. Here are a few of the lines from MUFSO that probably won’t figure into her article (which, by the way, is scheduled to appear in the Oct. 15 issue of NRN).

“Within an hour, you’ll be depressed.” — Rick Berman, before beginning his one-hour presentation, presumably referring to the content of “Labor Costs: The Rising Cost of Employment.”

“How many of you thought Jack was really the CEO?” – Linda Lang, chairman and CEO of Jack in the Box, as she took the podium to accept her Golden Chain award. Earlier, Lang had revealed that Jack, the orb-headed mascot who’s cast as the chain’s chairman and chief executive in commercials, is always portrayed by the same person rather than a succession of actors. Lang wouldn’t say who that thespian was, explaining, “if I told you, then I’d have to kill you.”

“My new dream is to be Julia Stewart.” – Nick Vojnovic, president of Beef ‘O’ Brady’s, after confessing that his mother’s dream for him and his brother will never be realized. Coming from a restaurant background, she had insisted that her children not go into the business. Nick’s two brothers are also high-level foodservice-company executives. He didn’t explain his infatuation with Stewart, the CEO of IHOP and architect of the company’s pending purchase of Applebee’s.

“I’m up here for being alive today.” – James Maynard, co-founder and chairman of Golden Corral, joking about his choice as the 2007 winner of the Pioneer Award, an honor previously bestowed on the likes of Col. Sanders and Norman Brinker. Later, while actually accepting the award, Maynard quipped through tears that winning the honor wasn’t a bad achievement for a 50-year-old. He founded Golden Corral almost 35 years ago.

“They’ll be out of there faster than Ted Kennedy at an O’Doul’s kegger.” – Jim Sullivan, forecasting how youngsters steeped in present-day multi media will react to a restaurant trainer wielding nothing more high-tech than a flip pad and pointer.

“My father told me, ‘You’ll do well there [in Washington]. You’ve been dodging nuts your whole life.’” – Ex-congressman Leon Panetta, after recounting how his job on the family’s walnut farm was scooping up the nuts after his dad shook the trees to make them drop.

Beltway bets

It was like popping into an airport bar to catch the playoffs and finding a stranded Joe Buck and Tim McCarver perched on stools, offering their play-by-play to a select crowd that happily included you. In the dullest of years, attending the National Restaurant Association’s Public Affairs Conference makes you feel like a Washington insider. Catching the annual political download at a time like the present, when the presidential race is fuzzier than Phil Spector’s hair, was akin to getting a D.C. zip code. Elsewhere in the nation, pundits may still be wrangling over which candidates will get the nominations of their respective parties. But everyone inside the Beltway seems to have a solid hold on who the final contestants will be. And the wonks gladly shared that information with restaurateurs attending last week’s conference.

Almost certain to top the Democratic ticket, presenters agreed, is Hillary—though Mike McCurry, a former press secretary for her husband, added a major asterisk. If her performance in the early bell weather primaries suggests she can’t win the general election, the party faithful will likely abandon her for more of a centrist candidate like John Edwards. Why put money and party machinery behind such a polarizing force?

For that reason, Clinton’s chances of returning to the White House were portrayed as unlikely.

Likely to face her in the general election, McCurry and successor Ari Fleischer both noted, will either be Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson. In further analyzing the situation, the former presidential spokesmen noted that Thompson is the Great Unknown, with the mien and outsider credentials of the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan. But, as Fleischer said, the question is, “is there any there there?” Is Thompson an actor playing a role, or a genuinely wise, principled conservative of impeccable integrity?

Romney was likened to the Energizer Bunny, the battery-charged, in-the-pink phenom who just keeps going and going and going. They noted that he also has solid business experience, having founded the private-equity behemoth Bain Capital. Yet nothing was said of his political stance, perhaps because it’s changed like the seasons since he caught the attention of Massachusetts voters in his run for governor. Other pundits have noted that the voting public of that state hardly match the political composition of the national populace.

And that left Giuliani, about whom they said virtually nothing positive or negative. Which, judging from some of the other political handicapping that was offered aloud during the conference, is the modern-day equivalent of having FDR’s oratorical skills, JFK’s money, and OTB’s designation as a favorite.

Appreciating small buns

One of the bigger things on chain menus this fall could be the tiny burger. Applebee’s is touting the mini sandwiches in its current commercials, and T.G.I. Friday’s is featuring a version on its high-profile new mix-and-match menu. They join such earlier adapters as Damon’s and Ruby Tuesday, which could cater Munchkin Land’s annual picnic with the three mini-based options it offers. The current array stretches from a turkey variation to the more traditional ground-beef variety.

But the phenomenon is hardly limited to the full-service sector, as Good Time Burgers can readily attest; the regional quick-service chain credited its tiny Bambino Burgers for a 13.8-percent comp sales leap during July and August. Back Yard Burgers, another regional brand, offers a 1/8-lb. Great Little Burger. Still another local player with ambitions, Five Guys Burgers, sees enough potential attraction within its Eastern stronghold to offer four permutations (with or without cheese, with or without bacon).

And, of course, the bite-sized burger remains the signature of White Castle, whose “slyders” (also spelled “sliders”) are still revered by hardcore fans as the one true mini. The chain claims to be the originator of the juicy little morsels, though plenty of other specialists point to years of spatula work with Lilliputian patties, from Krystal to occasional White Tower that refused to fade with the rest of that chain.

The roster will likely continue to grow as more chains grab for a product that could be the bouncing ball in a sing-along review of menu trends. Small indulgences, vis-à-vis spoon-sized desserts? Absolutely. Affordable luxury, a la high-art cocktails? It’s not a coincidence that many of the new burgers are made with Angus (or even kobe beef (or, in the case of Damon’s, a mix of the two meats), providing a luxe experience at a price below the pain level. Modular eating, where you build a meal from a little of this and a dab of that? What better element for a collection of shared items than a plate of two or three little burgers (or four or six, again in the case of Damon’s).

Plus, says well-known menu consultant Nancy Kruse, there's a built-in nostalgia factor for the large segment of the population that grew up on White Castle, Krystal or, in areas like Washington, D.C., White Tower or White Spot. Add in what is likely an attractive food cost, and a good margin, and you have a product that makes sound business sense, too, notes Kruse.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that small sandwiches have surged into a big thing for chains. When commodity spikes had the big brands searching for a way of offering greater value, Burger King tried a two-pack of minis called Burger Buddies. The product proved an operational nightmare, with the tiny patties slipping through the conveyor-like grillwork of the chain’s signature chain broilers.

KFC opted for 1-oz. chicken-patty sandwiches called Chicken Littles. If you Google the name, you’ll find a slew of blog reminiscences of the product, along with a petition imploring KFC to bring the product back. Clearly the item was a hit. But with a product that sold at about 39 cents, if memory serves me correctly, you couldn’t make any money unless you nailed the management contract for all of Munchkin Land’s feeding operations. It just wasn’t feasible.

Chains are far less bashful about how they price the current crop of minis. But are these products that are here to stay? Or are they today’s frozen yogurt?

Wait a minute—isn’t frozen yogurt making a comeback?

The Roger Clemens syndrome

The producers of “Nova,” the popular science program, should forget about aboriginal tribes that worship Ernest Borgnine or ant species that build crude nuclear reactors. If they really want to focus on a scientific marvel, they should spotlight whatever mysterious force tends to turn the blood of foodservice veterans into grade A ketchup.

The vampire or virus has clearly been at work in recent months, leading to the memorable newsroom query of a young Nation’s Restaurant News staffer, “Ever heard of somebody named Jerry Richardson? He just bought into Bojangles’.”

Every heard of Jerry Richardson? When I was her age, that would’ve been like asking, “Anybody got a gauge on whether McDonald’s sells burgers or pizza?” He was a god of the business, a self-made gazillionaire who’d originally bought into the restaurant industry with money he’d earned by winning what many pundits still regard as the greatest football game of all time. He snatched a pass from Johnny Unitas during the 1959 championship series—this was eight years before the first Super Bowl—to beat the New York Giants.

He’d go on to build a colossal foodservice empire, with Hardee’s franchises at a cornerstone, but other interests ranging from Canteen Corp. to Quincy’s Steakhouse, Denny’s, El Pollo Loco and Hilton International. In his heyday, Richardson was as prominent a figure in the business as Yum! Brands’ David Novak or Darden Restaurants’ Clarence Otis is today.

But, of course, a lot has happened between that day and the present. Richardson, it seemed, never lost the football bug. The game was a big part of the culture of Spartan Foods, the Hardee’s franchise he built with longtime business partner (and fellow football fanatic) Charlie Bradshaw. Alumni of Spartan Foods still recall the rough-and-tumble inter-squad matches they’d be expected play at the company’s annual meetings.

