The plot thickens

In yesterday’s posting, I mentioned that the foodservice industry has a mystery on its hands. Someone is anonymously publishing an electronic newsletter that satirizes restaurant-industry news and how it’s presented in the trade’s media, including Nation’s Restaurant News. The Food Chain Monthly Daily, available at http://www.foodchainmonthdaily.com, features stories like “Upcoming Multi-Unit Operators Conference to Focus Mostly on Golf and Drinking,” or “Taco Bell Jr. Marketing Executive Accused of Thinking Inside the Bun,” both from today’s edition.

As I noted yesterday, I sent an e-mail to the anonymous parties who had sent us the e-letter, asking who they were. Here was the response I got today:

“To answer your question as to who we are, that mystery will be solved very soon. There is a method to our fun poking which we plan to reveal after the next issue.”

So stay tuned.

Who is that masked jokester?

Jon Stewart draws millions of viewers with his nightly lampooning of major-media news broadcasts. Now someone is borrowing that “Daily Show” approach to take a satirical look at developments in the restaurant industry, with some fun poked at Nation’s Restaurant News in the process.

The question is, who’s doing it? As you’ll see by visiting http://www.foodchainmonthdaily.com, the presenter has invested a fair amount of time in creating what purports to be a new industry e-letter, Food Chain Monthly (“Fake Insight For Restaurant Executives,” reads the positioning line under the title). He, she or they also clearly know the business and how it’s been covered on the pages of NRN.

We learned of it from an anonymous e-mail. I’ve asked the author(s?) to tip their mask, but I’ve yet to field a response.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying the first installment. You can read about how KFC is shielding itself from the possible fallout of avian flu by removing the “C” from its name and rechristening itself KF.

Readers also learn that Jack, the cue-ball-headed star of Jack in the Box commercials, suspects his wife is fooling around with The King mascot from Burger King’s spots. We also learn that the wife of Popeye’s director of menu development is sick of hearing about exciting new dipping sauces.

Also included in the premier edition is a story about IHOP franchisees’ inability to agree on the impact of a new ad strategy. Gathered for their annual meeting, they shifted their energies instead to an argument about napkin vendors.

The slice of sarcasm is a direct take-off on an NRN item written by marketing editor Gregg Cebrzynski, who also authors our Ad Watcher blog. He wrote an article some time ago about IHOP franchisees reaching a consensus on an ad effort.

The lampooning in that and other blurbs is more humorous than abrasive, and the e-letter does sport some wonderfully surreal touches. The closing article is headlined, “Exhaustive Three Month QSR Research Project Confirms ‘Bacon is Delicious’.”

A disclaimer carefully spells out who is not behind the venture: The e-letter and the website that houses “is in no way associated with Chain Leader magazine or its various associated publications,” says the teensy-weensy type at the end.

Doest it protest too much?

Bi-coastal opportunities

After four days of eating in California, my grease deficiency is gone. The state may be renowned for its fresh, lighter fare, but after hitting the dining landmarks of Los Angeles, from Pink’s hotdog stand to the Milton Berle-esque Cantor’s Deli, it’s clear the current partiality for salads and such masks a weakness for dripping meats mounded with bacon, cheese, sour cream, more bacon, and, if you think blood circulation is over-rated, pastrami. And I offer that assessment without trying Tommy’s, the hallowed downtown burger stand that is to gut-bombers what the Sistine Chapel is to ceiling art. I held off because a man has to dream.

But while my NRN colleagues and I stifled sobs because none of us had thought to order fries or onion rings at Pink’s, we spied the next wave of fresh-and-healthy places to dot the Los Angeles market. Some of them seem to be at least inspired by Japan, if not imported from there. Another sort is clearly an adaptation of the new hotspots where droves of office workers line up at midday back home in Manhattan. Indeed, it seems as if a bi-coastal concept swap is in the offing, with profound implications for lunch as we know it.

Right now, the trade appears to be unequal. Southern California is already enjoying a taste of New York’s ongoing made-to-order salad boom, whereby small Big Apple chains like Chop’t and not a few neighborhood delis allow professional women and other salad-loving lunchers to spec the ingredients of an entrée salad. Typically you pay $4.99 and up to choose a lettuce and four toppings to be mixed with it. Request a protein, from chicken to shrimp, and you can expect to spend at least $2 more. A staffer behind a counter adds whatever dressing you specify, tosses the whole thing, and perhaps even chops it on a cutting board. It’s scooped into a carryout container and off you go. And, typically, you leave with relief because you’ve waited in a long, long line to get your meal.

The adaptation I spotted in downtown L.A. was called Loose Leaf Custom Built Salads. No doubt similar salad specialists are in the works elsewhere in the city and state, prodded along by the strong appeal to entrepreneurs as well as consumers. When you’re offering cold dishes, you don’t have to install costly cooking equipment. Nor do you have the development complications of running gas lines, or providing the requisite venting. The cost of a venture drops.

But while Los Angeles embraces that concept, it’s keeping a jealous grip on a lunch option that seems to be popping up there like traffic jams. Drive by two or three strip malls or downtown office centers and you’re likely to see at least one sparkling new quick-service place sporting a Japanese-sounding name (I had intended to write them all down during our tour of the city’s quick-service icons, but ended up with nothing but grease stains on a paper and a pen too slick to hold). The ones I saw featured portable choices like rice bowls, teriyaki selections, some noodle dishes, and soups. The places were extremely clean and fresh looking, and the food looked and tasted the same. It was also an astounding bargain. I had a small bowl of rice topped with fresh vegetables and a teriyaki sauce at one for $4.

