Will there be another fajita?

Wendy’s touted its Frescata line as a major point of different—deli sandwiches made with bread baked in the restaurants. It was canned in December. Panera Bread said its Crispani pizza would rev up dinner sales and please patrons looking for all-natural options. The franchisor quietly yanked the item sometime after November. In 2006, Starbucks trumpeted its new premium-priced breakfast sandwiches as the long-sought way for the chain to grab more food sales. Instead, the array is on the way out. Is the blockbuster new product going the way of two-for-one happy hours and free matchbooks?

Well, there is the incredible success of sliders, the mini-sandwiches that everyone from Good Time Burgers to Cheesecake Factory is selling these days. They, in turn, are part of the miniaturization that has also led to the widespread availability of spoon-sized desserts, small plates and even small-pour glasses of wine. But, as your nearest White Castle or Krystal attests, that mini mania is nothing new.

Ditto for burgers, which are truly undergoing a second coming. Sure, they may be made now with Kobe or Angus beef, but it’s still the American classic, just gussied up with better ingredients and garnishes.

Indeed, with the exception of beverages (the mojito, cosmopolitans, Pisco sours) can you name a new chain menu addition since the middle-decade premium salad blitz that has really wowed consumers? Double points if it’s something other than McDonald’s Snack Wrap.

The dearth says something about the growing sophistication of consumers. They’re not as dazzled as they once might have been by sheer novelty. Instead, they’re looking for a true advance—better flavor, a meal more in keeping with their lifestyles or eating habits, a meaningful alternative to what they know. If that’s not in the set of options, then go with the best among the choices offered.

And, of course, now it will no longer extend to Frescattas, Crispanis or a microwaved Egg McMuffin a la Starbucks.

The night Starbucks went cold

At 5:31, a manager escorted two customers to the door, apparently explaining why the Starbucks would be closing. As she was saying good-bye, two more people tried to squeeze past her into the café for their after-work caffeine fix. They, too, apparently hadn’t heard that all 7,100 Starbucks in the United States would be closing yesterday evening for what the media alternated between calling a massive teach-in and a chainwide coffee break.

But before the unit on 57th St. in New York could move to a refresher on how to make a killer cup of coffee, the staff had to fend off customers first. The manager had locked the door and taped a cardboard sign to the window, explaining that the store was closed. But every time employees would open the door to lug a back of trash to the curb, a few more patrons would blithely push through the door, oblivious to the sign and the historic shutdown of the whole chain. Each time they’d be shepherded out by the manager, who seemed as cheerful as a 7-year-old at her birthday party.

Of course, those patrons could have satisfied their caffeine craving for a mere 99 cents by trekking just a few blocks. In an absolutely brilliant stroke of guerilla marketing, Dunkin’ Donuts cut the price of its espresso-based drinks for the afternoon and night to under a buck. Sure, the doughnut specialist might’ve snagged a few Starbucks aficionados who presumably could switch allegiance. But the real benefit was the publicity. Starbucks’ three-hour closure drew a ton of coverage in every sort of media imaginable. By tying into that event in a sly way, Dunkin’ made sure that its name was in the second paragraph, if not higher. Starbucks took the sales hit and snagged its share of hoopla. But Dunkin’ was right there with it.

One more accolade to bestow on the matter: The Chicagoist website, for coming up with the headline, All Starbucks Closing Tonight for 3 Hours, Apocalypse Imminent.

Crunch time?

The business week is only a few hours old, but it’s already yielded indications that restaurant chains are trying two new tacks in their product introductions: Tout texture, and crow about being better if you can’t brag about being first.

Both trends are evident in KFC’s new product, a knock-off of McDonald’s Snack Wrap called the Toasted Wrap. Like McDonald’s chicken snack, a home run by anyone’s standards, the new Toasted Wrap snack is priced at $1.29. It, too, consists of all-white chicken, lettuce and a flavored sauce, all wrapped in a flour tortilla. But the little bundle is then grilled, giving it a bit of a chewy texture. The chain is touting that difference in feel with consumer “touch” tests, presumably pitting the Toasted Wrap against the Snack Wrap in head-to-head comparisons where consumers indicate which feels preferable.

KFC makes no bones about following McD’s lead; the latter’s product is cited in the announcement of the Toasted Wrap’s introduction.

Meanwhile, Papa John’s, an arch-rival of KFC sibling Pizza Hut, is pursuing a similar strategy with its latest product promotion. The chain is touting the texture of its re-formulated pan pizza, the Papa’s Perfect Pan. “The product features a crust that’s irresistibly crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside,” explains the promotional materials. The literature also describes the pizza as tasting better than ever, without a word about the flavor.

The chain is offering a free perfect pan to anyone whose birthday falls on Feb. 29.

Interestingly, arch-rival Domino’s Pizza also launched a promo today tied to the current Leap Year, though you have to do more to cash in than merely have a Feb. 29 birthday. The delivery chain is offering to throw a pizza party for every family that has a child on Feb. 29 and names it “Brooklyn,” a tie-in with Domino’s Brooklyn-style pizza. The first to use the name gets a sweetener of $1,000. Which, no doubt, will go toward later therapy for a kid who was named after a pizza so his or her family could get a free party.

Where have you gone, Joe Lee?

Casual dining has never needed Joe Lee as much as it has in the last few weeks.

It’s not as if the former Darden Restaurants CEO has some superhero ability to yank the sector, a market he helped to create, out of its current blues jam. But his 40 years or so in the business gave him a perspective, a wise-man-on-the-mountain sagacity, that most of today’s standout executives have yet to cultivate. They stand in front of shareholders, analysts or employees and spout assurances the company’s recovery plan will work. After all, they somberly assert, we have the best concept, the best people, the best food, the best investors, the best corporate mission statement.

Yet they seem more than a little shaken themselves. You expect some to reach inside their suit-jacket pocket, take a quick nip from a flask, and resume with the platitudes.

Joe, as proper a man as ever worked in the industry, would stand up there and draw his share of arrows from financial analysts who wanted better returns for their institutional customers. Yet even during the most blistering times, he would calmly explain that the sector was in a downturn, that it’s been in downturns before, and that it’ll be in downturns again. He’d seen it two or three times in his career, and each time casual dining snapped back to be stronger than ever.

No one in the room could doubt it because most of them hadn’t lived as long as Joe had run the New York Yankees of casual dining. This was the guy who managed the first Red Lobster, back before there was a T.G.I. Friday’s, a Chili’s, an Applebee’s, an Outback or a Ruby Tuesday. And who could challenge a man who’d left the market only once since then, to work at the top of Red Lobster’s then-parent, a little multinational called General Mills.

The footnotes to his message were clear: There’s no need to cash out to a private equity firm, jump to a new market position, clean out your “C”-level officers, fire the ad agency, or even rewrite the mission statement. Instead, execute well, seize the opportunities that may be afforded by the players who fail to executive well, and ride it out.

No doubt the current freefall in casual dining is going to eliminate some weaker brands. But the sector as a whole?

Tell ‘em, Joe.

Forget Botox. Have a brewski.

My wife is out of work, my profession is in a nosedive, and the industry I cover is limping through a financial quagmire. Yet today I’m a happy camper, albeit of the camping-on-a-barstool variety. A scientist in Japan has developed a beer that purportedly fights wrinkles. Now, through a discovery akin to inventing fire, you can catch a buzz and come away with the forehead of a 20-year-old.

Best of all, the active ingredients are fairly natural, so the beer doesn’t fall into the category of frankenfoods. It’s basically a matter of supercharging the production process with extra hops and polyphenols, the anti-oxidants that develop during fermentation.

The as-yet-unnamed beer is one of a growing number of alcoholic beverages that have been formulated to deliver health benefits along with a warm glow. VeeV, a new spirit made from the Latin fruit acai, promises a hangover-free head because of its anti-oxidant-rich core ingredient and the added minerals and vitamins of prickly pear. You can avoid colds, fend off vampires, aid your digestion and realize other purported health benefits by drinking a garlic-flavored vodka. Or slow the aging process by sipping a pomegranate liqueur, yet another quaff abounding in anti-oxidants. And if you need a pick-me-up, try a Four malt beverage energy drink.

If this continues, pretty soon you’ll be able to go on a three-day bender and come back looking as if you were munching celery sticks at Canyon Ranch.

Your pink slip is showing

Today brought news that Lone Star Steakhouse had laid off 1,500 full and part-time workers as a result of closing 26 restaurants. About two weeks ago, Brinker International eliminated 125 corporate jobs. CEO Wally Doolin was among the 13 percent of Buca Inc.’s employees who lost their jobs through cutbacks that took full effect Feb. 1 (though Wally continues to serve as board chairman of the Buca di Beppo parent). In early December, Rock Bottom Breweries cut its support staff by 19 percent. Clearly manufacturing, media and financial services aren’t the only sectors of the economy to hack their payrolls in recent days. Their axes just whistled louder because of the scale.

The few foodservice economizers to snag headlines were the ones that made a public confession. No doubt plenty of other restaurant home-office staffers were quietly put out of work after their companies were acquired in the ongoing swap-a-rama. The euphemism for that scenario is “rationalization,” were the buyer eliminates redundancies in finance, marketing, administration, HR, even payroll management itself. Why bother to buy a company if you can’t wring some economies and redundancies out of the combined operations?

Others were likely let go with a dash of stealth because of the general economic malaise that’s hanging on like a mooching relative.

I wish I were starting a restaurant company, because the pool of available talent is richer than a Britney Spears blooper tape. It’ll almost certainly deepen as more deals are done, more expansion plans are scrapped, and tougher times keep bean counters scrambling to find new ways of making their numbers.

It’s a shame to see such brainpower squandered. It’s especially galling when you consider that the industry will likely whine about the dearth of middle and senior-level executive candidates when the trade pulls out of its malaise in a year or two. Instead of fire-hardening their skills and judgement, the would-be leaders will lose precious time—if the industry doesn’t lose them altogether.