For years, Richardson tried to use his wealth and connections to land an NFL franchise for the Carolinas. He finally succeeded in 1993 with the establishment of the Carolina Panthers, of which he remains the principal owner. To run the team, he stepped out of the business, but retained a Bojangles’ franchisee that he’d quietly purchased in the 1970s and delegated to his son, Jon, to run in the years since.

And now Richardson is suiting up to get back in the game. He’s named a longtime protégé as CEO of Bojangles, and Richardson has left little doubt that he intends to wield an active hand in the company’s operation.

It’s doubtful he needs the money, given the income bracket of most pro-sports team owners. Public records indicate that he’s about 71 years old. And he’s known success all of his life. Clearly he doesn’t have to do this.

Yet he sounds eager to put in the long hours and considerable effort that’s required to reinvigorate and expand a franchise chain. Clearly, he’s pumping Heinz or Hunt’s through his veins.

Then again, he’d have no problem finding transfusion candidates. Just days before Richardson’s name re-emerged, we ran a story about Dick Holbrook’s re-entry into chain management. A longtime second-in-command of Popeyes parent AFC Enterprises, Holbrook was stepping out of an investment role to become president of J. Christopher’s, one of the new breed of breakfast-and-lunch concepts that should just about finish off the old coffee-shop-style family restaurant.

Holbrook’s partner in the endeavor is Sam Haddock, who’s slung his share of burgers, drinks and fried chicken, too. He hails from the Rally’s, Donatos and Moe’s Southwest Grill chains.

But they’re hardly alone in returning to the trenches after careers that would be adjudged successful by even the harshest critics. Steve Lynn came off the bench to lead a still-pending acquisition of Back Yard Burgers. Paul Fleming, the “P.F.” in P.F Chang’s, recently bought into the 10-unit Z’Tejas casual-dining chain.

Skip Sack, a veteran whose career stretches back to the heydays of Howard Johnson, controls a considerable packet of Applebee’s stock. He garnered a nice nest egg by selling his Applebee’s franchises—repeatedly the most profitable in the system—back to the parent company. Yet he’s developing a group of Irish pubs.

Abe Gustin, the one-time Applebee’s franchisee who ended up buying the brand from W.R. Grace and making it the biggest brand in casual dining, exited the chain with some franchise territory for his family.

Ned Grace, the founder of Capital Grille and Bugaboo Creek, is a backer of New England’s high-volume Not Your Average Joe’s chain.

Tom Russo, another Howard Johnson alumnus and onetime chairman of the British housewares giant Hanson Trust, still participates in industry events. Does anyone doubt he’ll show up atop a chain at some point.

Ditto for Michael Kaufman, the former head honcho of Steak and Ale and Bennigan’s parent Metromedia Restaurant Group.

What is it with these folks? They get in the industry, and then they can’t let go of it. Clearly there’s something that creeps into their system, turning them into lifers, regardless of whether they need the business or not. What is this strange infection—some might say avocation—that catches hold?

Best look at what “Nova” has scheduled for its new season.

First oil, now garbage and darkness?

Every day seems to bring another report of restaurant fryer oil being turned into bio-diesel fuel for trucks and cars. The Friendly’s chain, for instance, now uses its in-house distribution system for what may some day be a closed-loop system. Right now, the trucks deliver supplies to units, as per the usual. But instead of heading back to their garages with empty cargo bays, the vehicles pick up used oil from the stores and haul it to a recycling center. The fat is turned into fuel, which is then used to power the trucks, offsetting their need for conventional diesel.

Pundits have remarked that the process would quickly become an industry norm if a chain giant like McDonald’s added the used oil from its restaurants to the flow. That quantum leap in scale would make the reprocessing commonplace, along with the retrofitting of vehicles to burn the recovered oil. Suddenly, a quirky green cottage industry becomes a sizeable source of alternative fuel.

But McDonald’s seems to be channeling its petroleum-saving endeavors in another direction, judging from British news reports. Today, 11 McDonald’s units on the other side of the Atlantic reportedly started shipping their garbage to energy-generation plants instead of landfills. The trash will be burned to churn out electrical power for 130 buildings in their area, according to the local media. There’s already talk across the pond of rolling the program to every McD’s restaurant in the United Kingdom.

The initiative offers a double benefit: No McDonald’s trash flowing into landfills, and less fossil fuel firing the turbines of power plants.

McDonald’s is also experimenting in Britain with solar panels, wind-powered generators and new cardboard recycling programs, according to news reports. Some noted that the chain is largely blocked from recycling its waste because many centers won’t touch refuse that could be contaminated with food.

Meanwhile, new green ideas continue to be hatched here in the colonies, from operators big and small. The latest from the West Coast: A proposal in San Francisco to have restaurants join residences and other businesses in turning off all their lights between 8 and 9 p.m. on Oct. 20, or during the height of the Friday rush. Lights Out San Francisco is patterned after a one-hour blackout that was coordinated in Sydney, Australia during March. The voluntary effort was estimated to lesson carbon dioxide production by 24 tons.

Who's gonna make us?

Despite Rick Berman’s outstanding work as an industry Doberman, public-advocacy zealots are growing bolder in their attempts to bully the trade. Consider, for instance, the letter that was reportedly sent to Bill Allen, chief executive of Outback parent OSI Restaurant Partners Inc. Penned by an anti-abortion group called Life Decisions, the letter warned Allen that the various brands in his charge could be hit with a boycott if the company ever again made a donation to Planned Parenthood, according to a story in the St. Petersburg Times. Never mind that OSI’s lone dealing with Planned Parenthood, a group that champions contraception and family planning, was a “small” contribution by a single restaurant on the West Coast in 2005.

One restaurant, out of the 1,400 operated under OSI’s umbrella, making a single donation two years ago. The company hasn’t so much as advertised on a program that could be construed as pro-choice. Yet Life Decisions is threatening to steer customers away from the concern unless it does the group’s bidding.

The abortion debate is irrelevant to the matter. The issue is the attempt by a group with an avowed agenda to strong-arm a neutral company into acting in accordance with the advocate’s stance. Regardless of how anyone feels about abortion, that sort of bullying is just plain wrong.

To his credit, Allen apparently ignored the ultimatum. The Times reported that he called Life Decision’s bluff by not responding. He needs to stand firm against that sort of coercion, for the sake of reason as well as the independence of his company. It might just be a much-needed stroke of sanity for the whole industry.

Isn't it 9/11?

The calendar says that today is Sept. 11, but you wouldn't know it here in New York. Local newspapers gave the anniversary a minimum of attention, focusing on aspects like the controversy over where a commemoration for victims' families would be held, or an exhibition of photographs at a civic museum. It doesn't seem right that such a monumental development in the lives of all of us who were here on that day six years ago would go unremembered. So here's a one-person protest, in the form of my recollections. They start, curiously enough, with an Afghani in foodservice whites.

I'd come out of the subway in Greenwich Village, a decidedly non-corporate area of the city about a mile north of the World Trade Towers. As I stood at the window of a cart that sold coffee and breakfast pastries, I could see the sky just south of me filling with black smoke. It seemed to hover over New York University, where I'd gone to school and where I knew one of the science facilities had a nuclear science program. I figured it had blown up.

The guy inside the cart saw me looking. "A plane hit World Trade Sen-tair," he told me emphatically. "I see it!" I would learn later that he had come from Afghanistan to sling cruellers and muffins from a two-by-five cart five mornings a week, rain or shine, during heat wave or cold snap. The tip-off was the pro-American signs he'd post in his wagon after we invaded his homeland and some Americans got a little testy with any Muslim they encountered.

Figuring some dim-wit in a Cessna had flown too close to the Towers during a sight-seeing expedition, I grabbed my bagel and coffee and headed up to my office. By the time the elevator doors opened, the second airliner had hit. A colleague told me as I was walking onto a floor that normally would have been abuzz with editorial activity. The only sounds were the click-clacks of computer keyboards and telephone touch pads as we tried to get word about what was happening. We could see the burning towers outside our windows, but had no sense of the larger picture. The internet was jammed, phone systems—land-line and cell—were overloaded, and TV reception was already shaky (one of the city's main broadcast antennas was atop one of the towers).

A few of us managed to get a call through to loved ones in other parts of the country, who relayed what they were watching on TV. But one of our co-workers, a young woman who now works as a restaurant publicist, was unable to locate a brother who worked on Wall Street and lived across the street from the Trade Center. He would later be located, but his wife was missing until she was tracked down to a hospital bed. She'd been injured while walking their dog when the first tower collapsed.

Back at the office, we didn't know what to do. We had very little information, hordes of people covered in soot were marching up from Ground Zero, and we were still sketchy on the details. For instance, some of our telephone contacts said that other planes were still in the air and authorities thought they may be part of the attack.