The places embody the big-three traits that fuel more mainstream fast-casual concepts: Freshness, flavor and value. With that kind of potent appeal, it’s just a matter of time until they hope across the coast to storm New York.

But if Los Angeles wants to send us a branch of Tommy’s instead, hey, we’ll make do.
Bico

A name of shame?

A journalist crosses a certain threshold when he uses the term “female genitalia” in an article. So it was for me yesterday when I wrote about the latest restaurant venture from Hard Rock Cafes co-founder Peter Morton.

Morton, whose publicist acknowledged that the entrepreneur and his relatives have garnered $1.2 billion from the sale of restaurants, casinos and hotels, wants to tout the new venture by putting its name atop the Arizona Cardinals’ pro-football stadium. He’s already offered $3 million for the naming rights, and underscored his seriousness—or so his press release said—by flashing a check for $5 million before the eyes of Cardinals officials.

That situation is extraordinary enough. But as Morton might say, in a decidedly hipper way, "Wait! There's more!"

The topper in this case is the name that would show in lights above the facility: Pink Taco Stadium.

If you’re one of those people who crook their pinkies when they sip coffee, you may not be aware that “pink taco” is slang for a part of the female anatomy that probably shouldn’t be mentioned in a family-friendly blog like this one (hence the afore-mentioned reference to genitalia.) And that’s the phrase that’ll greet families as they file into the stadium to root for their Cardinals.

Morton professes that he doesn’t see why the use of that name should be controversial, which is why he’s proudly using it for his new chain of Mexican restaurants (two open, seven under development). Which, by the way, is being run by his 25-year-old son, Henry, better known to the younger staffers here at Nation's Restaurant News as the boyfriend of Lindsay Lohan.

The Mortons characterized the fuss as “foolish,” noting that the Pink Taco has been used without any rub at the prototype in Las Vegas for six years.

Who’s opinion are they soliciting, the guys from Hooters?

They acknowledge that the brand name is a strong draw for men aged 21 to 34, which explains why the second Pink Taco, in Scottsdale, Ariz., was a phenomenal hit.

Yet father and son are astute enough to acknowledge that they’d settle for Morton Stadium if the community finds the other designation to be too explicit.

You’ll find the story in the Breaking News section of our website, nrn.com.

A match made to be?

Wendy’s is searching for a new CEO who can bedazzle Wall Street, pull droves of consumers off Main Street, and convince franchisees they’re heading for Easy Street. Could it have the ideal candidate in Claire Babrowski?

Babrowski, if you’ve forgotten, was the up-and-comer at McDonald’s who was seemingly put through a special Hamburger U. prep course for a top job at the burger chain, if not the CEO’s post. But the board passed her over to choose Jim Skinner for that lofty perch instead.

Babrowski subsequently quit, parting with McDonald’s for the first time since her teens, when she worked at a unit franchised to a girlfriend’s father. The dad would often join the girls as they sat chatting in a booth, raising their embarrassment to a life-threatening level. For the sake of their reputations, the pair opted for a job in the parent-free zone behind the counter.

For the next 31 years, Babrowski would rise through McDonald’s ranks, eventually overseeing a region’s operations, then operations for the whole U.S. The company dispatched her to run its 7,500-unit Asian/Pacific, Middle East and Africa territory, presumably as a way of further seasoning her. She was serving as worldwide chief restaurants operations officer when Skinner, a longtime veteran of the chain's overseas operations, got the nod instead of her.

She took six months off, then surfaced last summer as chief operating officer of RadioShack, the chain of electronic-gizmo shops (curiously, working under another restaurant expatriate, executive chairman Len Roberts, formerly of Arby’s and Shoney’s). When “misstatements” were discovered early this year on the resume of CEO David Edmondson, he left the company, and Babrowski was tapped to serve as acting CEO. She inherited a mess. But her handling of the situation made her the hands-on favorite to get the job on a permanent basis.

But, as was the case at McDonald’s at the time of Babrowski’s departure, and now Wendy’s, the company had lost credibility on Wall Street. The board opted to bring in a turnaround specialist from Kmart and Sears, whose background might buoy RadioShack’s stock price more quickly. Julian Day was a prime figure in the miraculous turnaround of both Kmart and Sears (in part through their merger), and RadioShack desperately needed a similar touch of retailing magic.

That was five weeks ago. On Friday, RadioShack announced that Babrowski had resigned.

The official statement said she would pursue outside interests. But an unnamed RadioShack official was cited in some news reports as saying he didn’t know where Babrowski was going. That suggested she has a destination in her sights.

Which, perhaps, brings us back to Wendy’s. The company is being led on what it insists is an interim basis by Kerrii Anderson, its former CFO. She has the financial chops that please Wall Street, which all but lynched her predecessor as CEO, Jack Schussler. What she lacks is operational experience. Indeed, she’s the first chief in the company’s history to have worked her way to the top post through anything but operations.

And that’s Babrowski’s specialty, though she also has experience in overseeing marketing, menu-product development and the franchise operations of major geographic territories. As president of McDonald’s Asian, Middle Eastern and African turf, she was responsible for more units than Wendy’s has worldwide.

Her most notable achievement at McDonald’s—and what some might also call the blackest mark against her—was the development and rollout of Made For You, a high-tech prep system that took the chain out of a batch-cooking mode and squarely into the mass customization—a longtime signature of Wendy’s. By conservative estimates, the set-up cost the McDonald’s system a quarter of a billion dollars. And as was reported in this space a week ago, McDonald’s is currently leapfrogging away from that “platform” in a two-phase overhaul.