Do have a cow, man

Coincidence or calculation? On Sunday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announces the biggest beef recall in the nation’s history, citing the failure of a southern California slaughterhouse to heed a particular protection against mad cow disease. Earlier, employees at the plant had been videotaped using prods to force “downer” cows—animals unable to stand, a possible symptom of mad cow disease—to stand and be slaughtered. On Monday, Chipotle Mexican Grill announces that its restaurants in Minnesota are switching to “natural” beef from animals that were “humanely raised” and fed a purely vegetarian diet. Mixing animal matter into cattle feed has been identified as a cause of mad cow disease and hence is no longer legal in the U.S.

“Our commitment to working with like-minded suppliers who share our belief that food should be raised with respect for the environment, the animals, and the people involved is helping us make superior quality food, including naturally raised meat, accessible and affordable so everyone can eat better,” Chipotle CEO and founder Steve Ells said in the announcement.

Chipotle has been gradually buying more and more hormone-free meats to supply its 700-plus restaurants. Ditto for organic beans. Insiders say the chain would hurry up the changeover if it could secure enough of a supply at a feasible price. So today’s announcement was probably in the works for some time.

If that’s the case—and I for one presume it is—then the sequence of events underscores what a compelling point of difference Chipotle is offering the public. Consumers read in their daily newspaper that 143 million pounds of beef have been recalled because of a slight food-safety concern. When they log into FaceBook, they learn from one of the dozens of Chipotle sites in that network that the chain is lessening the chances that its patrons would be exposed to a peril like that, no matter how slight. And it’s promoting the humane treatment of animals in the process.

Is it any wonder the company posted a 70 percent leap in profit last year?

A Ruth's by any other name

Restaurants routinely name menu items after people, be it the Gene Simmons Sandwich (tongue with lots of dressing) or a Paris Hilton dessert (tart or cheesecake, take your pick). But it’s far less routine to dedicate a section of the dining area to someone, especially when that person is another restaurateur.

But if you book a private function at the Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Knoxville, Tenn., you’ll options will now include the Regas Room, a tribute in carpet, wood and wall coverings to a famed local clan of restaurateurs. Oldtimers still cite Bill Regas as one of those unsung giants of the business, an entrepreneur who put the same emphasis on people, training and service that persons of a younger vintage would associate with the likes of Danny Meyer. He was also active in industry affairs through his service to the National Restaurant Association. Hence the Ruth’s Chris connection. The chain is headed by Craig Miller, a former chairman of the NRA and still an active director.

Bill and his business partner/cousin, Gus, are the sons of the Regas brothers who opened the landmark local Regas Restaurant. The family sold a part of their business in the 1980s to Brinker International, which eventually sold it to Quality Dining, with the name changed along the way. Now the Regas name will enshrined inside the Ruth’s Chris, which itself pays tribute to legendary restaurateur Ruth Fertel.

Family's restaurant gripes become a business plan

An idea for a family-friendly café—think of a Panera Bread Co. crossed with a Playland-outfitted McDonald’s—drew enough votes from a website for entrepreneurs to bag $40,000 in start-up funding.

Alissa and Noah DeRouchie hatched the notion for their Sprout Soup concept after wincing through innumerable meals with their two toddlers. The taller of the four family members knew what they prized in the less-than-perfect options they’d prioritize when the whole household dined out: Healthful food, preferably in the form of sandwiches, served up in a comfortable, attractive setting at a reasonable price. But they wanted the place to entertain the kids while they ate, which means shifting the playgrounds typical of fast-food joints to the center rather than the back of the dining room. And the activities would extend beyond a run through the ball crawl, to events like sing-alongs or story readings.

The DeRouchies entered their idea in a contest run by the accounting software supplier Intuit. It was chosen from among 1,500 submissions for the prize of $50,000 in seed money—still not enough to get the operation off the ground, but still a major infusion of capital. According to news reports, the DeRouchies will supplement their prize with $60,000 from a credit line and $30,000 of cash. The funds were apparently generated in part from the couple’s website, Sproutsoup.com, a virtual store featuring baby carriers.

According to their website, the DeRouchies plan to open a retail operation this spring, presumably in their hometown of Columbus, Ohio. They’ll start to remodel it into a restaurant by offering juice and coffee, and then presumably progress step by step into a full-fledged café.

In the name of research

Attorneys used to chase ambulances. Now they announce an “investigation” into a public company’s pending acquisition and wait for aggrieved shareholders to come forward. Consider the solicitations that have been posted on the internet just in regard to the proposed buyout of Landry’s.

Two days after chairman, CEO and founder Tilman J. Fertitta submitted an offer to buy the 61 percent of Landry’s he doesn’t already own, the Little Rock, Ark., firm of Cauley Bowman Carney & Williams PLC sent out a press release announcing its probe of the $1.3 billion proposal. The deal had been announced just a day earlier. The firm offered to provide advise to Landry’s investors on shareholder rights. Without soliciting stakeholders for a possible lawsuit, the statement noted that Cauley Bowman “is a national law firm that represents investors in securities fraud and corporate governmance class actions.”

Now the firm has competition in the emerging realm of Landry’s related research. On Friday, the Rosen Law Firm of New York City said it was commencing its own investigation. The announcement explained that media outlets had called Fertitta’s $23.50-per-share offer low.

“As a result of this and other information,” the statement explained, Rosen was investigating the fairness of the transaction to shareholders.

Purely coincidentally, shareholders who are dissatisfied with the price might be interested in suing Landry’s if it accepts Fertitta’s offer. Chances are they might need a law firm familiar with the specifics with the situation. One, perhaps, that may have done some research. Looks as if they might have a choice of at least two.

But that’s purely speculation, of course. More investigation would be needed to say something like that outright.

What's a few billion here or there?

Covering Congress’ passage of the economic stimulus bill revealed an interesting but not surprising difficulty in valuing what comes out of Washington. The Washington Post reported that the bill would pump $152 billion into the economy. The New York Times set the value at $168 billion, a number used by several other media. And The Washington Times pegged it at $170 billion. Two weeks ago I attended a food-safety conference where attendees went slack-jawed at the bold proposal that the Food & Drug Administration’s budget be increased by a single billion. And here’s a measure where even those in the know are as much as $18 billion apart in their assessments of its benefit.

No doubt the stimulus package is a good one, for restaurants as much as other businesses. It was also heartening to see the White House and Congress, Democrats and Republicans, work together for a change. But we could use a little more collaboration between numbers geeks and non-geeks.

Foreign notions

The balance of trade in restaurant ideas has long been out of whack for American chains, with U.S. brands exporting far more business know-how than they’ve received in return. But even savants here in the States can occasionally glean a lesson from their brethren afield. And so it is with two recent developments beyond our borders.

For the first, we transport to Britain, where McDonald’s has once again engineered an intriguing new HR practice. The United Kingdom is where the chain developed the ground-breaking policy of allowing families to sign up for a single unit-level position, so teenaged siblings can fill in for one another when school or social schedules conflict with work commitments. The idea is that the family can find a member to work the shift far more readily than the restaurant can find a stand-in. The set-up allows the family to handle the scheduling—in essence, shifting that authority from a unit manager to a household.

Now comes word that McDonald’s has secured government authority to bestow the equivalent of high school advance-placement credits on some employees. Management-level staffers who complete the training needed to run a unit will be awarded a “basic staff management” qualification, which some colleges or universities would recognize as proof of advanced high school study. The program, apparently a pet project of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is intended to blaze a new, recognized path of higher education. In the process, it could elevate perceptions of restaurant work and hopefully bolster management retention for McD’s.

The chain has said it doesn’t intend to import the program to the U.S. But the burger giant has certainly shown an appreciation of education’s recruitment and retention benefits on this side of the pond. Several years ago, McDonald’s Corp. was given accreditation to grant college credits for courses taken at Hamburger U., the management training center on the grounds of the chain’s Oak Brook, Ill., headquarters.

A good case study for Hamburger U. enrollees would be what reportedly happened at a franchised Second Cup coffee outlet north of the border, in the heart of Tim Hortons country. For reasons that were not revealed, the men’s room of the restaurant was chosen by heroin addicts as a choice location to shoot up, as management surmised from the needles and syringes that were left behind. With the apparent blessing of the Montreal police department, the restaurant installed a fake security camera in the bathroom and trained its unseeing lens on the lone stall, hoping to discourage illicit behavior. The desperados using the place to shoot up would think they were being filmed.

Unfortunately, so did patrons who used the bathroom for more acceptable reasons. The well-intentioned effort to protect them from dirty needles or loitering unsavory sorts backfired into a public relations scandal, even though no customers were actually filmed.

Second Cup reportedly directed the franchisee to remove the camera.

The kerfuffle arose as restaurant cameras are becoming as prevalent in restaurants as spoons. Some operators use them as a way of letting the kitchen know if a table is ready for its next course. Others use it for security reasons. But the devices may not be the best equipment to install in the bathroom, even if they’re bogus.

Say 'swordfish'

A small panel in the door slid open. “Yeah?” barked a Paulie Walnuts sound-alike.

“We’re interested in some sangria,” I whispered.

A pause. “What’s the secret word?”

“’Please.’”

We could hear six or seven deadbolts being thrown open, an alarm code being punched in, and a pit bull being kicked out of the way.

“Sorry, but sangria’s still illegal" here in Virginia, some sort of Prohibition law that was never repealed,” explained our host as he swung open the door. “But you’ll find a lot of it here because it’s perfect for washing down everything else we offer.”

Soon we were chomping rare hamburgers, gorging on foie gras, indulging in some runny sunnyside-up eggs, even super-sizing our fries and cyclamates-sweetened soft drinks. “I even have some chicken fried in trans fats,” our host cooed with a wink.

“We used to do a big business in absinthe, but then they legalized it,” he continued. “But it looks as if grilled meats and fries might be added to the list soon, at least for our California clientele, so that should more than make up for it.”

“Why is there a bunch of judges sitting over there?,” I asked. Still in their robes, they were eating raw oysters and blue fin tuna sashimi. One was smoking.