We'd have gone home, but the city was virtually quarantined by that point. No train service in or out, all vehicular traffic across the bridges was stopped, and you couldn't even walk across most of them. Sirens were wailing, and National Guardsmen were out in full combat gear, with police vehicles zooming through the streets. And we were stuck right in the middle of it.

Knowing that my wife worked across the street from Madison Square Garden and down the street from the Empire State Building—two likely targets if another attack came—I tried to coax her to leave her office and meet me for lunch, as far from any landmark as I could get. We agreed to meet in a park midway between us.

The streets were packed with people marching up from the World Trade Center, looking like ghosts because of the soot. Yet no one spoke. It was quieter than church until suddenly we all stopped and looked skyward, where a plane was clearly visible. By that time, we knew all commercial aircraft had been ordered out of the sky. Was this plane heading toward another building in the city?

"It's okay," someone shouted. "It's a fighter plane." The whole crowd, thousands of us, broke into nervous laughter. Then someone said in a pained voice, "But is it one of ours?" Suddenly, the silence resumed.

But it proved not to be a peril, so the silent trek resumed. I met my wife and tried to get into one of the few restaurants near the park that was open. Most never fired up their fryers and ovens because deliveries had been turned back at the city's borders, and workers couldn't get into Manhattan because the subways and buses were grounded.

This was a hotel restaurant, and it was doing gangbuster business. It just didn't want ours. "We're only serving guests, since we don't know when we're going to get another delivery," the host brusquely informed us.

So off we trekked, to my wife's office. She knew that someone at her company had scored a few pizzas. The concern had set up a relief center in its boardroom, with soft drinks and the pizza. Most amazingly of all, it had good TV reception. We decided to camp out there, in part because we could peer across the street at Penn Station, where we'd be catching a train if they ever started running again.

Her company, Thomson Financial, had a satellite office down at the World Trade Center. Without telephone service, no one at the midtown office knew how the people at the Center had fared. But as we were eating, they started showing up one by one. No one had known if they were alive or not, so the reunions were tearful ones. Each person arriving would be pumped with information about who else they'd seen either leaving the office or walking uptown. Some people already knew that colleagues from Thomson's Boston headquarters had been on one of the flights that struck a tower. And my wife knew that a competing company was holding a conference that morning in Windows on the World, the restaurant atop one of the Towers. We assumed that everyone there would be gone.

In total, the company lost eight people. It would make a large donation to one of the recovery funds, a fact that still fills my wife with pride.

Our train line started running again in mid-afternoon, after Penn Station was cleared by a bomb scare. By then we knew about the crash of the plane in Pennsylvania, and were pretty sure that no other craft were in the air. But we knew that life would never be quite the same again.

Six years later, we all know how true that intuition was.

Sorry to meander off on a personal reminiscence that has little to do with foodservice. But for the sake of the 74 Windows on the World employees who died that morning, it seems important to remember that day. And I plan to do it every Sept. 11 for as long as I live.

Must-flee TV

With the new television season about to begin, this is a perfect time to look at the programming additions that are sure to be a hit with restaurateurs, given some of the recent developments in their business. Here are our picks from the new fall line-up.

Catch that Alien! Thwarted from forcing restaurants and other employers to fire immigrants who may be using a bogus Social Security number, the federal government came up with this new reality show. Employers are awarded points for the illegal immigrants they turn over to the authorities, with the top vigilante bagging a free trip to Mexico. Participants get 50 credits for the deportation of an immigrant employee who’s been with them for at least five years, 30 credits for a head of household, and 20 for someone who’s sure to face abject poverty back home. Any score over 100 entitles the contestant to a free weekend at Lou Dobbs’ home. But, true to the program that a San Francisco court thwarted some 10 days ago, employers who refuse to play are fined $10,000 for each illegally residing employee they fail to bust. There was a movement to call the program the No Match Game, after the letters that would have been sent to employees with a directive to fire staffers with bogus Social Security information. But that title is being used for a new game show where participants point out where the country has veered from its heritage.

Ken Burns’ Celebrity Restaurateur A 30,000-episode series on the restaurant business’ irresistible attraction for film, television and recording stars. Then again, the latest convert, Nick Lachey, doesn’t exactly fit any of those classifications. Neither does his partner, Nicky Hilton, whose claim to fame is being the younger sister of Paris Hilton. Whose achievements, in turn, include being born into wealth and starring in an online sex video. Lachey, in case you don’t regularly visit TMZ.com, BANG or other rivals to TheEconomist.com, is the ex-husband of Jessica Simpson, the legendary successor to such songstresses as Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland. The restaurant, to open in Las Vegas’ Luxor casino-hotel, will be an American-style place called Company American Bistro, according to US magazine. With the debut, Lachey would join a long, long list of celebrities who have given the industry a try, from Justin Timberlake to Minnie Pearl, Ron Wood, Johnny Carson, Mickey Rooney and Muhammed Ali. Each installment of this new PBS blockbuster will open with a shot of James Dean’s crushed Spider sports car, to symbolize the success of most ventures to date.

The Drive-thru Volleys Fed up with the web-fueled prank of hurling drinks and other missiles at drive-thru window staffers, restaurant chains fight back in this new program, whose episodes will also be posted regularly on YouTube. Staffers will be provided with tennis racquets to volley the drinks back at pranksters in their cars, with a video camera recording it all for the yucks of web surfers with far, far too much time on their hands. The defense is a reaction to the craze that has cited in this space before, called Fire in the Hole. It’s presently the height of hilarity for drive-thru customers to throw the contents of an open drink through the window to douse the employee on the other side, while someone else in the car videos the escapade on a cell phone for posting on the internet. The customers yell, “Fire in the hole!” and speed away with the rest of their order. Recent news reports suggest that some of the Einsteins who have embraced the prank are going farther afield in what they throw. Last week, for example, a snake was reportedly thrown through the window of a Taco Bell in Mississippi, though some stories quoted the unit’s manager as saying the snake entered the restaurant through other means. The incident drew the attention of writer Dave Barry, blogger Ariana Huffington and late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien. No wonder that it’ll be airing on O’Brien’s network, NBC.

What hath Harry Caray wrought?

If you want to catch a game at Wrigley Field during next year's NRA show, start sucking up to indie-group operator Rich Melman, sports concessionaire Larry Levy or McDonald's chairman Andrew McKenna. The three are part of the thick-walleted investment crew that Chicago media have tagged as the lead bidder for the city's beloved Cubs.

The group is led by John Canning, chairman of the private-equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners, itself no stranger to the restaurant industry. Long before the current wave of private-equity-financed restaurant acquisitions, Madison Dearborn was active in the field, with investments in Ruth's Chris, Burger King franchisee Carrols Corp. and the Peter Piper Pizza chain.

Of course, the group isn't the only suitor for the team, which is narrowly holding on to first place in its division. Among the other reported tire-kickers is Mark Cuban, the one-time Dairy Queen employee who is perhaps a tad better known as owner of the Dallas Mavericks. The bad boy of sports moguls did time at a DQ unit after shooting off his mouth about an NBA ref. Cuban publicly remarked that he wouldn't hire the guy to manage a Dairy Queen. The quip cost him $500,000 in fines from the league, and Cuban decided to make nice with the working world by spending 90 minutes behind the counter of a DQ unit in Texas.

But even before he added swirls to soft-serve cones, Cuban was no stranger to the restaurant business. A former partner is Jeffrey Yarbrough, the Dallas restaurateur and one-time president of the Texas Restaurant Association.

And lest you think the restaurant industry is unrepresented on the other side of the deal table, consider that the pending Cubs sale is part of a larger transaction for current owner Tribune co., publisher of Chicago's namesake newspaper. While divesting the team, the media concern is in the process of being sold itself for $8.2 billion to Sam Zell, who made more than a few of the dollars in his considerable real estate fortune by serving as a landlord for Melman.

An Open Letter to Leona Helmsley's Dog

Dear Scruffy, Wiggles or whatever cutesy name they've etched on your Hermes collar,

Actually, I've just been informed by my dog—my male, SINGLE dog—that your true name is Trouble. Oh, that Leona! What a card.

Anyways, I'm writing for two reasons. First, I realize the celebrity canine circuit must be a lonely place, even for a knockout single bee-atch like yourself. If only I knew a male, SINGLE dog who enjoyed long walks on the beach, cuddling in front of the TV, and co-gnawing the occasional rawhide treat. I'll have to give that some thought.

But the more important matter is where you might be spending the $12 million that Leona left you in her will. Oh, sure, you could burn through it with some hunky mastiff in Paris or Milan. But why not employ it for the betterment of restaurants in Chicago, not to mention pooches everywhere?