Now Wendy’s is in the midst of a prep-system re-do. It’s trading out its grills for high-speed two-sided versions, as executives never fail to stress in their confabs with financial analysts. They typically also note that the chain is adapting other high-tech systems for maximizing unit efficiency.

It may not be a rehab on the scale of Made For You, but Wendy’s is still Number Three in the burger-chain size rankings. How many CEO candidates out there have experience in a retrofit of that scope, using technology that advanced, specifically for a grill-based quick-service restaurant chain?

The bigger question about Babrowski is why she was passed over by both McDonald’s and RadioShack for the top job. If you’ve ever seen her address gatherings like the Women’s Foodservice Forum, or observed her in action at headquarters, you’ve likely witnessed her considerable leadership skills. She’s spent enough time in the trade to have ketchup in her veins, an intangible steeped-in-the-business sense that would no doubt have pleased the likes of Dave Thomas, Jim Near and Gordon Teeter.

McDonald’s and Radio Shack didn’t reveal any reasons for choosing someone over her. But in both instances, the winning candidate was more experienced, with a deeper background in finance, and just more time logged on earth. Babrowski is 49 years old. Skinner is 61. Day, the man who edged her out at RadioShack and said he’ll assume her duties there, is 54.

But Wendy’s would have the option of a more rounded, fire-hardened Babrowski, who’s actually worked as a CEO for a company out of favor with Wall Street. She was only at RadioShack’s control switches for six months, but during that time she was the one who signed off on the company’s dismal financial statements, and no doubt had to deal with irate shareholders. All of that street schooling would likely serve her well at Wendy’s.

And what of Anderson, who appears to be serving the Number Three chain well? Wendy’s has said she’s serving on a interim basis, but chairman Jim Picket has stated publicly that Anderson is in the running for the permanent posting. Would the company risk her loss to bring in Babrowski? Or might Anderson be willing to step back into her CFO role, shoring up what seems to be the least developed aspect of Babrowski’s management abilities?

Babrowski won’t leave RadioShack until the end of the month. And after that, time will tell.

Site for sore eyes

So much ho-hum is passed off as gee-whiz that we editors tend to filter claims of innovation through a Shaquille O’Neal-sized layer of cynicism. Then someone manages to yank your attention to something truly progressive, and there’s the same uplift you get from watching “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

That’s how it went when the folks from Johnson & Wales University came to our office recently to showcase a new website they’ve developed with the Multicultural Foodservice & Hospitality Alliance under a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor. The site, whatsnext4me.com, was conceived and painstakingly designed to illuminate a path into foodservice for high school students intrigued by the possibility of a career in that field.

The site intends to give the youngsters a taste of life in the business by telling the story of someone who’s actually doing the job that interests them. J&W is building a library of profiles, each keyed not only to a particular hospitality position but also to a company that could eventually offer employment of that sort to the interested teen. For instance, if a visitor thinks he might like to work as an executive chef, he’d be led to a bank of profiles, where various real-life executive chefs describe not only their lives, in and out of work, but also what it’s like to work in their capacity for their particular employer, be it Marriott International, Compass Group or Capital Grille.

If the visitor wanted more information on that company, he can click on a link that takes him to a landing page hosted by the concern. There he’ll find indications about benefits offered specifically for students, such as scholarships, or internships.

For that soft-sell opportunity, the employers pay the non-profit site a sponsorship fee, which has yet to be revealed by J&W.

The profiles include detailed information on the amount of education needed to land a position, as well as an indication of the pay.

Of course, few of the site’s target audience have realized at their tender age that they’d like to work in marketing, or that being a unit manager could be far more satisfying and lucrative than being a chef. The site leads them to the appropriate job or industry discipline by asking broad-based questions about the lifestyle they’d prefer—being financially secure, for instance, versus having more free time.

The site isn’t a pitch for Johnson & Wales; indeed, the school is prohibited by the terms of its Labor Department grant from wooing applicants. Rather, the objective is promoting foodservice as a career choice, so that all parties see their pool deepening.

It’s a worthy cause, and a notable, noteworthy attempt to deliver.

If you’d like more information about the site, just drop me a note at promeo@nrn.com, and I’d be glad to pass it along to J&W.

Love ya, Nelson

Whatever possessed me to suggest that Nelson Peltz may be a tad money-focused? The man is a veritable Mother Theresa in Armani, helping corporations find their way, giving hard-pressed lawyers a chance to step up a tax bracket, proudly watching while his Arby’s chain upgrades its bread. Instead of taunting him to grant an interview, or covering developments like Standard & Poor’s downgrade of a holding’s credit rating, I should be scouring film art houses to find a replay of “Ocean’s Twelve,” so I can jump up and cheer when he appears for a millisecond in a crowd scene. (His other film appearance was in Brian DePalma’s 1970 epic, “Hi, Mom!” If you ask me, he stole the flick from DeNiro.)

Why the change of heart, the regular readers among you might ask? It has absolutely, positively, beyond a shadow of a doubt nothing to do with Peltz’s shift in investment focus from your world to mine. So what if he recently bought 2.8 million shares in The Tribune Co., parent of the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday and other places where I may someday work? Or that he may be hungry for other media acquisitions? And that I hope to stay in the media?