“Well, they can put a crimp in business, but we can’t help being hospitable to them because lately they’ve been the voice of reason for restaurants,” he explained. “One of ‘em at least delayed the menu labeling law in New York City, another temporarily stopped San Francisco’s healthcare payroll taxes from being levied, and yet another threw out that damned no-match crackdown by the White House. It’s funny—the industry used to curse the courts, but now judges are emerging as the industry’s strongest allies.” I thought I saw him wipe a tear from his cheek.

“Why are they all wearing Wendy’s wigs?”

“Hell, we’ve got cases of them, now that Wendy’s dumped the ad campaign. I’ll send you each home with a box.”

With that, a horrific crash arose from the entrance, and in burst a bunch of people in white lab coats. “Put that forkful of local grouper down and step back from the tables,” shouted one. “This is a raid.”

But while we were converging on the foie gras table until they could cuff us, one of the the enforcers took a call on his cell. He snapped it shut. “Raid’s off,” he yelled to his colleagues. “Mississippi is trying to pass a law that would stop restaurants from selling meals to obese people. We’ve got to get down there and be ready to separate the big boned from the big booty’d. Let’s move.”

We consoled ourselves with a Hardee’s Thickburger and a Domino’s cheeseburger pie.

Not even a weigh-in?

Common sense stepped between Pennsylvania restaurateur Jim Mitchell and Allegheny County executive Dan Onorato before they could settle the fate of Pittsburgh’s 10-percent drink tax in an old fashioned. As mentioned in an earlier posting, Mitchell had challenged Onorato to step into a boxing ring and slug out their differences over the levy, which has infuriated local restaurateurs since the county chief adopted it as a cause last year. Mitchell proposed that the tax would be scrapped (it went into effect Jan. 1despite a court challenge) if he won the bout. If Onorato prevailed, Mitchell would drop a lawsuit challenging the county’s plan to ban smoking. And the fisticuffs would be staged as part of a fundraiser, so their blood would be spilled for a greater good.

It’s the type of thing you’d expect to see in a Jimmy Stewart movie. But the black-and-white flashback was not to be. After meeting for cigars and a few beers at Mitchell’s namesake establishment, Onorato reportedly countered with an offer to work at the place for few hours, with his wages and tips going to charity, and they’d forget about all that dodging, weaving and punching.

Onorato also offered to meet with Mitchell and representatives of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association to talk about the drink tax, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported.

The story didn’t indicate if beer or cigars would be involved in that next sit-down. But it did paraphrase Mitchell as saying he hoped the give-and-take would foster a sense of cooperation between the warring parties. And that he’s planning to fight Ted Kennedy over the next minimum-wage hike. Okay, I made that part up. But wait until menu labeling is proposed for Pennsylvania. All the restaurateurs will fancy themselves the next Rocky.

Deja vu for Cocotas?

After making a name for himself in the pet-hotel business, Charlie Cocotas is running a restaurant chain again. The former Church’s and TCBY chief, who made millions when onetime-charge Boston Chicken was sold to the public, is serving as president and chief operating officer of UFood Grill, the fast-casual health food start-up led by George Naddaff.

Both are hoping it’s déjà vu all over again. Naddaff brought Cocotas into Boston Chicken when the take-out chain was expanding beyond its Boston base, where it had a cult following. Naddaff would later engineer a sale of the company to some former Blockbuster Video execs, who subsequently led what was then the most successful IPO that Wall Street had ever seen. The New York Times covered it on page one—of the main news section.

Cocotas cashed in his equity. In a later interview, he wouldn’t tell me how much he made, but he acknowledged that it was considerable.

He left the trade at one point to start a franchise chain of high-end pet boarding facilities. The uniqueness of the endeavor drew coverage in the Wall Street Journal.

Strangely, particularly for a publicity hound like Naddaff, Cocotas’ involvement with UFood franchisor UFood Restaurant Group Inc. was revealed with nary a drum roll. Boston-based UFood mentioned it in a press release touting the addition of Burger King veteran Mark Giresi to the company’s board. Giresi’s other charges have included Victoria Secret.

He and Cocotas are the latest in a long, long, long string of restaurant-industry executives who have proven you only take a break from the restaurant industry, not a leave.

A boxed solution to taxes

He-men, take a celebratory body-slam. Settling business disputes with your fists may not be as outmoded as you thought. Restaurateur Jim Mitchell, for instance, wants to free Pittsburgh’s restaurants of a much-loathed 10-percent local drink tax by going mano a mano with Allegheny County executive Dan Onorato while the community cheers them on.

According to an Associated Press report, Mitchell is willing to climb into the ring with Onorato at a charity boxing event. If Mitchell wins, Onorato drops the drink tax, which was levied Jan. 1 to fund transportation initiatives. If Onorato has his gloved hand raised by officials at the end of the match, Mitchell will drop his opposition to a countywide smoking ban, which he challenged last May in a lawsuit.

The AP reported that Onorato plans to stop by Mitchell’s Restaurant, Bar & Banquet Center on Friday for a cigar, a beer and a sit-down. If they added a poker game, men everywhere would feel a surge in The Force.

So far, there’ve been no sightings of Don King.

Howard Schultz's cup of tea

Now that the steam has cleared from Starbucks’ recent changes, a few conclusions can be drawn about Howard Schultz: The Second Cupping. For one thing, memo writing may be entering its heyday. The Brooklyn native’s reliance on the TO:/FROM: format is the stuff of “Dilbert.” Within hours of replacing Jim Donald as top bean, Schultz was posting notes to customers, employees and investors via Starbucks’ website. The messages echoed the themes he’d sounded in the Jerry Maguire-esque memo that was sent to management last February, urging the chain’s handlers to re-find their souls and save the specialness of Starbucks. The minute it was leaked to the world via http://www.starbucksgossip.com/, Donald should’ve started punching up his resume.

If Donald is smart, he’ll appreciate what Schultz was demonstrating with that fit of keyboard pounding last week. Schultz promised each constituency a basket of changes that amounted to reconnecting with each. The adjustments he previewed—in essence, paying less attention to bean counters to focus more on the beans—were reassurances that Starbucks hears their gripes. His high-communication style put some steel in the promise of re-forging a strong relationship, the foundation of what Schultz reverently calls the Starbucks Experience.

Contrast that stance with Donald’s approach. If his public appearances and interaction with journalists were accurate lenses, he absorbed his candor and interactive skills from Richard Nixon. A fellow veteran of the media said her interview with Donald was the most boring one in her considerably long career. The time I saw him address an industry group, he came across as a suit in casual clothing, carefully following a Communications Department script to profess his daring New Age convictions.

I’ve also had the privilege of hearing Schultz speak, some 10 or 12 years ago by now. A side effect of being a business journalist is attending conferences where the celebrity draw could be anyone from Gerald Ford to Dennis Miller to Dolly Parton. None of them came close to Schultz in inspirational quality. Because keynoters of that wattage seldom deliver news fodder, their speeches are usually the times when you check phone messages or raid the break tables outside the lecture hall. Indeed, I’m not sure I would have hung around to hear Schultz if it hadn’t been for the draw of Starbucks coffee being available while he spoke.

But once he started explaining how his father’s miserable experiences as a diaper-service driver had shaped his strategy for Starbucks, there was no leaving the ballroom, by me or anyone else. He spoke passionately about the need to balance business needs against doing the right thing for employees and cultivating a culture of which you can be proud—the same themes he’d thump in the February memo.

If it was an act, as contrived as any performance on the high-ticket speakers’ circuit, it was of Daniel Day Lewis quality. And any skepticism was completely dashed when I saw Schultz’s handlers lead him down the stage and straight toward the doorway next to which I was standing. I stepped out, stuck out my hand, and blurted, “That was great.” Then I noticed he was sweating a bit, and seemed a little quivery. He stopped dead.

“Do you really think it was alright? I sounded okay? I was kind of nervous,” he rattled.

I gaped at him, wondering for a second, Is this really him? Did I stop the wrong guy, maybe a speaker from an earlier session? Nope, definitely Howard Schultz.

“Yeah, you were great. I really mean it,” I assured him.

He broke into a huge smile, vigorously shook my hand, said, “Thanks. Thanks a lot,” and was yanked away by his handlers.

I went from there to a book store to look for a copy of his autobiography.

Persons who have worked for him have since advised me to remember that he started as a salesman and is a businessman before all else. Take him and his change-the-world manifesto with a dash of skepticism, they advised.

But, as they readily acknowledged, demythification doesn’t detract from his unique approach to running a business, nor from the specialness of Starbucks’ culture during his first go-round as CEO. Even his handling of last week’s coup was a marked departure from the usual deposing of a big-company chief. With the blandness fostered by Sarbanes-Oxley and the threat of shareholder lawsuits, you can only hope he indeed proves to be the Harry Potter of the restaurant business.

But just to make sure, I think I may head back to that book store. Maybe I can buy him an inspirational book about Steve Jobs.

Farewell to a Famous Star

Last week the world lost an historic figure, a man whose celebrated achievement awed both those within his field and the millions who preferred to leave moon shots of that sort to the brave hearts who push on despite chilling risk. The heights he scaled would forever command wonder and respect, and, though thousands would follow in his footsteps, he would forever stand out for being at the forefront. Oh, and by the way: Edmund Hillary died.

I was speaking of Carl Karcher, the legendary entrepreneur who gave his name to the Carl’s Jr. regional burger chain. Those within the business know him as a character right out of Horatio Algier, a John Wayne-sized self-starter who borrowed $311 against his Plymouth to buy a hotdog cart and parlayed it into a fast-food empire. Those who’ve been in the trade for awhile would remember him as the basis for a cartoon Carl who appeared in his namesake chain’s commercials, holding the hand of the brand’s star-shaped mascot. It didn’t seem like such a whimsical take-off to those who’d see him at industry conferences, warmly responding to anyone who wanted to meet this industry legend, then slipping each of them—be it a CEO or a server working the banquet—a coupon for a free Famous Star burger.