Your former mistress may have sniffed at the notion of opening hotels there, but Chicago is a very progressive restaurant town. Now it's debating whether to take the highly charged step of allowing dogs to sit with their masters in outdoor dining areas.

I have to tell you, Muffin, that this is the polarizing issue of our day. Indeed, even we here at NRN are split on the topic. During a recent conference call, one of our Chicagoans brought up the proposal with a tinge of amusement in his voice. How, he asked, could there be any dispute over a matter this black-and-white? He then reeled off his preference for keeping dogs away from any place where food is served, be it al fresco or at a chef's table. The damned puppy kicker.

Those of use who have dogs—did I mention my male, single pal?—were of course aghast. Imagine, objecting to a tableside setter because a hair or two could conceivably waft its way to a neighbor's plate if wind patterns were right. Or some dowager could pull her spoiled Maltese out of a carrier and plop it on the very table you'll be occupying next. Pffft. As if any true animal lover would be put off by such things. We know our dogs are probably more hygienic than their owners, not to mention most of the two-legged population.

And yet the controversy rages, in Chicago and plenty of other places. Clearly the movement to open cafes to canines is gaining steam.

Opponents should learn from Florida, whose legislature passed a measure in 2006 that allowed jurisdictions to open outdoor dining areas to dogs by amending the local sanitation code. The state has yet to be plagued by excessive slobber, much less rabies or distemper.

So I think you need to get out there, Mittens, with checkbook in hand. Do what's necessary to let restaurants decide if they want a Pekinese among the people.

Of course, you probably would appreciate some companionship. Did I mention my male, utterly marriageable canine companion?

The No. 1 reason to fear a Letterman mention

Having your brand mentioned on David Letterman's show is usually a marketer's equivalent to winning the lottery. But Jamba Juice may have a different valuation after being discussed at length during a broadcast aired last week and preserved on countless digital recorders, including mine.

All initially went well, with Dave lauding the chain's smoothies and acknowledging that he's an enthusiastic customer. He also noted how much you get for your money, vertically spreading his hands by at least a foot in an exaggeration of the serving size. And that's when the plug "gunny-sacked," to use his synonym for a train wreck.

The problem, he quipped to sidekick Paul Schaffer, was a tendency to suck it all down. It'll bloat you up like a Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, he asserted, noting that he'd already cut down his usual order from two cups to one.

Within minutes, Letterman was suggesting the chain change its name to Jamba Bloat, and recommended that it print an alert on its cups: "Warning, could cause bloating."

His discomfort became a running gag during the show, leading to the exclamation at one point that his liver was being shoved against his pancreas. He also took to chanting "Jamba" to Tina Fey, his first guest, as she described a noxious-looking and nauseating potion that she quaffed daily as an energy potion.

There is no such thing as bad publicity, according to the old adage. But the performance was a veritable Top 10 List of why that maxim should bear an asterisk.

McDonald's and nudity

Yesterday brought two interesting headlines: McDonald’s spent almost $170,000 during the first half of 2007 on national-level lobbying, and Brattleboro, Vt., voted to legalize public nudity. But why waste time on the ho-hum? Let’s talk McDonald’s.

Because it’s the news about McDonald’s that’s really scintillating. Once upon a time, the burger giant was cursed by other restaurateurs for not adding its powerful name to high-profile campaigns against detrimental governmental measures, like federal wage hikes. Ray Kroc had famously remarked that if he saw a competitor drowning, he’d stick a hose in the lout’s mouth. Why abandon that mindset for a common defense? Instead of joining competitors on the ramparts, McDonald’s fought behind the scenes or on its own, if it joined an industrywide campaign at all.

Now, the Associated Press reported, just the home office is spending at the rate of $340,000 a year—huge money by lobbying standards—to shape federal regulations on menu labeling, immigration and food safety, among other issues. Some franchisees probably add to that sum with their own contributions to political action committees and other government-related causes.

The A.P. story was based on a regulatory filing. Similar disclosures are probably submitted as a standard procedure by powerhouses like Yum! Brands, Darden or OSI. And yet the news service treated the McDonald’s filing as a revelation.

Which, of course, leads us to the Vermont situation. A news brief about the Brattleboro’s new briefs-optional statute appeared in no less of an institution than The New York Times. Curiously, the same edition also carried a story about efforts elsewhere to permit the arrest of individuals who are inappropriately interested in the public show of flesh, such as when a woman in a skirt walks up a staircase.

I don’t think those two developments are contradictory, since the latter is intended to provide a legal basis for cracking down on true peeping toms. But some libertarians might believe so.

But I do think it’s significant the newswires were filled with tidbits about immigration and public-health proposals on the same day the A.P. reported solely on McDonald’s attempts to factor the industry’s interests into those discussions.

The burger giant may have been slow in assuming the industry’s standard, but it certainly seems to be leading the charge today.

Swallowing some strong medicine

The realization might not have sunk in yet, but the industry learned last week that it’s heading toward universal paid sick-leave, with the mandate likely to come from health officials rather than lawmakers. It’s my prediction that the grease on the skids will be the formation of new government-regulated funding pools, a la unemployment insurance, to pay for it. It’s an expense the industry shouldn’t oppose until it considers the alternatives, which could change the industry’s fortunes far more profoundly.

The catalyst is new research that redefines how long a restaurant employee may be able to pass along norovirus, the leading cause of food-borne illness, to co-workers and guests. The convention in the trade right now is to keep workers out of the dining room or kitchen if they’re vomiting or suffering from diarrhea, a short stretch when they’re virtually walking Petri dishes for the gastroenteritis-causing microbe. In keeping with model practices, the staffers are usually benched for an additional two days to ensure they’re past the infectious stage.

But a study from Emory University viral expert Christine Moe has determined that the workers actually pose a significant contamination risk for five weeks longer. The results were revealed at last week’ Viruses conference, the subject of an earlier posting here.

The day after Moe dropped jaws with her finding, the Food & Drug Administration’s Alan Tart showed the audience what that could mean for the industry. The employees are still a contamination risk because they “shed” the norovirus, or excrete it in their stool. One gram of that feces contains about 10 million norovirus particles. If an employee had that tiny amount of residue on his hands after using the bathroom, and scrubbed them like crazy, science has shown that 10,000 of the organism will still likely make it into the place’s food. With only 10 viruses needed to infect someone, 1,000 patrons could be sickened.

One thousand people spreading the word that they got sick in that establishment. One thousand potential lawsuits, perhaps suing not only for damages to themselves but their families, since they, too, would shed the norovirus and pose a contamination risk. One thousand chances of destroying a business.

The ironclad solution, of course, would be to keep employees out of work for the 20 to 35 additional days that they’d be shedding the pathogen. But even Moe, a person outside the industry, could spot the problem of that approach. “You can’t ask someone to forego work and pay for that stretch,” she commented. “I don’t see a way of getting around having someone with the virus come back into the kitchen.”

But if they could stay home and still get paid? A possible solution, or at least a possible one in the eyes of health officials and politicians hoping to look tough on public-safety matters. Lest you doubt it, restaurant-labor representatives in New York City have already used that safety argument to call for universal paid sick leave. It was also raised in San Francisco, where a paid sick-leave mandate has already been passed through a ballot referendum.

And, remember, we’re in the area of Law by Health Official Decree, which has given us the recent rash of trans-fat bans and menu-labeling mandates. If they can say, “No more trans fat because it’s a health issue,” why can’t they say, “Pay your employees to stay home because of the health risk it averts.”

Curiously, in some give and take with other speakers, Moe raised the possibility of cooperative solutions. She was speaking about the use of nurses to determine if workers who profess to be sick should actually be kept out of work that day. She raised the notion of a third-party service, to which restaurant operators could refer their employees, instead of having to play health professional and make the work-or-no-work decision themselves.

But her notion could be applicable to paid sick leave. If operators contributed on a per-paycheck basis into a pool, with the fund tapped to pay an employee who has to be out of work for a stretch because of a norovirus infection, the financial impact could be greatly lessened. Indeed, even with the added expense of paying into the fund, that approach would be much more practical than grappling with the problem alone. That’s especially true when you consider that 23 million Americans suffer norovirus-induced gastroenteritis every year, and about 9 million of them contract it from a restaurant. Clearly there’s a lot of norovirus in the industry.

But the industry has to find a way of eradicating it without making all of its members sick, including restaurant owners.

Reason to feel a little queasy

Sitting here at an industry conference on viruses, I need to dispense with the myths first. No, we’re not all wearing face masks and gloves, and, yes, people do shake hands. No one decides what to take from the breakfast buffet by watching what the germ experts eat, and I’ve not seen a single swab dragged across a surface. Indeed, a passer-by wouldn’t suspect the gathering was devoted to restaurant viruses if it weren’t for the obvious shivering and cold sweats of one participant. That, unfortunately, would be me.