Even if he did end up buying a company where I was plinking away at the keyboard, why would I worry? He has to know I’ve only been kidding with all this commentary about his management abilities, and how his Triarc operation, the parent of Arby’s, is a Mini Cooper compared with Wendy’s, CBRL and the other companies whose directions he’s insisted on plotting. It’s all been just a lot of joshing. Diverting his attention away from restaurant or food chains may be great for you. But it’s not necessarily awful for me. Right?

Work with me here, people.

Well, just wanted to get that out there. Now I’m off to have an Arby’s sandwich, with some Heinz ketchup on it.

Chain mothers

Long before the industry appreciated the need to foster opportunity for women, Esther Johnson was finding plenty of it. In 1947, when many of her gendermates were resigning their wartime factory jobs to make room for homecoming soldiers, she managed the day shift of a restaurant in Seattle, where she’d landed after serving as a surgical nurse for the WAVES, the Navy’s female auxiliary. Among the 27-year-old’s vendors was a baked-goods salesman named Harry Snyder. In short order he switched from pushing breads and buns to pitching her on becoming his wife. He was a good salesman.

Within a year, they were married and living in southern California, planning to make a living by feeding the suburban-minded Americans who hoped to drive away memories of the war with the comforts of raising a family. They opened a restaurant in 1948 where Harry worked the counter and manned the grill while Esther chopped and prepped, hand-forming burger patties from fresh ground beef. They called it In-N-Out Burger, and its six-item, low-priced menu was a hit.

Before long, the Snyders were opening more restaurants. Esther managed the books and the paperwork while Harry functioned as the outside man, looking for sites, hiring the managers, cutting the deals. Along the way, they found time to raise two children, Guy and Richard, who were pressed into the business at an early age.

The family empire prospered and grew, expanding company unit by company unit until it stretched to several dozen drive-thrus, then more than 100. Around the time the Women’s Foodservice Forum set a goal of having at least three women in every restaurant-company executive suite by 2010, In-N-Out hit the 200-store mark. By that time, Harry, Guy and Richard had all passed away at early ages, but Esther was still tending to their brainchild, now as president and chairman.

It’s unclear if business or her extensive charitable activities led Esther Snyder to an acquaintance with the former Margaret Heinz, for whom the line between family and a restaurant company had also been erased, in her case by an impromptu act of capitalization. In 1941, her husband, Carl Karcher, had taken a $311 loan against his Plymouth to raise funds for a hotdog stand, but was still a few dollars short. Margaret took $15 from her purse, and the deal was consummated.

The cart would later be put in display in the lobby of what is now CKE Restaurants, the $1.2-billion-a-year parent of the Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, La Salsa and Green Burrito fast-food operations. Margaret Heinz Karcher saw it grow from that first hotdog venture, through a power struggle that pushed Carl out of operations, to his triumphant return, to its takeover by an associate. Along the way, the Karchers would have 12 children.

Esther Snyder died on August 4 at age 86. The company she’d been crucial in building has been left to her sole granddaughter, Lyndsi Martinez, age 23.

Margaret Heinz Karcher had passed away almost exactly a month earlier, at age 91. She left behind 51 grandchildren, some of whom have worked in the business.

Today, smart companies spend far more than $15 to steamroller whatever barriers tend to keep women from rising into leadership positions. But 40-odd years before that commitment became a veritable business commandment, women like Esther Snyder, Margaret Heinz Karcher and Allie Marriott were already proving that gender matters less in the restaurant trade than hard work, dedication and partnership. Their efforts may not have been widely known, but they were true trailblazers, before there were awards to recognize such a contribution, or publications to laud their achievement in a pants-centric business.

It’d be woeful to overlook the loss of such true pioneers, and the differences they quietly made in the lives of so many in foodservice.

Kitchen synching?

Less than a decade after retrofitting its kitchens in the costliest capital-improvement program ever undertaken in foodservice, McDonald’s is overhauling its back-of-the-counter set-up again. Twice, in fact.

Management told a handful of analysts last week that it plans to supplant its ballyhooed Made for You prep system with a more adaptable ordering and cooking “platform,” tech-ese for “design.” Until that new set of equipment and procedures is fully developed, the chain is outfitting units in troubled overseas markets with a temporary configuration known internally as the Bridge. It combines elements of Made for You with aspects of the chain’s traditional grill set-up, which dates from Ray Kroc’s days.

Executives say the two-phase update is necessary because the business varies so widely today on a global basis, with different sorts of restaurants serving far-different products to diverse groups following their own peculiar schedules. “We’ve learned that one size does not fit all,” said CEO Jim Skinner. “So we’re working on a next-generation operating system,” with “flexible components that can be plugged in, depending on the restaurant’s needs.”

Ironically, customization and flexibility were the two main rationales for the switch to Made for You, a highly computerized set-up that holds burgers in special heat-and-moisture-controlled cabinets. Introduced with considerable fanfare, the system was expected to end the chain’s reliance on batch-cooking, whereby a few dozen hamburger patties were grilled at one time. Because the sandwiches were wrapped and held until someone ordered them, they often cooled considerably before being consumed, leaving customers dissatisfied with the taste.

With Made for You, each sandwich would be prepared to the customer’s specifications at the time an order was placed. It was expected to improve perceptions of McDonald’s food without an increase in serving times.

Made for You was also seen as more versatile, in that it could be used for a broader array of menu choices than McDonald’s offered at the time.

But the system failed to meet the hopes of investors and franchisees, who, according to McDonald’s per-unit cost estimates, collectively paid several hundred million dollars to install Made for You.