But those who’ve only been on the customer’s side of a quick-service counter may not realize that Karcher was an American pioneer, on par with such business giants and restaurant-industry founding fathers as J. Willard Marriott, Ray Kroc, Col. Sanders, Norman Brinker or Bob Wian, a.k.a. the Bob of Bob’s Big Boy. His death late last week, just six days shy of his 91st birthday, was like the loss of Walt Disney or Babe Ruth—something far more than just the ending of an extraordinary life. He embodied a time and a dynamic that still seem to amaze and inspire us.

He was a giant of a man, literally and figuratively. Fortunately, his legacy is in proportion.

'You have to be this old to eat here'

I’m trying to get through to Barack Obama’s people because clearly there’s a mistake in his biographical info. It says he’s 46 years old. If that were true, a presidential candidate would be younger than I am, and that can’t be. I haven’t been so outraged since AARP sent me a Yes, You’re Eligible! notice. In large type, no less.

Of course, being young isn’t what it once was. Sure, those of a tender age can now download all the porn they want via the internet. But it’s not all Guitar Hero and skateboarding, dude. How about having to get up in the morning? Or being forced to share the Wii with siblings—and sometimes even Mom or Dad?

Then there’s the situation that came to light last week in Florida’s House of Mouse. Disney, a company that generates billions of dollars from kids, reportedly decided that could no longer tolerate them in one of its fine-dining restaurants, Victoria & Albert’s at the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. Persons under age 10 will no longer be served. It makes you wonder if the place borrowed a convention from its sister theme park and put a big sign and yardstick outside: “You must be at least this tall to go into this restaurant.”

The ban has drawn a mixed reaction from parents, if recent reports on the blogosphere aren’t completely goofy. Some posting parents said they welcome the option of enjoying a meal where they don’t have to cut up someone’s meat or pretend the plane is entering the hangar. But others wondered what parents are supposed to do with the mini-people while Mom and Dad enjoy the only Disney restaurant to earn a five-diamond rating from Triple A.

According to an Associated Press story, it may not be that much of an issue. With prices starting at $125 per person, it reported, Victoria & Albert’s only hosted about three families per month prior to the ban.

Whatever. I know I’m going to kick a cat and gnaw a cheese wedge tomorrow just to show my solidarity with mice everywhere. One of their own, and perhaps the most famous of all, is working for a company with the smarts and courage to make a bold call, even if the decision prompts some harrumphing from the sort of parents who never turn off the Baby Mozart CD.

Oh, well. Too bad I’m still on hold with Obama headquarters. I should’ve called John McCain or Hillary Clinton instead, so we could’ve sung the Mickey Mouse Club theme together.

A 96-hour preview of 2008

Four days into 2008, Taco Bell and Starbucks are pushing healthful menu choices, California restaurateurs are calling for a sales-tax hike, PETA is yelping about Chipotle’s ingredient standards, smoking has been outlawed in French cafes, and the Red Sox are planning to open eating establishments. Something biblical is happening here, people. And that’s disregarding what the Tarot cards forecast for the months ahead. The year could prove wilder than a Spears family counseling session.

If you straight-line the emerging trends of 2007, we’re likely to see phenomena like these during the new year:

Virtual crime prevention: Restaurants will become as diligent in protecting customers from identity theft as they’ve long been in shielding guests from food-borne health risks. They’ll have no choice. “60 Minutes” has already run segments on the vulnerability of retail credit card information, with Leslie Stahl demonstrating how she could capture data while sitting in a mall parking lot, using nothing more high-tech than a laptop and accessible software. The risk will undoubtedly draw more attention as the problem worsens. All that’s needed for a sudden public obsession is one high-profile swipe of information from a major restaurant chain. The paranoia will rival what the industry sees after a fatal food-contamination incident, or what the nation as a whole observed after the Tylenol poisonings. Fortunately, the industry will get some effective assistance from credit card companies. But a willingness to adopt the right practices and protections, or the awareness of the importance at a unit level, is another manner. What’s really needed is the equivalent of ServSafe, a curriculum to train restaurant and regional-level chain operations on the rudiments of data protection. ChargeSafe, perhaps?

Paid sick leave: The restaurant industry is caught in a bind. Research shows that employees infected with the virus that causes stomach flu can be infectious far longer than was originally thought. Exponentially longer, in fact. Typically, a restaurant asks an employee recovering from a norovirus infection to stay home for two or three days. To be truly safe, the carrier-employee should be out of the kitchen for weeks. Yet how do you ask a staffer to forego that much pay? And if the cost of admitting their ailment is a significant loss of wages, are staffers really going to volunteer that they’ve been vomiting or suffering from diarrhea?

Unions have exploited that situation to press for paid sick leave. In some places, that added pressure isn’t even necessary. San Francisco mandated paid leave via a 2006 ballot referendum. The measure went into effect in February. District of Columbia lawmakers are scheduled to vote on a paid-leave initiative next week. Eight states are eying legislation mandating the benefit, and federal bills have been floated on Capital Hill.

Those efforts seem driven more by concern for low-wage employees than by public health concerns. But paid-leave advocates will likely yell more shrilly about the threat of flu contamination in the months ahead.

Emphasis on concept development: With economic conditions proving disastrous for many of the major casual-dining brands, several of the segment’s powerhouses will rev up new brands to keep revenues and profits growing. You could see glimmers of that in ’07 with Ruby Tuesday buying an Asian fast-casual concept called Wok Hay, Cheesecake Factory disclosing plans to launch a new Asian dinnerhouse called Rock Sugar, P.F. Chang’s continued tinkering with Taneko Japanese Tavern, Ruth’s Chris purchase of Cameron’s Mitchell’s seafood chain, and California Pizza Kitchen’s expansion of its L.A. Food Show venture.

The upstarts will require some tweaking and market adjustments. For instance, P.F. Chang’s discovered that California wine sells better than Japanese beer at Taneko. In an earnings statement issued by the company yesterday, Chang’s stressed the concept’s use of “natural, organic and seasonal ingredients” rather than the attributes it underscored immediately after the prototype’s opening.

Not coincidentally…

The lending crisis will put the brakes on casual-restaurant development: And that could ultimately prove a good thing for the sector. The curb on store openings will give demand some time to catch up with supply, enabling the market to pull out of what is now a multi-year slump.

Recruiters will position jobs as an extension of prospects’ non-work life: In HR-ese, the job will be where you are, not what you do. The challenge is erasing the differences between work and non-work life in dozens of small ways that add up to a meaningful change from Baby Boomers’ restaurant-job experiences. It could mean using YouTube-like training videos, or providing time and a place for staffers to socialize during down times, or offering incentives like paid downtime instead of conventional prizes like CDs. The objective is de-stigmatizing restaurant jobs by making them more consistent with the rest of youngsters’ lives.

The Yankees will win the World Series andthe Super Bowl: Hey, it’s my list of predictions. And stranger things are likely to happen.

Fueling a frustration

News tidbits can often provide a truer account of the day’s issues than full-blown stories. So it was with three nuggets of recent days. All three dealt with restaurants and politics, but that’s about the extent of the connection—until you consider what might connect the dots.

The first point is a paragraph in a Jan. 1 New York Times story about the efforts of groups with a political agenda to influence the presidential campaign in not-so-subtle yet completely legal ways. In what could be called soft lobbying, the organizations fund their own advertising campaigns for a favored candidate, a practice protected by the courts’ current interpretation of free-speech rights. For instance, the Service Employees International Union, a new-age group hoping to organize the restaurant business, spent more than $1.5 million to run radio spots in Iowa for John Edwards, a candidate who boasts that he refuses contributions from political action committees.

The second development was a page-one story in this morning’s Times about the unfairness of Iowa’s quirky caucus system. Because the archaic set-up leaves no room for the equivalent of an absentee ballot, you have to attend one of the evening caucuses to influence the statewide results. Yet how many restaurants are going to let their staff run off for a political forum during the dinner rush? The story cited several specific examples of foodservice employees being thwarted in their desires to participate. Presumably the same timing problems keep restaurant owners and operators out of the caucuses as well. The system clearly seems to discriminate against places with a vibrant dinner business.

And the last tidbit of the three: A restaurateur in Edmond, Okla., is so frustrated with the political process in his home town that he’s refusing to serve certain officials, as he proudly declares in a sign posted out front, the Associated Press reported today. The two members of the Edmond Planning Commission, along with the board’s attorney, are cited by name as being unwelcome at Falcone’s Pizzeria and Deli. Actually, the language is a little stronger than that: The trio is instructed to stay off the property, according to the report.

The three reportedly led opposition to the red, green and white awning that proprietor Danny Falcone wanted to erect above his new restaurant to trumpet its Italian orientation. The Planning Commission reportedly refused to permit the awning, and the city council apparently followed its lead.

Restaurateurs often voice frustration with the political process, which many describe as an alien world where common sense seems to be suspended. With an adversarial union spending $1.5 million in just one state to push a candidate, despite lobbying limits and the beneficiary’s declaration he’d refuse tainted financing, and the system in that very state working against restaurateurs, is it any wonder the industry may feel a little desperate?

Wringing out 2007

Let the swallows flock to Capistrano. We ink-stained wretches have our own compulsion to indulge. The minute they roll Dick Clark out of the home and start the chondroitin drip, every journalist feels the irresistible drive to recap the outgoing year’s memorable moments. Who am I to fight Mother Nature? Here’s my rundown of developments the restaurant industry should remember about 2007.

Most worrisome trend to emerge: Menu labeling The industry’s arch concern, a monster it’s beaten back time and again, arrived with a cancelled one-way ticket last year. New York City and King County, Wash., have already decided that local chain restaurants will have to post calorie information on menus and menu boards. California’s Silicon Valley and the Washington, D.C., suburb of Montgomery County will likely follow with similar labeling requirements. And from there, the dominos will fall. It’s only a matter of time until a state mandates nutritional displays. Then we’ll watch a repeat of smoking bans’ spread.

Runner up: Paid sick leave, already mandated in San Francisco, with Washington, D.C. expected to vote on a measure next week.