Hey, I understand that viruses have their place in the biological world. I just wish that place wasn’t increasingly a restaurant. As one speaker put it during the first-of-its-kind conference, “last winter was an enormous winter” for the sub-microscopic bugs, and a variant called the norovirus in particular. Its success in contaminating restaurants at the tail end of 2006 is “probably why you’re having this meeting,” Jan Vinje of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention remarked to the audience of restaurateurs, suppliers and regulators.

He noted that 18 states recorded increases in food-related norovirus outbreaks during 2006, many by factors of several hundred percent.

He and others noted that norovirus is already the leading cause of food-borne illness, with restaurants and delis figuring by far as the major source of the outbreaks. The industry has been implicated in 41 percent of the situations, far ahead of the home kitchen. Clearly viruses, and norovirus in particular, are emerging as a major threat to the nation’s eating places, if not the safety threat that trumps all others.

The march of the pathogen is scary, but what had me hyperventilating into a paper bag is the difficulty of beating the bug. Research presented at the conference, straightforwardly knighted Viruses, showed that a type of norovirus can survive on kitchens and baths for three to six weeks after a contamination.

Even worse, Christine Moe of Emory University revealed that restaurant employees infected with norovirus can stop showing symptoms long before they cease “shedding” the virus, or excreting large amounts of it in their feces. Typically a worker sickened by the virus is allowed to return to the job two or three days after the symptoms disappear, on the assumption they’re no longer infectious. In reality, Moe indicated, the danger to other employees or guests could persist for weeks. A person shedding the virus is just an inadvertent touch away from infecting others.

As she noted, that raises tough questions about restaurants’ sick-leave policies. You can’t keep an employee from earning a wage for several weeks at a stretch because they were sickened by a virus. But how do you protect guests and other employees from being infected if the carrier resumes the job?

The solution, Moe stressed, is aggressive handwashing and glove wear. But as another speaker pointed out, that’s easier said than done. A recent study looked at how often food handlers should be washing their hands to avert the safety risks they routinely encounter. It adjudged that average at 8.6 times per hour per employee, recounted Carol Selman of the CDC. “I tried it myself,” she explained, acknowledging that she had to stop because the eight-times-an-hour pace chapped her hands.

Day One provided plenty of bracing moments, but was light on solutions. Speakers noted that work on a norovirus vaccine is just beginning, and pointed out that laboratories had just recently discovered how to “culture” a version that could be used for research. Nor is there a simple, quick test to determine if a person suffering from flu-like symptoms is indeed infected with norovirus. Five states can’t even do the testing through more elaborate means.

So what’s the solution? Hopefully I’ll find out tomorrow, when the focus shifts to defense against viruses.

Another health breakthrough

Health enthusiasts can now munch a fried Twinkie at the Indiana State Fair without having to fret about what kind of oil was used to cook it. Organizers say the event, underway as of Wednesday, is the first state fair in the nation to outlaw the use of trans-fat fryer oil. Funnel cakes, zeppolis, corn fritters, corn dogs —all are being cooked in fats other than the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils that infuse trans fats into fried food.

Of course, the requirement has yet to transform deep-fried Snickers into the equivalent of a side salad. As one local story noted, your average funnel cake packs 760 calories and 44 grams of fat.

Three days into the Indiana festival, organizers have yet to predict if they’ve started a trend with their ban. Or, for that matter, if anyone has really noticed as they wolf down a corn dog and fries.

Dolts at the drive-thru

This is what we get for letting boneheads drive. Carloads of them are rolling up to drive-thru windows across the country to pull off the latest breakthrough in jackass humor, which requires inflicting harm on the staffer who hands them their order. The driver takes a drink from the employee, yanks off the cover, and then hurls the cup’s contents back at the worker, yelling, “Fire in the hole!” And all while someone else in the car videotapes the antics on a cell phone for posting later on YouTube or a similar website.

There are more malicious variations, too, where you hurl a whole drink—cup, cover and all—as if it were a cannonball. News reports also cite instances where the jokesters in the car fling liquids they bring with them, like Bloody Mary mix, so it burns the staffer’s eyes.

There’s always that knucklehead who takes delight in harming any victim he can bully. But this not-so-harmless prank seems to be going mainstream. It also appears to be spreading from one region to another, fanned by the internet. A Google search not only turned up ample examples of videos available right now for viewing, but also some favorable discussion of the craze on message boards.

It’s not surprising that law-enforcement authorities in Pittsburgh are warning local drive-thru workers to be on the alert for fire-in-the-hole antics. News reports say the craze has just caught on there, prompting the police to crackdown on the pranksters.

Presumably it’d be easy to identify who they are. When you have a buddy tape your infraction and post it on a website visited by millions of people, chances are high that the authorities could generate a description or that someone might recognize you.

Criminal masterminds they’re not. But plenty of other intelligence-related descriptors come to mind.

Letter fly

This is a bad time to be a postman with an undervalued restaurant company on your route. Letter writing is supposedly a dying art, but activist shareholders apparently haven't followed the rest of the world in abandoning the quill for e-mail. As this week clearly showed, they're sticking with the pen-and-paper mode of communicating with the companies they badger. Monday and Tuesday brought the sort of missives you'd expect to consist of words cut from a newspaper and Scotched Taped together. It's amazing that the notes from Luby's and Wendy's frustrated investors didn't singe their envelopes.

The letter to Wendy's, of course, came from Nelson Peltz, who's emerging as one of the industry's most prolific correspondents. Just a few weeks ago, he sent Wendy's chairman Jim Pickett a mash note about how their respective restaurant companies were made for one another—a "natural," Peltz wrote. The company that operates his Arby's business is the logical suitor for a chain of Wendy's breeding, style and physical attributes. Why not foster a marriage by facilitating an acquisition by Peltz?

Oh, and by the way, he added: Deal with us or we might consider alternative means of adding you to the family. A hostile takeover, perhaps?

Peltz dipped his pen into the inkwell again this week to let Pickett know he's ready to push matters forward. Peltz said he had a purchase price in mind that should fall between $3.2 billion and $3.5 billion. If, that is, Wendy's would stop trying to hush-hush Peltz's Triarc Cos. with confidentiality agreements. Peltz is a man who apparently likes to have his intentions known. Small wonder that his letter to Pickett was included in a securities filing, where it could be seen by every major business medium in the country. And, indeed, most of them gave it prime coverage.

That might make Jeffrey C. Smith feel like a kid whose birthday falls on Christmas. On Monday, he sent a letter to Luby's CEO Chris Pappas that should have had Peltz shouting, "Bravo!" Smith, a partner with the New York investment concern Ramius Capital Group, told Pappas that Luby's should consider selling itself, or at least peddling its real estate and passing some of the proceeds along to shareholders.

Smith also let Luby's know that Ramius didn't appreciate the second jobs Pappas and his brother hold at their privately owned company, Pappas Restaurants. Chris serves the 70-plus-retaurant operation as COO, while his brother Harris holds the CEO's post. How can they focus on running Luby's when they're moonlighting?

What's more, Smith wrote, several of Luby's executives and directors also work a second job at Pappas Restaurants. Sounds like a conflict of interest to us, snipped Smith.

It was the sort of aggressive, pointed communication that Peltz probably fires off all the time to noisy neighbors or businesses that leave him displeased. And, like Peltz's missive, the Ramius letter complemented a securities filing. It was also touted in a press release. On any other day, it would have been a M-80 of an attention-getter. But, coming on the same day as the more prominent gadfly's scolding, it seemed more like a cap pistol.

Of course, the correspondence between invest-ee and investor isn't over for either letter writer. We can also expect more noteworthy pen work from activists like Sadar Biglari, whose letter to shareholders earlier this year is a classic.

Which makes you wonder if postmen communicate amongst themselves about what they're lugging to the CEO's office.

"Another Peltz special?" one might ask a colleague holding a smoking letter.

"Yep."

"Wanna borrow the asbestos pouch again?"

Stuck in neutral on idling?

This is what I get for buying Harry Potter gear from Taiwan. The damned crystal ball keeps flashing “Danger!” as it hazily depicts a gas pump. Even the Skipper and Gilligan must know by now that rising fuel prices have doubly cursed restaurants, leaving customers with less money to spend in the dining room while driving up the price of supplies at the back door. So clearly the ball's foresight function must need an adjustment. But the gas-related problem it’s predicting for restaurants—a dire one indeed—seems vividly real. Sort of like a car wreck.