McDonald’s didn’t offer a cost estimate for either the Bridge or the Phase Two platform, tentatively dubbed the Flexible Operating System. But Skinner did tout the payback, including a capability to handle new types of menu items. He also said the Flexible configuration would “enhance the work environment of the crew,” but did not provide an explanation.

The Bridge is already being tested in “countries that need help with their operations now,” said Skinner, citing the examples of the United Kingdom, France and Germany. He added that 1,500 more outlets, franchised and company-run, will be retrofitted with a Bridge system during the next year.

No timeframe was given for the development of the Flexible Operating System, nor how many units might be ultimately retrofitted. “This is not something that we’ll be doing in every market,” Skinner said.

What's gotten into Wendy's?

Floyd Landis pedals at the speed of a Toyota Camry and the world rightfully suspects performance-enhancers. Wendy’s vows to hire an executive who can deliver innovation on an everyday basis, and nary a blood sample is taken. Come to your senses, people. We’re just a grassy knoll short of a conspiracy here.

How else do you explain the lack of Rohrshachs in the wake of Wendy’s disclosure that it’s forming an executive group—a veritable small department—to foster innovation as a strategic point of difference? Remember, this is chain foodservice, the realm of the me-too. Wendy’s is bucking the sort of thinking that made casual-dining menus all but interchangeable. Your fried-onion appetizer may be Awesome instead of Bloomin’, or touted as Petals. But is it fundamentally any different? Any more so than the spinach dip, chicken fingers, wings, quesadillas, fajitas or pot stickers offered by virtually every player in that arena? The big casual chains could cut their costs by jointly printing a single menu, with a space left blank for each concept’s name.

It’s not much better in the quick-service sector, despite the prod for originality that fast-casual upstarts delivered a few years ago. By now, the best ideas from that cheeky lot have been co-opted. Look at ethnic breads. The die-cut sponges that once passed as sandwich buns have been panini’d out of acceptability. Today, you can get foreign-sounding designer breads at 7-Eleven.

It’s a situation that must be particularly difficult for Wendy’s, originator of the sector’s last true head-turner. When competitors were aiming no higher than serving their food hot, the Number Three chain boldly introduced premium salads, at proportionate prices. It rollicked in the green while almost every direct competitor merely pushed its interchangeable bargain items that much harder, typically in vain.

But it’s not been a cakewalk for Wendy’s since then. A fruit salad bombed. Its own upscale breads, finished in the units from dough spec’d by Los Angeles’ famed La Brea Bakery, has been a plus. But by the time of the rollout, plenty of other chains had already taught customers to pronounce foccaccia.

And what’s next on its roll-out schedule? Bigger, multi-patty burgers, a la Burger King, followed by breakfast sandwiches that are square instead of round, like the chain’s burger patties. Whoa.

That’s why the chain can’t move fast enough in hiring a “senior strategist,” a move it pledged to make two weeks ago. Reporting to this individual, the head of a new Innovation and Strategy braintrust, will be three execs promoted into new titles that underscore the forward spin of their expanded responsibilities. There’s a menu R&D person, who has the added task of developing tomorrow’s packaging and recipe tweaks. A second team member, the vice president of strategic insights and innovation, has the duty of strategic planning, with an eye toward business development. And, finally, in a nod to Wendy’s unique situation, there’s a person ostensibly devoted to evolving operations. They’ll report to the senior strategist, who in turn answers to Wendy’s longtime chief marketing officer, Ian Rowden.

It’s a bold undertaking, though not without some marketing spin. Yet even more ambitious is the goal of finding this innovation maven. Chances are strong that he or she will be taken from outside the industry, or certainly from outside a corporate foodservice office. Just between us, innovation has not been a strong point of the industry in recent years. Look at the new products that merited a second look from consumers this summer. Wendy’s added a vanilla version of its Frosty, a frozen dessert offered solely in a chocolate flavor until now. A few chains stole Starbucks gee-whiz technique of serving milkshakes and other chilled-and-garnished drinks in cups with a clear dome. And many of the major fast-food brands upgraded their coffee. Wow.

Clearly the industry has not been a hotbed of creative thinking in the near-past. Recruitment will be difficult if Wendy’s is determined to find a corporate-office vet with proven foresight and creativity. It’d best look outside chains’ headquarters, for some free-thinking franchisee or indie operator.

But, hey, I have the perfect candidate for them: Whoever runs the shoe-shine concession at MacArthur Airport, the flight center that serves the bedroom community of Long Island. Nestled in the heart of suburbia, the airport is used more by leisure travelers heading off to DisneyWorld than by the suited business travelers who predominate at places like LaGuardia or O’Hare. Passengers were more likely to be in Nikes or New Balances than in Florshiems or Prada. The guy with the Kiwi wax gets less play than the insurance vending machine.

Then, during a recent visit, I found the stand abuzz with activity. The reason was right there, on a sign that looked hand-fashioned: “We now clean sneakers!”

If Wendy’s hires him, I expect a free Frosty out of this. Chocolate and vanilla.

Time for your cameo, Mr. DiSpirito

Rocco, Rocco, Rocco. You’ve had your day as a TV idol. Now pack it in and head back to the kitchen.

But some people just can’t forego that 16th minute of fame, and Rocco DiSpirito is evidently one of them. The star of the much-maligned “The Restaurant” reality program is reportedly taking another stab at entertainment stardom, this time in something even less likely to land him on “Hollywood Squares.” Judging from the news leaks, he’d be lucky afterward to snag a gig in training videos. According to the trade mag Daily Variety, the chef has been booked for a new show called “Rocco,” where he serves as a culinary therapist, curing the emotionally distressed with food.