Biggest yawn of a trend: Trans-fat bans. Sure, availability of alternative oils is still a problem. Witness the decision by Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s to delay their switch because of supply issues. But New York’s changeover, the nation’s first, went relatively smoothly. Regulators say the biggest problem to date has involved the use of margarine, a potential motherlode of trans fats, without a heads-up to patrons.

The bigger challenge, restaurateurs say, will be the requirement that trans fats be eliminated from baking, a process that benefits greatly from that type of shortening. It may prove to be more of a painful changeover for the true baked-good artists.

Biggest trend that failed to materialize: The mainstreaming of organics. The supply just isn’t there, and the consumer appeal seems secondary to matters like source labeling--saying where each element in a menu item came from, a mega-trend even evident within the mass-market chains.

Unforeseen trend fallout of the year: Smoking bans’ literal way of chilling sales in northern states. Lighting up outside may not have been a problem during spring and summer. But this is the first winter of outside-smoking-only for Anchorage, Alaska, and Illinois, among other areas with frigid weather. Operators in some of those regions are attempting to hold onto patrons by erecting smoking huts, complete with heat. But many of the new rules also prohibit smoking 15 feet from a door, window or other potential vent into a restaurant, meaning you may not have the space in a downtown setting. The industry may want to consider subsidizing sales of The Patch.

Menu trend of the year: Miniaturization. You can now buy a mini-sized burger from an abundance of restaurants, chain or independent, thanks to the Lilliputian Effect. Restaurateurs are smartly betting that consumers will pay a premium for variety (with sampler packs) or the chance to have a few bites of something their doctors tell them they should eat more rarely. A few even savvier players have taken the same approach with desserts, and you can even find some mini-cocktails out there, too.

Menu-item comeback of the year: Burgers. Back in vogue for the umpteenth time, thanks to interest from high-end chefs along the coasts and higher quality offerings from the maintstream chains.


Best product trend from a consumer standpoint: Premium coffee and coffee-based blended drinks. Even office coffee-break stations are being revamped to feature better grades.

Best product trend from a business standpoint: See above. How can you beat the margins on products consisting mainly of water?

Most intriguing new concepts: The wave of all-natural grab-and-go places, like Fresh & Easy, the U.S. beachhead of European retailing giant Tesco, or the Michael Milken-backed Eaturna, which is growing in partnership with concessionaire HMSHost. The places are actually riding three trends that clearly gained strength in '07: Stepped up demand for meals that could be eaten off-premise, increased interest in natural foods, and heightened desire for quality food that can be purchased in a snap, a la grab-and-go formats.

The places are part of a larger trend that has yet to fully flower: With Whole Foods and Trader Joe's proving it can be done, food retailers are finally offering the caliber of ready-to-eat foods that could steal business from restaurants. Supermarkets have always posed a threat to restaurants because consumers are inside them several times a week, but the quality was never there. That's changing. The missing piece is marketing that effectively lets the public know they have a new, viable dining option.

Most encouraging development for foodservice: A clamor for greater collaboration in promoting food safety, both within an organization (i.e., food safety working with marketing as well as ops to guarantee that new menu items are safe) and between groups, including competing chains. The theme was stressed both at Nation’s Restaurant News’ Food Safety Symposium and Cooperating for Food Safety, a conference held in Washington specifically to bring traditional adversaries together for the promotion of safe practices.

Most discouraging development for foodservice: The charlatanism evident in the green movement, with opportunists suddenly declaring themselves eco-friendly as a result of marketing considerations, not true environmental merit. There’s an old southern expression: “Puttin’ a hat on a mule don’t make it the Pope.” Ditto for slapping a green-sounding slogan on a product or service.

In my next installment, I'll complete the annual rite of journalism and offer my predictions for '08.

Peltz vs. Overton

Not since Godzilla squared off with Mothra have we seen a fight card quite like the one that was set by Wednesday’s investment news.

On one side we have the quirkiest company in the restaurant business, with a level of achievement that begs steroid testing. Cheesecake Factory, despite its size and success, still reflects the idiosyncratic thinking of chief executive David Overton, who built the business with an iron discipline seldom seen outside of Olympic training camps. Two years ago, while receiving an award from Nation’s Restaurant News, Overton attributed his leadership—and, by inference, the chain’s success—to a gifted palate. He explained that a few bites can tell him if an item will be a success or not. That highly personalized approach to menu planning, he suggested, is as much an underpinning of the chain as its painstakingly controlled expansion, a design that’s finer than what you’ll often find in fine dining, and a voluminous bill of fare that seems scientifically impossible to execute. It’s an oddball, to be sure, but one that should have its own wing at Fort Knox. Few restaurant companies are more esteemed for the caliber of their operation.

And now the company finds itself in a gladiator pit with a Wall Street bully tapping a truncheon on his palm, like a street tough looking for a rumble. We and every publication use the euphemism “activist investor” to describe Nelson Peltz, but that doesn’t begin to characterize his mode of making money. His mechanism is really the not-so-veiled threat—do what I demand or I’ll use my investment capability to do something drastic. It’s as close as investing can come to a street gang’s offer to leave local shops unharmed if they pay an acceptable fee for the “protection.”

If Peltz wields that modus operandi against Cheesecake—a big “if,” despite indications he’s buying as much as 14 percent of the casual-dining company—it’ll a cage match between him and Overton. And my money will be on Overton.

A Rocky he’s not. We’re talking about a guy who got involved with Cheesecake to help out his parents, who had run the business from their basement. He’s renowned for giving general managers a BMW lease as a perk, and for reflecting his Far Eastern religious beliefs in the design of the stores (look for a sky scene or star motif on the ceilings). We’re talking about Jimmy Stewart standing up to an angry Harvey Keitel.

Yet Overton seems to have the conviction that a business should be cared for and nurtured like a living entity. In contrast, Peltz comes off as a horseback rider who doesn’t care if his stead dies after he arrives at his destination. The whole point was to get him there, horse be damned. That disparity could make Overton fight like a wildcat to protect the business his parents founded. At the very least, he’ll likely call Peltz’s bluff.

So what can Peltz do? The obvious possibilities:

--Solicit allies from among Cheesecake’s other shareholders to form a sympathetic faction controlling more than 50 percent of the company’s stock.

--Mount a hostile takeover attempt on his own.

--Sue Overton or Cheesecake for reneging on their fiduciary responsibility.

--Threaten to dump his shares and thereby depress the stock’s price.

In either case, he’ll likely find Overton to be a reluctant yet effective schoolyard hero, willing to stand up to a bully. That resistance alone might convince Peltz to shift his attention to less feisty prey.

Unfortunately for Cheesecake, Overton owned only 5 percent of the company’s outstanding shares as of an April proxy filing, and he’s trimmed his holdings since then. But, after watching Cheesecake evolve from a single Beverly Hills restaurant some 30 years ago, I can’t believe he’ll cede to Peltz without a battle royale. He may be the reluctant hero who stands up to this new breed of corporate greenmailer.

Of course, this is assuming that Peltz is looking to follow his usual script. With Cheesecake’s shares trading at a yearly low on the morning Peltz’s interest in the company came to light, the terror of Wall Street may just be bargain-hunting along with everyone else this holiday season.

Giving when it hurts

You know it as a surefire way of raising money for charity. Experts call it “imbedded giving”—channeling a portion of sales from a particular menu item to a popular cause, and thereby encouraging patrons to buy more of it. Now politicians are redefining it as a practice rife with the potential for abuse and therefore in immediate need of regulation. If they have their way, you’d have to follow certain rules if you want to donate a dollar from the sale of your signature gingerbread-man cookies to some toys-for-underprivileged-kids program.

Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat representing New Jersey, has already disclosed plans to introduce legislation this week that would govern the practice. Menendez wants to require any retailer that uses imbedded giving to get prior approval from beneficiary group before its name can be used, and to disclose how much money is actually channeled to the charity.

“Too often consumers have no way to know if their dollars are actually going to the intended causes, and some charities are not aware that their names are being used by retailers,” Menendez said in a statement. “We need to ensure that charity is not being used solely as a sales pitch.”

Menendez aired his plan after The New York Times reported that some of the charities it contacted for an article on imbedded giving were unaware they were the beneficiaries of the promotions. Yet their names were prominently used in the sales pitch. Some expressed outright horror that their cause was being associated with businesses with which they would rather not have any connection.

No restaurants were mentioned in the article or in Menendez’s announcement on Friday. But the industry has frequently used the technique, most notably for Dine Out America, a fundraising effort undertaken in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Restaurants nationwide were encouraged to channel proceeds from a particular night to victims of the catastrophe, and were lauded for their effort.

You have to wonder if such a thing could be undertaken again if it also involved the rigmarole of proving the money was actually donated.

Wolves in Kermit’s clothing

Does an organic menu qualify a restaurant as green? How about a pledge to feature only sustainable seafood? Or meat exclusively from humanely farmed animals? And what about all the places that now recycle their fryer oil into bio-diesel? Skeptics say a vehicle running on that fuel still emits more pollutants than a hybrid gas-burner might, so the environmental benefit may be more limited than the public realizes.

You can’t blame the average citizen for being confused. What, exactly, does “earth-friendly” mean, and how does that differ from “eco-safe,” or even green? And how about descriptors like “recyclable?” Does that mean the item in question is actually being kept out of the landfills for re-use, or merely that it could be?

And don’t forget technical terms like RoHS—“restriction of hazardous substances,” for those of you who don’t have a degree in electrical engineering. It’s the standard that was adopted by the European Union to designate electrical equipment produced without the use of certain environmental toxins. It’s already creeping into use within the United States as a desirable designation for restaurants and other businesses that want to be green, and California has already prohibited the sale of electronics that fail to meet RoHS criteria. Other states are considering a similar ban.

Those are some of the issues we’re facing as we strive to expand our coverage of the green movement, a mega-trend to be sure, but one that has more charlatans and pretenders than a gathering of hair-restorer pitchmen. Indeed, there’s a term for it—“greenwashing,” or purposely giving something a green connotation regardless of the true environmental impact. If we’re having trouble sorting out fact from assertion, and this is a focus of ours, how can anyone expect a restaurateur to find the time for some deciphering work?