Indeed, the possibility seems to glow a little brighter with every war report from the Middle East or each scary prognostication from Al Gore. It’s showing what I could swear are people laying across a restaurant drive-thru lane, stopping business as they yell at patrons to stop polluting the environment and maintaining our dependence on foreign oil. Waiting in a car, they’re screaming, is no way to be served at a restaurant. They obviously don’t appreciate that fast feeders generate more than half their business through a pick-up window.

It’d be easy to dismiss the critics as crazies, or at least zealots, if it weren’t for all the information that’s flowing on the internet right now about car idling, the new bugaboo for a nation wincing at the prospect of global warming as it simultaneously yelps about paying $60 to tank up the Camry. Message boards, blogs and sites are filled with calls for curbing car idling, an echo of the successful efforts in recent years to keep trucks from sitting stationary with the engine running. Many expressly cite restaurant drive-thrus as a fuel-conservation opportunity waiting to be realized.

And those advocates are hardly fringe elements. Consider this advisory: “Try parking your car and going into restaurants, banks, and the like instead of idling in drive-up lanes.” It comes from the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, though you’ll find it echoed in the recommendations of New Hampshire regulatory groups and plenty of other parties.

One posting indicated that 11 Canadian cities have already considered legislation that would prohibit cars from idling for more than three minutes.

The proposals would not outlaw drive-thrus outright, since patrons could conceivably shut down and start their cars and then restart them as they moved up in line. But certainly the convenience of that service mode would be tempered. Ditto for parking and going inside a restaurant instead of waiting in a queue of cars. Without the convenience of the drive-thru, might some time-harried patrons skip a quick-service place altogether?

Santa Cruz, Calif., reportedly banned restaurant drive-thrus years ago. But the present chatter on the internet does not cite a town, city or county that is currently considering car-idling limits.

Yet the momentum is clearly building, as the yakking about the prospect continues to grow louder on the internet.

Which brings me back to my crystal ball, as flawed as it is. I’m hoping it can show me that magical moment when the restaurant industry will start talking about the matter, or at least about how it plans to cope.

Take note, Bob Evans Farms

Relations between a diner and its accountant may not be sweetened by the old timer who parks himself on a counter stool all day, nursing a bottomless cup of coffee. But the experience is doing wonders for the customer's social wellbeing, according to a report from the clipboard-and-white-coat set. The scientific study found that seniors who lose a loved one or otherwise suffer a social disconnection often get the tea and sympathy they need from a local diner's staff and clientele.

In effect, concluded researchers from Northern Illinois and Arizona State Universities, the corner joint becomes the elderly person's social network. The researchers calculated that a regularly frequented diner provides 30 percent of the companionship needed by someone who retires or sees his or her children move away. If the person should be lose a spouse, the percentage jumps to 58 percent. "Clearly, your body doesn't care whether it obtains companionship from co-workers or from diner cronies," said Mark Rosenbaum, who wrote the study.

The information was gathered during observations of the regulators who frequented an unidentified diner in Chicago.

A pothole on the information superhighway

Life as you know it may be coming to an end, a result of the fallout from a new employment website that's certain to be copycatted. Tablesetter.com intends to do for waiters and waitresses what the internet has already done for car shoppers: Negate the come-ons and promises by revealing what kind of deals they can really expect from various places in the market, based on the real-life experiences of those who've preceded them.

The site compiles what servers say they've made in salary and tips at restaurants in their cities, with the information arrayed by experience level. Someone looking for a waitstaff job in New York will learn that rookie servers reported pocketing $845 a week at Spice Market, Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Asian restaurant in the Meatpacking District, while newcomers said they pulled down more than $1,000 a week at not-so-far-away Perry Street.

The information will undoubtedly steer job hunters to one place versus another, and that may cost you some applicants. But even worse is the chance that one of your veteran servers may learn he or she could make a bundle more by just popping down to that place a few blocks over. Veteran waiters and waitresses said they made $876 per seven-day cycle at the venerable Keane's Steakhouse. Their counterparts at Angelo & Maxie's, a steakhouse within walking distance, collected $951 in the same timeframe, or about $4,000 more per year.

The underlying concept is the same as the notion behind any number of car-buying websites, where shoppers can learn what earlier seekers of the same models ended up actually paying, or what rates are being offered by dealerships across the nation, as posted by the retailers themselves.

Tablesetter.com offers the info for bartenders as well as servers. Job holders in eight cities are invited to reveal what they made in those various locations, though the listing for New York places is by far the most robust.

If the site catches on and competitors follow its lead, the industry can expect to see the same sort of empowerment that is enjoyed by online shoppers for any number of goods or services, from insurance to mortgages. And that's not likely to be a good development for restaurants trying to keep a full employment roster.

When Canadian maniacs go trans-fat-free

The tactic might’ve been shrugged off as an oddity of the international market, like serving squid burgers or charging Morton’s prices for fast-food staples, if it wasn’t for the asterisk. But KFC’s Priszm franchisee operates in Canada, the United States’ fraternal twin in terms of culture. And the blunder is hardly alien to the Kentucky-based chain’s domestic operations, which made a similar move about three months ago. Now the U.S. home office can only hope for better long-term results in the motherland.

Because Priszm’s, as the operator acknowledged on Thursday, were discouraging indeed. The company posted a net loss of $1.9 million on a 4.2 percent sales decline. The results reflected the performance of the company’s 484 restaurants, including its Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Long John Silver’s franchises. Yet the analysis centered on Priszm’s KFC holdings and the marketing tactic that president and chief operating officer Jeff O’Neil admitted pursuing “maniacally.”

For most of the second quarter, he and his team had trumpeted the chicken restaurants’ switch to trans-fat-free Canola oil, “to the detriment of everything else,” O’Neil reportedly said in a conference call with investors. “Our promotion did not gain the traction we hoped it would.”

No doubt those hopes are shared by KFC’s domestic operation. Like Priszm, it, too, decided to crow about changing the oil in its deep fryers to a variation with zero grams of trans fat. Around May 1, it started advertising the switch via television commercials and print spots, using the tagline, “The Bucket’s Back.” The ads were apparently intended to draw patrons who may have been put off by an unhealthy impression of the chain’s signature fried chicken.

“This gives us the ability to break through the clutter,” James O’Reilly, KFC’s chief marketing officer, told Nation’s Restaurant News marketing editor and fellow blogger Gregg Cebrzynski. “We have a very powerful message for consumers. When they see that message, they’ll think positively about the brand.”

He made no indication about pursuing the tactic maniacally, however.

KFC’s parent, Yum! Brands, has already posted results for the quarter in which the ads began, though the reporting period ended only six weeks after the campaign started. The company didn’t specify how KFC stores fared, but it noted that the comp sales for all its brands, considered as one operation, were flat.

KFC is the only one of Yum’s five North American brands that has advertised a change in its oil.

Turnng the tables on pesky customers

A newspaper’s recount of a bad restaurant experience is news of the dog-bites-man variety. But a critique of restaurant patrons’ behavior? That’s Britney Spears gnawing on the leg of Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua, with Michael Jackson holding the leash. Clearly The Scoop would be remiss if it didn’t note the 2,000-word roundup this week in The Dallas Morning News of restaurant employees’ pet peeves about customers.

The report was a counterpoint to a March Herald story on the little things about restaurants that irk consumers. Then, as with Wednesday’s article, the report was based on first-hand experiences of the aggrieved parties.

Joyce Saenz Harris, the author of the Wednesday’s article, noted that the March story drew 500 responses from readers. The run-down of server and manager’s gripes will probably draw more objections, even though many of the complaints were the same as the ones voiced by patrons. Server and serve-ee both loath parents who let their wolf pups tear through the dining room like a starved pack in a clearing filled with gazelles.

Ironically, patrons were just as likely as restaurant personnel to complain about boorish patrons; the ones who spend the meal on a cell phone were particularly likely to be regarded as snakes by both camps.

But restaurant professionals did cite some curses that are peculiar to their side of the table. Like getting stiffed routinely by customers who either don’t know how to tip—they leave a flat rate like $5, regardless of the bill—or are quick to rescind it for the slightest infraction, like forgetting the third refill of an iced tea for one person in a party of 12.

Ramon Infante, a former waiter at Dallas’ Old Warsaw restaurant, recounted how he’d lost take-home money several times to wives who held back after a family vacated a table and then took a few of the dollars their husbands had left as tips.

In particular, Harris noted, servers are “unhappy with campers,” as her article put it. Several noted how parties would camp out at a table for the equivalent of several table turns, and then tip as if they’d eaten expeditiously. “Customers should realize that each table is only as valuable as the amount of time a server turns it over,” noted Monica Newbury, a manager at Sali’s Pizza.

Reservation no-shows were also blasted.

You can check out Harris’ article at the Morning News and consider the solution she puts forth, for aggrieved patron and restaurant employee alike: “Treat other people the way you would like to be treated,” she writes.