His website, www.roccodispirito.com, offers more detail about the aid he’ll dispense: “Worried about that engagement dinner with your picky mother-in-law? Trying to win back that ex-girlfriend who's still mad at you for cheating on her? Trying to bury the hatchet with that outcast uncle at your family reunion cookout? Rocco wants to help you solve that problem!”

Of course, it doesn’t say exactly how he’ll do it. But he could ease please one fan by going back to being a chef instead of a celebrity.

Not your daughter's McDonald's

Snack-sized chicken wraps may be the lure McDonald's is fly-casting into the U.S. market this summer. But elsewhere in the world, the burger giant is figuring it can turn heads with far more ambitious bait. Consider, for instance, the silver-dome-worthy dishes it started testing today in Australia.

The experimental My Dinner Now menu features four dishes marketed as upscale fusion fare. There’s a lemongrass chicken with penne pasta, obviously combining Thai and Italian staples; rendang beef and penne, for someone with more of an Indian yen; beef Bolognese penne; and orange, lime and ginger chicken.

Remember, this is McDonald’s, a concept that had to yank a chipotle-flavored chicken sandwich from its permanent menu here in the States because of acceptance issues.

And the prices range from $7.95 to $8.95.

The chain didn’t release many details to the Australian press about how the dishes are prepared. But it did note fresh vegetables are used.

Who’d have thought that Americans would be laggard adapters?

Foreign thinking

Imported from a place with its own business precepts, Aroma doesn’t always see the sense in American restaurant conventions, even as it chases such homegrown mega-successes as Starbucks. Consider, for instance, how the Israeli chain’s first U.S. outpost is using prices to manipulate customers’ behavior.

Most U.S. restaurateurs set their fees with the simple objective of maximizing revenues and traffic. It’s all about pulling volume through the door.

But Aroma wants to shoo customers out as much as it wants to woo them in. The beachhead sandwich and espresso shop, just south of New York University in New York City, offers a 10 percent discount on all to-go orders. The tactic allows the concept to minimize seating without antagonizing patrons who want a place to sit but can’t find one. And that plays into the larger goals of lowering costs and fostering traffic.

The practice is common in Israel, where it’s helped the chain maximize the profits of its 73 other Aromas, some of which reportedly take in the equivalent of $1.2 million annually. But over here, it’s a virtually unknown tactic, and one likely to be treated by U.S. restaurateurs as heresy, if not lunacy. Indeed, some brands here charge extra for takeout, since it involves additional packaging, just as others levy a delivery fee.

And what’s the sense of extending a discount on such a huge part of the business? How can you forgo such a big portion of a price that’s been calculated to realize a certain profit margin?

Maybe they’re just looking at the matter with an American bias. They see the take-out price as a discount, instead of viewing the eat-in charge as carrying a premium. If you want a sandwich and latte to go, you can get it at this price. If you want to stay and eat, you’ll have to pay one-ninth more for that added service.

And then there’s the effect on building costs, of leading customers to make you truly a take-out place, so you need fewer seats. It could mean a whole new calculus for projecting prices and profits.

It’s all about building on what you know, with what you wouldn’t have thought.

Pop-quiz time

This might seem like just another Friday to you. But any Catholic-school survivor from around here knows July 21 was the day Sister Doberman Intolerata logged her 13,412th career knuckle whack--fittingly, during summer school. It’s a record that will last long after humans are running three-minute miles and Joe DiMaggio is remembered more for marrying Marilyn Monroe than for hitting in 56 consecutive games.

It’s only fitting the day be commemorated in a fashion that would have pleased the lion-scaring sister, or at least put some extra zip in her ruler technique. What better way than with a pop quiz, guaranteed to catch you off-guard?

So grab a No. 2 pencil and choose the answer that best defines these recent additions to the foodservice vocabulary:

Food desert:
a) A common misspelling of an after-dinner treat.
b) What France would become after a really bad drought.
c) Social pundits’ new buzz-phrase for how fast food is supposedly undercutting the health of the disadvantaged. Gaining use in Chicago to denote poor inner-city areas where quick-service restaurants abound but grocery stores are rarer than J.Crew outlets. Typically not used in a favorable sense, as in “Our neighborhood is a food desert where children are getting fat because all they can eat is junk!”

Crispy
a) A new rap artist affiliated with Buckethead, the former Guns N’ Roses guitarist who wears an actual KFC bucket over his head to maintain anonymity. .
b) The new PC term for “fried,” as in “Bonzo Burger’s new Crispy Chicken Sandwich.”
c) The cereal mascot originally matched with Snap and Crackle until Pop aced the audition.

Brisket
a) A shortened version of the rite for male Jewish infants.
b) A low-cost knock-off of the Jet Ski.
c) The chain Menu Item of the Moment, added this summer to the bills of fare for T.G.I. Friday’s, Quiznos and others. Indeed, barbecue of all types is being avidly adopted this season, greasing the way for it to join Cajun and Buffalo as a home-grown staple flavor for chains. New converts may be able to pick up excess inventory at a discount from Darden’s Smokey Bones chain, which is running counter-trend with a push to downplay its barbecue DNA.

Chiberko
a) A term invented by a brilliant foodservice blogger to designate the decidedly Berkeley-like tendencies of Chicago in recent weeks. The California city may still be a haven of activism, prone to using legislation to right social wrongs seldom addressed outside of a commune. But it’s been laissez-faire in comparison with the recent hyperactivity of the Midwestern metropolis. The City of Big Shoulders could be renamed Burg of the Heavy Handed, outlawing the sale of foie gras, eying restrictions on trans-fats, and looking at the canine rights of restaurant patrons, vis-à-vis a movement to allow dogs in outdoor dining areas.
b) Starbucks’ new offering, a particularly zany chai blend.
c) Bucket Head’s porn name.