Yet, fortunately for all of us, there are some operators who are determined to do the right thing, including the necessary debunking. Truth be told, some of us scoff that they’re only doing it to appease customers or employees who want a greener operation. They’re doing it for marketing considerations, not to save the spotted owls, according to that line of criticism.

But so what? If those restaurateurs are investing the time and effort to do the right thing, , their efforts should nonetheless be celebrated regardless of their motivation.

And that’s exactly what we plan to do. Stayed tuned for new online features that spotlight what restaurateurs are doing to operate in a more ecologically responsible manner, and what kind of return they’re seeing on a true investment. We’ll try to stay clear of the semantics and focus on the effects, business-wise and environmentally.

Secret holiday diary of Nelson Peltz

Nelson popped over with a bottle of Captain Morgan last night to catch “Dancing with the Stars” and left without his backpack. I know you shouldn’t peek at a person’s diary, but it was right there under his copy of “Eat, Pray, Love.” I couldn’t resist.

Wednesday
Played Monopoly with relatives at the holiday party; was shocked to learn the money wasn’t real. Just as well, I guess; they thwarted my attempts to take over undervalued assets—the hotels on Baltic and Oriental—and refused to discuss how the railroads could be managed more profitability. After a few well-placed investments, they’ll rue that stubbornness.

Tuesday
Watched the umpteenth airing of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” one of the greatest tragedies of all time. A good man, that Potter. To watch him be destroyed by wussy George Bailey still brings tears to my eyes.

Monday
Went to see “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” but was asked to leave. The Grinch said he couldn’t stand the competition. The screams of fright from the children were intolerable in any case, so I headed over to Fifth for some shopping. But Saks said it wasn’t for sale.

Sunday
Sent “21” into conniptions by giving Billy Ackman a surprise atomic wedgie. The lad thinks he knows a thing or two about forcing companies to heed his wishes. But he’s merely the Popeye to my Blutto.

Saturday
Fielded a call from George Clooney, who’s already casting “Ocean’s 27.” He’d like me to reprise my roll from “Ocean’s 10,” Nameless Man at Posh Party. But I’m not sure we’re simpatico on the character’s direction. What I’d really like to do is direct. Or take over DreamWorks.

Friday
Visited Washington and stumbled on a lovely house that has to be mine. All white, with a decent yard by Washington standards, though that big monument across the street will have to come down. Even comes with a heliport and guard stations. Maybe I’ll just buy the city.

Thursday
My pursuit of the Cadbury candy company continues. Nevermore will Caramello have to take a second seat to Royal Dark.

­Wednesday
Note to self: Check status of Wendy’s takeover attempt. Spending far too much on Doubles to remain just an investor.

Oh, well. Off to raid the retail sector!

A restaurant employee named Robert Hawkins

None of the 13 people who were shot Wednesday at the mall in Omaha were in a restaurant or the food court at the time, yet virtually every news report draws a connection between the tragedy and the restaurant industry.

Invariably, the stories note that the 19-year-old shooter had been dumped by his girlfriend a few weeks ago, and that he’d been fired from his job at McDonald’s just a short while back for allegedly stealing. Without expressly saying it, the presentation leaves the impression that the dismissal may have pushed Robert Hawkins over the edge.

The stories unintentionally underscore two large truths about the restaurant business. First of all, it’s not surprising that the tragedy would involve someone who worked at a McDonald’s. Some of the victims might have also worked for the chain or another fast-feeder at one point or another. Ditto for the police and rescue workers who were summoned. Heck, if someone had a flat in the parking lot, they might’ve been an hourly restaurant employee at some stage in their lives. Given how many people float in or out of the industry for employment, it’s like saying “the victim went to high school,” or “the perpetrator drove a car.” Indeed, the point was included because it highlights how ordinary Hawkins seemed on the surface to casual observers.

But the fact was also stressed because it added more eeriness to the story. This wasn’t a kid who ran with gangs or spent his time torturing animals, or at least not to our knowledge. He certainly had his emotional problems, which are only now working their way into follow-up articles. But noting that Hawkins worked at a McDonald’s said a lot about him, and what it said didn’t seem to match the image of a boy who’d go into a mall at Christmas time and kill eight people before taking his own life. Working at a McDonald’s implies a certain innocence, a certain decency within a young person. And that made the turn of events all the more bizarre. It would have been like noting that Hawkins was an Eagle scout, or that he visited the local old folks’ home every Sundays.

Society may tar restaurant jobs as a dead end, or something that you do as a last resort. But how can anyone dispute that working in restaurants is an experience that’s good for a teen? The news reports on the situation in Omaha seem to be saying the same thing, just in a decidedly left-handed way.

Start the 'Rocky' theme

Back when Nation’s Restaurant News was still covering Howard Johnson’s comeback attempts, our pages would be filled with stories about a crop of hip quick-service upstarts, akin to today’s fast-casual ventures. The young hopefuls included such brands as D’lites, a health concept, and G.D. Ritzy’s, an ice cream and hamburger specialist. The pizza segment seemed particularly fertile ground, with such promising up-and-comers as Godfather’s Pizza. And, of course, Rocky Rococo.

Named after a character in a Firesign Theater bit [explanatory note for readers under age 45: Firesign was a demented but highly intelligent comedy troupe in the 1960s and ‘70s, like a whacked out MadTV staff], Rocky had attitude, flavor, even an edge. In a day of white-bread restaurant concepts, it delivered a hint of cayenne. It was also a pioneer of such now-pronounced trends as co-branding, or what was then known as tandem restaurants. If memory serves me correctly, it even joined one of its units with a Wendy’s.

Like plenty of promising concepts before and after it, Rocky Rococo grew like Indiana corn. From a single store in Madison, Wis., it sprouted to 130 units before problems overshot it, and units started closing in the late 1980s. It would shrink to a skeleton of 30 stores.

But now comes word from its native Wisconsin that Rocky is ready to grow again. The chain, currently at 40 stores, added two in the recent past, and will fire up the ovens of a few more in 2009, according to a story in the Milwaukee Business Journal. The growth is coming from both franchising and corporate development.

The company is now headed by Trey Hester, the son of an early executive. According to the Business Journal story, founders Roger Brown and Wayne Mosley are still involved, though now as franchisees.

The story quotes Hester as saying he hopes to rebuild the chain back to 130 stores, moving slowly this time.

And look at that—with only an announcement of more stores to come, it’s already snagging coverage again.

Kids these days

If you’re hoping to snag employees with money and perks, we need to talk, bunky. Pay just doesn’t pull young people the way it might’ve in the pre-Halo III days, probably because youngsters assign far more value today to sugar cubes like free time or the opportunity to learn something. Or as People Report CEO Joni Doolin expressed it during her company’s recent conference in Dallas, “maybe it’s time to think about the employee value proposition in a different way,” or what’ll make your restaurant beam like an iPod in a Sony Walkman world.

Maybe that’s a bad metaphor, given potential hires’ indifference to material draws in general, including any slim differences they may spy between one pay package and another. Not that they’re likely to spot much variance. “Welcome to Commodity Hell: We’re at the point where our compensation and our benefits programs are the same,” Doolin told the room of restaurant CEOs and HR execs.

“We’re not differentiating ourselves, so we have to think about different concepts,” she continued. Indeed, said Doolin, the whole “command and control model,” where directives are ramrodded down from the CEO or other corporate C’s, is “a half-truth,” a bewildering mode of operation to youngsters who have studied, played or even dated primarily in teams or groups.

If the foodservice industry truly wants to sweeten its appeal for new job-market entrants, it has to leave nothing beyond reconsideration, including the hierarchical management structure used by almost every company in the field, she explained.

She depicted a model of what tomorrow’s org chart might look like; it resembled a blueprint for one of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, with employees serving as nodes as from which radiated lines of communication to nearly everyone else in the organization. This was not the usual model of one layer stacked atop another, and a rigid pipeline of communication from the top down.

What else might appeal to a workforce whose values are drifting far a-field from Baby Boomer sensibilities? During the prior year’s People Report conference, Doolin noted, the research concern had underscored the wooing power of continual learning opportunities and a culture that fostered a sense of community, societal values and inclusion. Those qualities not only appeal to potential hires, but also help to distinguish one employer from another.

But as every company embraces those enticements—no doubt a factor behind the greening movement evident at so many chains—what’ll be the next magnetic point of differentiation?

“We think lifestyle benefits are really the way to go,” said Doolin. By adjusting rules and cultural underpinnings to accommodate the lives that candidates want to lead, an organization can truly set itself apart, she stressed.
”This is where you go beyond the mission statement,” to experience, Doolin said. “It’s the sum experience of working for you.”

Speakers appearing later in the program suggested what some of those draws might be. And try to keep an open mind here, because they’ll sound like blasphemy to anyone who grew up with the rigid rules of foodservice circa the 1980s.

For instance, one speaker noted the importance of accommodating—if not fostering—employees’ efforts to maintain their health. One of the presenters noted how his company, albeit a healthcare firm, allows doctors to take a break at two or three to hit the gym.

If that might’ve sounded far-fetched to the restaurateurs in the audience, their skepticism might’ve been allayed by the comments of James Broadhurst, CEO of Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, operator of the Pittsburgh-area family dining chain. In accepting an award, Broadhurst noted in passing that he was wearing a pedometer to record his steps for a headquarters-wide health initiative. Pedometers had been issued to all of the home-office staffers, with a recommendation that they walk 10,000 steps a day. Another Eat’n Park staffer later told me that the office is divided into four teams, with a heated competition among them to see which was covering the most ground. The results are listed on an intranet site, and the leaders are rewarded with treats like a gift card.

Some of the other suggestions were more outlandish. Penelope Trunk, a Gen Y-er who acknowledged she probably wasn’t on the same wavelength with the audience, suggested during her presentation that inter-company dating be readily accepted, a reflection of how work life and social life are converging today.