'Oh, yeah? Well, we proved it.'

Eskimos supposedly have twelve gazillion words for snow, but that's nothing compared with the industry's arsenal of ways to say "NO!" to governmental meddling. The list of Defenses Against the Dark Political Arts starts with an uh-uh, and progresses to the neutron bomb of counter attacks, "It'll cost jobs."

It's not that the restaurant industry is incorrect or unjust in trying to stop legislative or regulatory measures that hurt the business. But, as has been suggested here in recent postings, the impact of the protests may have been weakened by overuse. That's why the Washington Restaurant Association deserves the Albus Dumbledore Award for its hex against a county’s effort to mandate menu labeling by chain restaurants.

Without saying a thing to adversary or ally, the association ran an online ad for someone willing to eat three meals a day in a restaurant for a month. Definitely good work if you can get it, since the offer came with a per-diem of $40 and a stipend of $700. It's as close as real life comes to Li'l Abner's job of testing mattresses.

Not surprisingly, the WRA found a taker, a 25-year-old grad student named Jarred Lathrop, who, in keeping with the times, blogged his experiences of eating in a restaurant three times a day. The WRA hoped to prove that posting nutritional information isn't a necessity for eating healthfully in chain restaurants. All that's needed to avert weight gain, it seemed to suggest, is common sense, a reasonable amount of will power, and a willingness to ask for clarification on nutritional matters.

And it looks as if the association made its point. When the month- long experiment ended last week, Jarred had shed five pounds, a half-inch of waistline, and a number of points off his blood-pressure reading.

In fairness, it should be noted that Jarred did put some effort into eating right. As his blog explains, he asked for dressing on the side, and sometimes requested that half his meal be packaged for take-home, which cut his consumption at the table in half.

It was a creative way of proving to skeptics that consumers with anything but a flatline EEG should be able to plot a healthful diet with the amount of information that’s usually posted on menus. With menu-labeling mandates proliferating like campaign promises, the WRA’s lobbying tactic may be worthy of emulation.

Greetings from the Seventh Circle

Other patrons seem disturbed by the camouflage face paint, but it's life during wartime here on the East Coast, people. They're patiently waiting to order their fries and burgers in total oblivion to the industry's pitched struggle against disaster and ruin. But I'm outfitted accordingly. This, after all, is Week One of the unimaginable, the insufferable, the Worst Case Scenario on a Barry Bonds vitamin regimen. We're talking the post-apocalyptic era of the trans-fat ban, coupled with the Armageddon of mandated health care.

In case you didn't feel the earth tremble, both went into effect at the start of the week—the ban in New York City on July 1, the health care mandate in Massachusetts a day later. It'd be like Mothra and Godzilla dropping their differences to terrorize in tandem. Two of the industry's most-feared developments, actually becoming a reality. The bogeyman has crawled out from under the bed and taken a seat at the dinner table.

So what does Hell look like? To be honest with you, not a lot different from what it looked like before near-annihilation. Walk past the various restaurants here in New York and you hear nary a peep, from inside or out. Just a lot of people pointing to the guy in camouflage paint, wondering if it’s a new fashion.

It's such a non-event that my wife looked blankly at me when I anxiously observed that Doom had sauntered into town. "Didn't that happen a few months ago?" she asked. The philistine. And this from someone who prides herself on keeping up on current events.

Then again, D-Day seemed little noticed by restaurateurs, either, judging from recent peeks inside all kinds of places. Most seemed to have used the long lead time—more than six months, from regulation to enactment—to be ready for the switch-over. It might have been tough at first, as many operators attested as they searched out alternative frying oils that wouldn't be a financial heart-stopper. But that pain seems to have been felt long ago. Now, if anything, it looks like business as usual.

I can't say from personal observation if that's the situation in Massachusetts, but the media coverage suggests it is. If, that is, you manage to google-hit one of the few stories on the situation there. As a newsmaker, it's right up there with a cat encounter for Paris Hilton's dog, or rumors of a Wham! reunion.

Perhaps that's because much of the state, including its restaurant industry, seemed in favor of the measure. It was seen by many as the least of all evils, probably because it's actually a mandate on everyone in the state to secure health insurance, rather than a flat-out requirement that restaurants and other employers supply it. Indeed, businesses with more than 11 employees can either provide up to 33 percent of a worker's insurance premiums, or contribute $295 per staffer to a fund that defrays the cost of coverage for the uninsured. In short, the burden is spread across much of society, rather than being concentrated on businesses. And that, apparently, made all the difference.

Sometimes the industry is so braced for catastrophe that it comes off a little as crying wolf. The situations in New York City and Massachusetts shouldn't be pooh-poohed, but the industry appears to be adjusting. Its critics should give it credit for adapting without much of a yelp. And the trade itself should appreciate the ameliorating factors of a long-lead time and spreading the financial burden of a socially oriented mandate across all social stakeholders.

And it'd get a personal nod of thanks if it figured out how to remove camouflage paint.

The Always Slammed Grille, perhaps?

The intervention should have come after the Halloween night when a kid in a red chili-pepper costume rang my door bell. “Ah, the Chili’s logo! Great choice of outfit,” I remarked to a bashful 7-year-old whose sister, dressed as a strawberry, was holding the hand of a toddler painted like a pea pod. “They’re posting some kind of same-store sales these days, huh?” His father whisked them away, and we didn’t get another trick-or-treater all night. Word had spread up and down the street: Beware the restaurant geek in No. 18.

Though, given a little-noticed thread in restaurant-naming these days, perhaps I should have been hailed as a marketing consultant waiting to be hired. Because there are definite signs of industry jargon becoming the sign fodder of choice.

Consider, for instance, a pair of intriguing concepts from two of the most-respected chain operators in the business. What did Legal Sea Foods, the New England seafood powerhouse, christen its newest venture? Legal’s Test Kitchen—shortened, in typically industry fashion, to LTK in one iteration. Those of us in the trade might know that a test kitchen is a place of experimentation, as LTK is for the upscale-restaurant company (the Test Kitchen is a fast-casual take-off that promises to get customers in and out in 15 minutes; the LTK variation features such high-tech amenities as iPod docking stations at the table). But will consumers embrace it?

Hillstone Restaurant Group, parent of the much-salaamed Houston’s chain, would probably bet so. Its restaurant in a high-end Newport Beach shopping mall is called Café R&D, as in research and development, or the department that usually runs a restaurant company’s test kitchen. Already three years old, the indoor/outdoor hybrid features such out-of-the-ordinary fare as the Vegetarian Nut Burger and the Silver Service Hot Dog.

Which brings me back to my new flirtation with restaurant consulting—have I got names for you! How about Comp Sales Booster Grille? Or Morning Daypart Diner? The Awesome AUV Inn? At the very least, Many Covers Café?

McD's Hong Kong units to get worms

McDonald's regularly features products in one sector of the globe that probably wouldn't fly anywhere else. Seldom have they been as noteworthy as what the fast-food giant is about to start peddling in Hong Kong. Indeed, the latest McItem has the unique distinction of being both one of the most outlandish ever showcased by the chain, and perhaps the most widely adaptable. And then there's the matter of the production process. How many restaurants crow about having worms on the premises?

Earthworms are crucial to generating the compost that McDonald's will start selling in Hong Kong in a few weeks, according to local media reports. The soil enricher will be generated by feeding food scraps, napkins and certain types of packaging to the worms, which break it down in a process known as vermicomposting. The adoption of the program at eight McDonald's units in Hong Kong will be the largest-ever use of vermicomposting, a U.S. college professor told the international publication The Standard.

A story in the paper said the process is expected to cut the restaurants' output of carbon waste by 80 percent. But that pay-off can only be realized if patrons dispose of their biodegradable materials in a separate container, which, the story said, will require some customer training on McD's part.

Restaurants in the United States are still awakening to ways of making their operation a little greener. Clearly the adoption of environmentally sounder practices has galloped far ahead overseas.

The question is, will we ever see worms being used by McDonald's domestic operations?

Who's afraid of mice?

Humans may be unmoved by the health implications of eating poorly, but your average New York rodent could apparently pen its own fad-diet book. After being filmed early this year inside a Taco Bell-KFC unit, acting like starved pensioners on a Martha Stewart cruise, Big Apple vermin were back on the airwaves this morning, cavorting this time within one of the city's Pinkberry frozen-yogurt outlets.

If you don't know Pinkberry, you haven't been to Los Angeles lately. The concept is the hottest craze since Krispy Kreme's flicker as a haute brand in the 1990s. Just to put it in perspective: Paris Hilton requested it by name during one of her jail stays.

Pinkberry features a tart, South Korean style of yogurt in just two flavors, regular and green tea. But if that sounds just a tofu wafer short of bark-flavored Jello, consider that the mix-in choices include Fruity Pebbles, along with fresh berries or other fruits. You can presumably bring in your own Count Chocula.