Okay, pencils down! Please grade yourself on the honor system. And don’t worry. For those who failed, KFC buckets will be provided.

A burning idea

The idea hit Louis Osteen, the James Beard Award-winning chef from Pawleys Island, S.C., while he was visiting an organic-foods producer in California. He was toque-deep in “tree huggers,” as he put it, and not a few were extolling the benefits of draining restaurant fryers--not for any health benefits, but to offset the high price of gasoline. The proponents were collecting the used oil, otherwise destined for disposal, and turning it into bio-diesel for their tractors and trucks, right “in their garages,” Osteen said. “It seems to be a not-too-difficult process.”

And that got him thinking, as he wrote in an e-mail to me late last week. “Who’s the largest user of fryers in the country? I’ll bet it’s McDonald’s,” he wrote, undoubtedly pegging that answer. “They could install converters in each of their stores, make the fuel, pump it to where a diesel generator resided, and co-generate their electricity. I’ll bet their consolidated eletric bill is in the billions. If they could save 15 to 20 percent, it would flow directly to their bottom line and increase shareholder value.” The government might even pay for the effort, since the switch would appreciably lessen demand for overseas oil.

“Then some entrepreneurs will start making smaller units for independents like me, and I’ll save a few bucks,” he noted. “Lots of good things will happen,” including a reconsideration of the knock against fried foods.

Louis wanted my feedback on the idea, and I noted that a newspaper in his part of the country had just run a story that lent credence to his notion. The town of Summerville, S.C., is in the process of adapting selected trucks from its service fleet to burn used fryer oil. French Fry One, a converted 1995 Chevrolet Suburban, is already on the road, and a dump truck might be the next piece of equipment to be retrofitted, according to the article in The Post and Courier.

And stranger ideas have become accepted business options. Co-generation, for instance, was once regarded as a crackpot suggestion from do-gooders who’d hugged one too many spotted owls. Then, after the energy crunch of the late ‘70s, disparagers started re-thinking the idea of allowing businesses to burn their garbage as a way of generating heat and electricity. By the mid-1980s, hotels were considering, and hospitals were trying it. The harebrained suddenly looked creative and feasible.

But that’s my opinion, not Jim Skinner’s. And getting the CEO of McDonald’s on the phone could prove as difficult for Louis as getting Dick Cheney to return a voice-mail message. If Osteen’s idea ever generates action, it will likely be the result of widespread discussion within the trade.

Which leads to the real purpose of this: What do you think of his notion? Is the oil in your fryers an overlooked way of easing your utility or gas costs?

Peltz catches some mud

Duck behind this rock, put this sauce pot over your head, and watch the bullets fly. Neither combatant is a restaurant chain, but what happens in this firefight could influence what happens to any number of big-name foodservice companies—or possibly their suppliers—in the months ahead.

On one side of No Man’s Land is H.J. Heinz Co., the ketchup king. And dug in across the barbed wire is Nelson Peltz, corporate raider extraordinaire. He’s once again boasting that he can deliver far more growth in a company’s stock by directing its management, as he did with Wendy’s. In the instance of Heinz, he’s demanding the right to fill more board seats than Yankees typically do in their bleacher section. Peltz wants five chairs in all, out of a total of 12.

He’ll likely prevail, but not without catching a few hurled bricks in the process. Heinz’s management, not surprisingly, has rebuffed Peltz’s demands. Last week it sent a letter to shareholders, imploring them to cast their proxy votes against the corporate raider’s candidates. Why, it argued, should shareholders elect directors who wouldn’t meet the company’s governance standards?

As the letter noted, the candidates include not only Peltz himself, but also his son-in-law, Edward Gardiner; his friend, the former pro golfer Greg Norman; his longtime business partner, Peter May; and a former employee, Michael Weinstein. Although Heinz stops short of saying the set-up would reek of cronyism, it asserts that votes would be cast in a block for the what’s in the best interest of Peltz and his partners, not necessarily the company’s body of shareholders.

The letter also asks why 42 percent of the board’s seats should be controlled by someone who holds 5.5 percent of Heinz’s stock.

Tucked here and there are a few subtler putdowns of Peltz and his colleagues, like the observation that their Trian Group is an off-shore operation, technically headquartered in the Cayman Islands. It also asserts that Peltz and May were censured by the London Stock Exchange in 1991 in connection with an overseas investment, and made payments to settle claims of securities fraud.

Peltz hasn’t sat idly in his foxhole while the mortar shells fell. His Trian Group investment group has countered with a letter to shareholders, urging them to opt for more riches than they’ll get under Heinz’s current management. As the communication notes, someone who bought $100 worth of Heinz stock in 1998, when current CEO William R. Johnson ascended to that post, would had a stake worth $62 as of February of this year.

It also asserts that the Trian-nominated board candidates are “independent” and “highly qualified.”

The matter will be settled by a vote of shareholders that concludes at Heinz’s annual meeting on Aug. 16.

The novelty of choice

Could it be? After decades of nudging their menus closer and closer to one another's, burger giants have finally found it in their buns to offer an unmistakeable difference.