Trunk also indicated that the promise of a promotion is no longer a motivator because young people don’t think in terms of climbing a ladder. They think of what they’d like to do next, and not in terms of a career path. If they’re likely to be gone in two years, who cares if they can move up a rung within that organization?

Instead, she stressed, ongoing education “is the coin of the realm.”
Other presenters stressed the importance of flexibility and of giving constant praise to youngsters who probably graduated from kindergarten with the same pomp and celebration that were reserved for an older generation’s graduation from high school. This, several speakers observed, is a group of people who probably were each presented with a trophy of one sort or another at the end of their Little League or soccer seasons.

In any case, noted People Report president Teresa Siriani, this is not an age group that feels it has to work. “We are at an historic low in the employment of 16 to 19-year-olds,” she said. “It’s not that there are not 16 to 19-year-olds out there.” Rather, “they’re opting out,” a result of their busy daily schedules.

“Guess what?,” concluded Doolin. “People don’t work where they have to, they work where they want to.”

A yellow light on voluntary menu labeling

Chain executives will be hyperventilating into brown paper bags next week when the push for menu labeling is taken up again by New York City’s health department—or as some restaurateurs view it, the castle of the mad Dr. Friedan. The agency will invite the public to comment Tuesday on its latest calorie-disclosure proposal, which is widely seen as a possible model for jurisdictions throughout the country. But it’s probably better they copy that measure than reach across the Atlantic for the approach now being pursued in the U.K.

The Food Standards Agency—Britain’s Food and Drug Administration—is pressing McDonald’s, Compass and other multi-restaurant companies to go beyond merely disclosing nutritional information on their menus, according to London press reports. The regulators want the big operations to steer patrons toward more healthful choices, and away from options with high sugar, salt or fat contents, by using stoplight symbol. A green circle, like a “go” light, would designate the best choices. A red circle would send a not-so-subtle message of, “Stop!” And a yellow indicator would be the equivalent of a Larry David-like, “Eh.”

Lest you think the restaurant industry is crying wolf, consider that the alert system is already being voluntarily followed by a number of major supermarket chains across the pond. The foodservice chains are being asked to adopt the program voluntarily, but the esteemed London Telegraph said the present “talks” could build into out-and-out pressure on the operators.

The news reports say that regulators are focusing their sales efforts on quick-service chains because children account for a big portion of their clientele. It’s the argument that the industry has struggled in vain to parry: Adults may be able to make an informed choice about what to eat, but how can you expect children to comprehend nutrition stats as they’re standing in line? Why not just give them a simple symbolic rating of each item?

It’s a powerful argument, and one the industry would no doubt like to bar from these shores.

Try this survival technique, Grasshopper

I was having an out-of-body experience the other night when I bumped into Confucious, who was surfing the ether to dream up sayings that might impress women. “Hey, Cunfucious,” I shouted, “people have been gushing for centuries about how wise you are. Any sage advice for casual-dining execs trying to get through this rough time without a pink slip?”

“Buzz off, Scooter. I’m a philosopher, not a miracle worker.” He tugged on the Fu a few times. “Aw, alright. Tell ‘em, ‘That brand which commoditizes must make the Target dog its own.’” He smugly smiled.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You meatball, don’t you get it?” he retorted. “They who squeeze all the character from their concepts are marketing wrung-out washcloths.”

Still a blank stare.

“Look, dummy, these chains all scrambled to sand off the rough edges that made their concepts different because a simple oval makes a better cookie cutter than a silhouette of Carmen Electra. It’s easier to duplicate blandness 1,200 times.”

Still no light-bulb bubble above my head.

“Yikes, don’t you see? They’ve turned the industry’s strongest segment into a commodities game. You could step into any of the grill concepts and have no idea which one you were in. And they who commoditize buy cut-glass thongs from Victoria Secret.”

Embarrassment, but no flicker of comprehension on my part.

He heaved a heavy sigh. “Look, if you’re a commodity, the only way you can compete is on price. That’s great if you’re the size of Wal-Mart and the whole market is expanding, so you can make it up on volume. But restaurant spending is softening overall, and margins are already thinner than Kevin Federline’s talent.

“The only other option,” he continued, “is differentiating yourself as a brand with pronounced character and flavor—a distinct experience, where you stake out a specific piece of the market instead of trying to be all things to all consumers. That’s exactly what Target did.

“It’s going to turn off the customers whose idea of spice is mayonnaise on plain macaroni. But it’s going to be embraced as a standout by the folks who wouldn’t mind something different from the status quo. And there are a lot of those people.

“Otherwise,” he said, “You’re the Kmart of a few years ago.” He saw my puzzled look. “It went bankrupt, Einstein. While Target was kicking butt.”

And with that, he gave the Fu Manchu another tug and was gone. All I could think to do was yell after him, “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”

Who gets the top job?

Two days, two telling indications that marketing may be the preferred path to the corner office during these trying times for casual dining. Add the appointment of another one-time marketer to the presidency of Mimi’s Cafe and you have a Johnny Cochrane-gauge argument that old hands at snagging sales are the chain chiefs of choice during a downturn in customer counts.

Yet, as a speaker stressed Wednesday during the People Report’s annual summit in Dallas, the era of the specialist leader is waning elsewhere in the business world. As consultant Rand Stagen put it, you can’t dominate the game today if all you have is a killer forehand swing. Today, at least in fields outside foodservice, the person with first dibs on the corporate jet is the one who’s closest to a renaissance chief, with talent across a number of disciplines. And that includes such superhero skills as brainstorming whole new business lines, or spotting a door to opportunity where others see a wall. The example he cited was Steve Jobs, a one-time animation-company exec who took over an ailing computer firm and forever changed the music industry, with the television business now eying him as the guy in a hockey mask at an abandoned summer camp.

So is this just another crazy uncle in the attic for foodservice? One of those peculiarities, like embracing the internet more slowly than several tribes that still wear huge plates in their lower lips?

Hardly. Or maybe not exactly. The situation does underscore a kink of the business. But the quirk in this instance is not a time lag. Restaurant-chain boards may be giving an edge to marketers in filling the corner office, but a foodservice marketer isn’t your typical slogan-hatching ad or promotions vet. Marketing has seeped well beyond the cubicles with all the whacky stuff on the walls to infiltrate such departments as design, operations, sometimes recruitment, and certainly whatever brain trust drafts overall corporate strategy. It’s like the bass line that drives a hit song.

Clay Dover got the nod to head up Metromedia Restaurant Group, the parent of Bennigan’s, after spending much of his time at that concern in marketing. But his knowledge clearly extended beyond the traditional boundaries of the discipline. Awhile back, I wrote a column that lamented casual dining’s transformation from the Rolling Stones into Debbie Boone. Its rock-and-roll spirit had been neutered into dentist-office music, a process business gurus would tag as homogenization. Dover dropped me a quick e-mail expressing his agreement, then spelled out Bennigan’s intended direction in a few dozen words. It was the view of a person thinking far beyond marketing, all the way to gene splicing. We’re not talking about a zippy ad slogan and market-speak about demographics. His comments hinted at a chief’s pride and vision.

Similarly, Bruce MacDiarmid rose to prominence as a marketer for Chevys, which hit gold by trademarking the descriptor “Fresh Mex” as part of its name. Clearly it was a brand where marketing influenced the whole system, a point verified during the People Report conference by Mike Hislop, Chevys’ former CEO. Now the CEO of Il Fornaio, Hislop revealed that he only took the top job at Chevys after securing a guarantee that marketing would be interwoven into his corner-office strategy, which had been forged by his first-hand experiences in operations. With the marketing department elevated to that role, is there any doubt that MacDiarmid was involved in a lot more than crafting ad strategies?

On Tuesday, he was named president and COO of the 82-unit Black Angus steakhouse chain.

I don’t know Tim Pulido, the longtime industry veteran who was named Mimi’s new president on Tuesday. Most recently, he was leading the attempt at a comeback by the venerable Shakey’s Pizza chain, and earlier served in an operations role at Pick Up Stix. But perhaps it’s not coincidental that his resume also lists a stint as chief marketing officer of Pizza Hurt.

You can almost see a path worn into the carpet between Marketing and that big office in the corner.

1,000 words on bad service

The editorial staff of Nation's Restaurant News has been guffawing over this since Dallas bureau chief Ron Ruggles passed it along. Apparently it was anonymously e-mailed to him, without any indications if the sender was the restaurateur, the offended customer or just an amused onlooker. In any case, you have to admire the artwork for this piece of feedback.

Anti-theft tactic

How can I put this so I don’t offend?

After enough restaurant visits, even a dim-wit would notice that a place’s hot sellers tend to show up on other menus in nearly an identical form. Clearly all the establishments must’ve been struck with the same inspiration. How else would you explain why one outlet is peddling a Bloomin’ Onion while the joints up and down the street are pushing Awesome Blossoms, Onion Straws, Onion Crunches or an Onion Loaf? It’s the darnedest thing.

That’s why you have to appreciate Vicorp’s forthrightness in touting the new limited-time offers for its Village Inn and Bakers Square family-dining chains. The showcased items, it readily acknowledges, are the specialties of other restaurants. There’s the stuffed French toast from Maine’s Maples Inn and the steak dishes from Texas’ Perini Ranch Steakhouse, with other restaurants’ signatures to follow.

There’s no coyness to the effort. “We hope the association with unique, high-quality, award-wining recipes will help create a powerful new reason for guests to try our food, and to set us apart as highly innovative,” said chief executive Ken Keymer.

Presumably it’s kicking back some coin to the restaurants for the use of their dishes, a rare dash of legitimacy in an industry with more thieves than a medium-security prison.

Testing less testing

Taco Bell probably has nothing against surveys, but it won’t be getting the usual Christmas card this year from whatever company makes the forms and the stubby pencils that consumers use to fill them out. The chain alerted financial analysts last week that it, too, is veering away from the traditional process for gauging customers’ reaction to possible menu additions, a detour that’s already being explored by McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Baja Fresh and presumably other chains. The old standard of exhaustively testing new products is apparently going the way of the rabbit-ear TV antenna as restaurant brands try to respond with more alacrity to the zigging and zagging of consumer preferences.