Even with those nods to indulgence, a perception of healthfulness is a big part of Pinkberry's draw. Call me finicky, but news footage of mice scampering around a unit kind of undercuts that image. Yet there were the clips on the local ABC affiliate, showing at least two of the pests inside a store on the tony Upper East Side.

Yet I'm apparently a veritable germ-a-phobe, given the coverage that followed on the internet during the day. As The New York Post reported, the incident didn't dissuade customers from lining up at the very store where the vermin had been spotted. The tabloid quoted one fan as saying, "As long as there's no rats in the ice cream, I'm OK."

In fairness, it should be noted that Pinkberry has already declared its New York stores "re-sanitized." It also told ABC that it was "chocked and puzzled" by the footage of mice running amock, an assertion supported by Health Department indications that no complaints had been leveled against the site of the videos.

In all, the incident amounted to 15 minutes of intense attention, followed by a mass shrug. It could be a reflection that the public is growing accustomed to rodent events. For that matter, small four-legged creatures may be in vogue with the Lohan-loving set. Look at how Paris clutches that varmint she calls a Chihuahua.

Oh, let it be

Starbucks logged its highest single-day sales of a music album when it moved 23,000 copies of Sir Paul McCartney's new "Memory Almost Full" on June 5. At a price of $15.95, the CD put about $360,000 into the chain's coffers on the first day of its availability—before the promotional tour, before a highly publicized "secret" show in a small New York venue, before airings of the disk's music video, before its considerable radio play, before the promo machine had kicked into high gear. The recording is now Number 3 on the Billboard sales chart, with more than 160,000 units sold.

Is that "Money" playing in the background? The Beatles' version, of course.

The chain presumably sold a few cups of coffee to the McCartney fans as they tramped through stores to the record display area by the sales counter. Some might've even popped for the chain's new high-priced sandwiches. But even without the lattes, that's a lot of cash to collect, especially since Starbucks is getting more than just the usual commission.

The ex-Beatle's release is the first on Hear Music, a new label launched earlier this year by the coffee giant and Concord Music Group. Other works are presumably in the pipeline. The venture presumably has entered the charts with a bullet.

Feeding a green monster

The public is convinced the restaurant industry could do more to protect the environment, starting with the type of disposables it uses. But what if it's wrong? What if Tiffany and Brad Public are pushing for actions that might be more detrimental to the environment than the status quo? Does a restaurant do what's ecologically sound, or does it cede to mistaken impressions and accommodate the foot-stompers? Sadly, more and more are caving to the public clamor.

As those reluctant converts point out, they really have no choice. Even if they're willing to risk the ill will of customers, local lawmakers are taking away the option. San Francisco and Oakland have already mandated that restaurants switch from foam-type cups and disposables to paper carriers. Other areas are showing interest in propelling the movement into a trend.

Yet, as a Google search will demonstrate, even some environmentalists are unconvinced that paper is ecologically better. But input the search terms "paper," "versus" and "Styrofoam" and you'll also pull up a slew of rock-hard assertions that plastic is the worst hazard since DDT. Significantly, many of those contentions are made on college-related websites by students at the institutions—sometimes in direct conflict with what their professors are attesting.

Is it any wonder that the Jamba Juice drinks chain has organized a whole committee to address what management has slugged The Cup Challenge? Nine-five percent of the chain's intake is generated by the sales of smoothies, which means it uses more cups than a bra factory. Polystyrene works best from a customer-satisfaction standpoint, and yet the chain is concentrated in California, ground zero of the foam-ban movement. It's already had to switch to paper in San Francisco.

CEO Paul Clayton says that being green is part of the chain's culture, and that it wants to do what's right. But the evidence doesn't prove paper is better, notes he and other senior members of management. And long experience has shown it's decidedly worse from a customer-satisfaction standpoint. So what's a customer-centric brand to do?

The company is currently looking at such foam alternatives as paper coated with a corn-based shell, hopefully to enhance performance.

Where's a cat when you need it?

At any other time, it might have been sloughed off as one of the unfortunate occurrences that can embarrass even the most careful of restaurateurs. But Pizza Hut is a Yum! Brands concept, so when it's mentioned in the same breath as a rodent infestation, the world takes notice. Because, sadly for Yum, the world hasn't forgotten that its Taco Bell chain was the scene of a veritable rat cotillion earlier this year, still visible in videos posted on YouTube and other highly trafficked clip websites.

This time, according to internet and news reports, the overrun store was a Pizza Hut in Raleigh, N.C. Health authorities closed the outlet last week after a shift manager reportedly found six mice stuck to a glue trap. For up to two weeks prior, she said, relatives of the nabbed six could be seen scampering through the place.

"I saw about 10 mice," Venice Spivey was quoted as telling local station WRAL. "Everybody saw them. Customers saw them. We had customers calling us to the dining room, saying, 'Look, we've got friends.'"

According to a story on the station's website, Spivey was fired for alerting health officials.

After rats were videotaped inside a Taco Bell/KFC combo franchise in New York, Yum hired Bobby Corrigan, a noted scourge of the rodents, to help the company avert another vermin scandal. Corrigan is to rats what the late Steve Irwin was to crocodiles. "We have been working around the clock to prevent this from happening again," Emil Brolick, president of Yum's domestic division, said at the time.

The company may want to can Corrigan and just hire a bunch of cats.

At least it has the comfort of knowing it's not the only restaurant giant having pest problems. The Toronto Star reported that a local family has sued McDonald's of Canada after allegedly finding a rat's head, complete with whiskers, in a burger. Meanwhile, mainland China's state press agency reported that a student collected $290 from the fast-food chain after being bitten in one of its units by a rat.

Now they're chasing human assets

Grab a rifle and head for the ramparts because we're being raided. After picking off restaurant companies one by one, private-equity firms are coming after the industry's executives.

They got Robb Chase last week. The president of Papa John's international operations was hired away from the pizza chain after just nine months on the job by a private-equity concern in Toronto.

A chain executive told me during the big restaurant show in Chicago that he'd been approached by another of the thick-walleted firms. It wanted his assistance in identifying and assessing acquisition candidates, and possibly to help in righting any handyman's specials they could pick up for a bargain price.

Meanwhile, consultants say they're fielding calls from private-equity companies that either want a download on trends that can affect a prospective acquisition's price, or advice on how to repair something they've already purchased and thereby raise its value.

It's easy to see why the companies are trying to tap the trade's brainpower. Private-equity firms have a lot of dollars, but sense sometimes eludes them, as a few of their foodservice deals have suggested. They're realizing that the restaurant business can be a peculiar one, best understood by a veteran steeped in the trade's puzzling ways.

And then there's the matter of timing. Many observers say the best acquisition candidates have already been scooped up by the equity firms, leaving what amount to berries on the bottom of a basket. They still might be good, but you have to pick more carefully.

Many of the companies are also hitting the point where they have to deliver a return on their purchase, either by cranking cash from it, or shining it up for a sale. They need experienced renovators and turnaround specialists to hasten the process.

The last thing the restaurant industry needs is a rival vying for its leaders and thinkers. It's just one more not-so-pleasant reminder that the private-equity pack is a part of the business right now, and a big one at that.

Where there's smoke, will there be fire?

Smoke is emerging as a key flavoring in this spring’s crop of new chain menu items. Consider, for instance, the products that were unveiled today alone. The barbecue fumes were enough to make your eyes water.

El Pollo Loco added two variations on its flame-grilled Chipotle Barbecue Chicken—one featuring barbecued beans, the other a dash of barbecue sauce, for added smokiness in items that started with the flavor of a smoked habanero.

Jack in the Box’s hyperactive R&D center cranked out an item also featuring grilled chicken, a shot of barbecue sauce, and some barbecue redundancy—in this case, barbecue-flavored tortilla strips, all mixed into a new entrée salad called the BBQ Ranch Chicken.

And Quiznos, an LTO machine in its own right, took its new Baja Chicken sub out of the bag. It’s hepped up with two sauces—a chipotle (read: smoky-tasting) mayo, and a proprietary sauce called Smoky Baja.

Another common trait of the bunch: Most were premium-priced, ranging as high as $7.99 for a large version of Quiznos’ new sub, to no lower than $4.99 for the Jack in the Box salad (though El Pollo Loco didn’t tell us what it’s charging).

Of course, those weren’t the only products introduced today by chains of scale. Taco Bell also fly-cast one into the market—without a hint of smoke, or a premium price, for that matter. Its new Extreme Cheese and Beef Quesadilla is aimed at the young men who want heft, but don’t have the pocket money to buy in volume and still put something toward the next body piercing. It’s priced at $1.29.