But not all franchisees view shortened product tests—or the elimination of testing altogether—as a positive shift. Some licensees of McDonalds, Wendys and Baja have yelped about having to add products or a whole new menu line before the operational and marketing support has been adequately pressure-tested. And misfires, they complain, can do more damage to their businesses than to a franchisor. They say the streamlined assessments fail to balance sales benefits against such factors as local labor expenses, the cost of capital, or the longer-range perceptions about service times.

At least one Baja franchisee is irate because he believes the home office isn’t effectively gauging even the top-line impact of introductions. He asserts that the chain recently shot-gunned a product into the market with advertising support, only to discover that it didn’t have sufficient supplies to meet the heightened demand. But, in fairness, that couldn’t be confirmed with the franchisor.

Wendy’s, on the other hand, has publicly disputed franchisees’ even louder assertions that the chain is inadequately testing new products and operational changes. The charges were levied in a letter sent to headquarters late in the summer by 16 franchisees, who cited the current testing mindset as one reason for “the slow decline of our brand.”

Having seen my share of franchisee disputes, I’d be a fool to take sides in a fracas like that one. But it certainly was curious that Wendy’s current management included a rollout of breakfast in the turnaround strategy it disclosed last year. The same announcement noted that the meal service would be tested. That’s like proposing as soon as a blind date opens her door, then suggesting the two of you discuss compatibility after you’ve been getting together for a year or so.

Franchisees of McDonald’s have been more discreet in their complaints about the chain’s recent quickness in adding new products, particularly beverages. But the dismay was evident in the latest survey of McD’s licensees by former analyst and current restaurant-company investor Mark Kalinowski. In his most recent quarterly canvass of the operators, several complained that lattes and other specialty drinks were being shot-gunned into the market without sufficient research on service issues or even the long-term payback of buying the required equipment.

"The Combined Beverage Initiative is a real concern for me," said one respondent, refering in McDonald's-speak to the beverage program."I have heard a number of
estimates from $100,000 to $130,000. The train has left the station, stores surveys are being done and we have yet to see any FACT-BASED INFO to know if this is a good
investment or not."

One anonymous respondent suggested that franchisees form a renegade association that’ll be more vocal than the official franchisee organization in shaping the chain’s strategy.

In fairness to Taco Bell, there are no evident signs that its franchisees have an issue with the new testing strategy, known internally as the Explore in Store process. The shift is intended to help the chain double the number of new products it fly-casts into the market in any given year. To crank out products at that speed, Taco Bell execs told analysts at last week’s special meeting, possible new options will be introduced in just a few stores, with the new choice highlighted in signs. If the reception by consumers is encouraging, the item could be quickly rolled systemwide, presumably as a limited-time offer.

Lehman Brothers’ Jeffrey Bernstein, one of the restaurant analysts who attended the meeting in Taco Bell’s hometown of Irvine, Calif., said in a report that some products will continue to be developed and tested in the chain’s usual fashion. Indeed, he noted that Taco Bell is still testing breakfast, an initiative that executives disclosed at the same meeting one year earlier. Yet the testing is continuing, and “the expansion appears slower than initially expected,” Bernstein wrote in a report to clients.

The new streamlined rollout process could serve Taco Bell well in catching up with other quick-service chains on two fronts. During the meeting, executives aired intentions to add a frozen beverage to the Mexican chain’s menus, and to explore some health-oriented “better-for-you” products.

Are things bad all over?

If the restaurant industry has slogged through a worse reporting period than the last few weeks, a guy named Hoover was probably president—if not somebody named Voldemort. In a 19-day stretch, Domino’s posted a 55-percent freefall in net income, Ruby Tuesday posted a 48-percent plummet, Brinker notched a 21-percent decline, Wendy’s disclosed a 56-percent dive, P.F. Chang’s earnings sank 20 percent and IHOP finished $11.6 million in the red. For all but a few industry standouts (notably McDonald’s and Tim Hortons), the recent past has been the stuff of blues songs.

The industry has certainly shrieked through its share of rollercoaster drops before. As Ruth’s Chris CEO Craig Miller noted during MUFSO, the current ills of sky-high fuel prices and surging food costs are minor compared to what he saw in the 1970s, when President Nixon froze prices to check inflation and consumers couldn’t buy gas at any price because of an OPEC embargo. This is nothing compared to then, he suggested.

But what makes Quagmire 2007 unique, at least out of all the restaurant downturns I’ve witnessed, is its lack of discrimination. In past sales chills, business usually shifted, with the big brands wresting traffic away from the scrawnier players in a display that would have had Darwin smugly nodding. But this time, the dynamic seems to be more of a lowering tide. Many of the companies that reported their earnings with a decided wince were the very ones that filed their SEC documents with a swagger just a short while ago. This is truly a macro-effect, not a bad story with plenty of footnotes. The list of the unaffected is shorter than a mash note to George Steinbrenner.

Which, of course, underscores the question, What’s the industry to do? Miller offered his recollections of worse times to illustrate that better conditions will return eventually. But how can a chain hurry it along?

BJ’s Restaurants, one of the companies to clearly prosper during a period that most competitors characterize as a kick in the groin, has a very definite idea. “In this difficult operating environment, where consumer spending for casual dining occasions and the prime costs of doing business will likely continue to be under significant pressure on an absolute basis for the foreseeable future, we believe the more successful casual dining concepts will be those that protect their overall consumer 'approachability' for all dining occasions and that offer even greater quality, differentiation and overall value to the consumer," CEO Jerry Deitchle was quoted as saying in the company’s announcement of a 31 percent rise in net income on a 30 percent rise in revenues for the third quarter.

I’m not crystal-clear on what he means by “overall consumer ‘approachability,’” but I assume he’s trying to say that the objective is boosting customer frequency, a laudable goal. Certainly that’s more ambitious than the usual approach of trying to buy customers by giving them a deal, a reflex that can haunt a chain for years to come.

Avoiding that knee jerk to focus on “approachability” and differentiation—an objective that should trump the others, in my estimation—would be as much of a departure from the norm as this downturn itself seems to be.

Foul pitch

I wish I’d been at Fenway Park last night, an admission that’s not easy for a Yankee fan to spit out. But at least I could’ve watched the game without having to retch through the worst baseball sell-out since the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. If you caught Taco Bell’s painfully strained promotion during Fox’s broadcast of the game, you’ll sympathize completely. Normally I’d rather tongue-kiss David Ortiz than set foot in a gloating Red Sox Nation during a World Series. But I’ll take Schilling over that sort of shilling any day of the baseball calendar.

Here’s what happened: With the Red Sox ahead by just one run, the heart of the Rockies’ lineup was coming up to bat. At that very moment, Fox commentator Joe Buck alerted us that we were going to hear an earlier-recorded snippet of conversation from a mic’d-up Royce Clayton, a second-string shortstop for the BoSox. For the benefit of the non-baseball fans among you: That’d be like “60 Minutes” interrupting an interview with Osama Bin Laden to cover a cat stuck in a tree.

“Hey, you like Taco Bell?,” Clayton asked Red Sox rookie Jacoby Ellsbury, who looked about as engaged as a 4-year-old in church. Clayton proceeded to explain that Taco Bell would give free tacos “to every person in the country” if a player on either team stole a base that night. “America’s depending on you,” he informed his young teammate.

Cut back to Buck, narrating a clip of Ellsbury stealing a base earlier in the game. Buck, one of the most respected commentators in sports, then informed the audience that the free tacos would be available next Tuesday between 2 and 5.

Say it ain’t so, Joe.

And tell us you’re not going to play along any further than that.

But he does. Matt Holliday, the Rockies’ best hitter, rips a single to set up a possible rally for the Rocks. Now Buck segues us to in-the-stands commentator Chris Myers, who’s sitting with Taco Bell chief operating officer Rob Savage. Myers articulates THE question on the minds of baseball fans at that moment: How can Taco Bell afford to give everyone in America a taco, when that has to cost millions?

“It’s all for our customers,” for whom every taco will be “made fresh for you,” Savage somberly replies.

Myers then presents Savage with a takeout container of (presumably New England) chowder inside a Taco Bell bag, and scars young baseball fans forever by closing with, “We’re thinking outside the bun.”

Buck, having found his conscience again, offers an obviously sarcastic, “Chris, great work.” At which point booth mate Tim McCarver burst out laughing. “From Schilling to shilling,” he quips, and both broadcasters resume calling a game then being pitched by Red Sox legend Curt Schilling.

It’s essential that restaurant marketers find new ways of reaching an audience that’s drifting away from traditional media. But the goal is to engage that hipper, more irreverent crowd, not to alienate it with a heavy-handed plug of that sort. Even co-conspirators like Buck and Myers seemed embarrassed to be associated with something that clunky. Used-car salesmen were probably cringing.

On Thursday afternoon, Applebee’s announced that it had chosen an apple as its new pitchwoman. A few hours later, Taco Bell and Fox reached for a lemon.

Would Wendy's take a check?

I’m thinking of bidding $4 billion for Wendy’s, but why make Nelson Peltz any richer? The worth of his stake in the company may already be bobbing higher because of speculation he’ll offer $3.2 billion—speculation some say he’s conjured with all the high-profile yelping about his treatment as a potential buyer.

After all, several of the other identified suitors have insisted the company’s not worth that much. Through his various companies, Peltz controls about 9 million Wendy’s shares. If he can bluff another bidder into raising its offer by even a few dollars per share, he’ll be in Frosties for life. And if he scares them away with his posturing, he could swoop in with a low-ball deal and bag the company with the M&A equivalent of an order off the Super Value menu. This is why I’m slaving away at a keyboard and he could pay the King to cut his lawn, with Mayor McCheese handling the edger.

So why not have my 15 minutes of fame and talk up a plan to bid $4 billion? As more and more observers are suggesting, my contemplated offer may be just as real as Peltz’s.

I’d call and check that with him but—well, you know. I’d have an easier time dragging the Pope out for some foosball.