Or at least two of them have. As we reported online today, Wendy’s is putting more fire into a chicken sandwich already marketed as a scorcher. And as we reported yesterday, McDonald’s is putting its sizzler of a chicken sandwich back in the fridge. A franchisee might pull it out from time to time for a quick sales pop. But it's there for menu cameos, not for a starring role.

You’re no doubt as stunned as I am by the sheer coincidence of the developments. What are the odds that Wendy’s would lift the silver dome off its new 4-Alarm Spicy Chicken Sandwich less than a day after stories broke (on www.nrn.com and elsewhere) that McDonald’s was downgrading its Spicy Premium Chicken Sandwich to a menu option?To think otherwise would mean Wendy’s exploited the situation, and that’s not often been said about the chain in recent years.

Regardless, this is a monumental development. If a fast-food fan wants spice—specifically a chipotle heat—he knows Wendy’s has a chicken item that delivers it, and that McDonald’s doesn’t.

If this keeps up, think of what could happen. Chains might carve out distinct niches again. Consumers might base their fast-food choice on something other than price or volume. Loyalty could be cultivated again. Brand personality could be revived.

Oh, my.

But before we get too light-headed here, I’m obliged to cite the other quick-service story we've covered online: Burger King also tweaked its menu. In its case, it added a line of mega-sandwiches dubbed Stackers, so called because they consist of burger patties stacked atop one another, with cheese and bacon layered in between. The objective is turning heads with heft, or exactly what Carl’s Jr. has done with its Six Dollar Burger, and Hardee’s is striving to do with its Thickburgers. And the approach is exactly what Wendy’s has used from its very beginning; its Classic Double and Triple are made by stacking burger patties into belly fillers you have to lift with two hands.

BK has shown through its advertising—even the spots for the new Stackers—that it’s willing to take the risk of doing something distinctive. But it doesn’t seem to be doing it this time with its menu.

Say what, Pa.?

Some onlookers might wonder what they’re smoking in Pennsylvania these days. But if the state’s restaurant industry has its way, you can bet it won’t be tobacco.

The Pennsylvania Restaurant Association delivered a real jaw-dropper last week when it sent letters to state lawmakers, urging them to ban smoking in all public places, eateries included. There was no proposal before the legislature. No referendum was about to be put to voters. Indeed, there seemed to be no harebrained measure afoot that the trade was hoping to pre-empt with a more reasonable proposal. From all appearances and known circumstances, it seemed the association was taking the initiative on a no-smoking law. And the association didn’t say otherwise.

It asserted publicly that it was moved by a report from the U.S. surgeon general that found second-hand smoke to be a significant health risk to non-smokers. Yet association officials told deputy managing editor Paul Frumkin that they decided to call for the ban a day before the surgeon general’s findings were released.

We wondered aloud in our New York office about the possibility of liability lawsuits based on the surgeon general’s study, and if the PRA was trying to shield its members from litigation down the road. But that notion was put forth by us, not the association.

However, tea leaves and other indicators suggest the PRA may have a motive other than merely protecting servers and bartenders from second-hand smoke. Association chief Patrick Conway told Frumkin that the industry staked out “the high ground” because “we might be better positioned to guide the debate at the state level.” And if that’s the case, the PRA’s actions may be well-conceived.

Its about-face in calling for the prohibition, after steadfastly resisting a ban for years, came to notice almost in the same hour news reports surfaced in Louisiana about the restaurant industry suing the state over a recently-passed smoking law. Operators there are furious because a new ban exempts casinos, just as New Jersey’s law does. In both states, the trade has argued that the exemption gives casinos an unfair advantage in the battle for consumers’ disposable income.

And there’s absolutely, positively no doubt they’re right; the exemption is patently fair. The casinos argued that they’d lose money if smoking was banned on their premises, just as restaurants have. But casinos spent more money to make that argument heard, and they have the added weapon of generating hundreds of millions in tax revenues for their host states. In short, restaurants couldn’t control the conversation in those locales. They were over-shouted by a more powerful and persuasive voice.

Pennsylvania has no casinos as of right now, but the state has been empowered to license 14 gaming halls. By stressing the need to put health considerations above business concerns, the PRA may be able to frame the discussion of any bill that emerges from the legislature. It may have acted shrewdly to prevent a repeat on the unfairness against restaurants that prevails in New Jersey and Louisiana.

What looks like insanity could prove a brilliant move, a true flash of fire behind the smoke.

So long, Tom

My job abounds in good aspects, but I’ll be damned if I could think of one this afternoon. Maybe I should be grateful I only had to edit the obit on my friend Tom Crawford, instead of having to write it.

Those of you who’ve attended a Restaurant Leadership Conference, or supported it as a sponsor, will readily understand. The annual conference, a sort of class trip/think tank/celeb fest for restaurant franchisees and franchisors, was Tom’s charge, and it reflected a personality that both admirers and detractors termed “unique." The three-day retreat had started as a perk for the customers and would-be clients of Franchise Financial Corp. of America, a lend-lease giant that has since been absorbed into GE Capital. It was subsequently reorganized into a independent event operated by a freestanding entity called the Leadership Network Corp., which Tom was tapped to head.

He could have had an easy time of it, booking some high-ticket resort and marching a parade of the usual retired sports stars or inspirational presenters to the podium. Throw in a barbecue, luau or pig roast, or bring in some past-prime talent for a grand banquet, and you'd have had a perfectly acceptable boondoggle.

Instead, Tom decided to rethink what an industry meeting should be, using the famous Sun Valley conference as his inspiration. That gathering, in Sun Valley, Idaho, drew the gods of the technology industry by providing a chance for true interaction and mind-melding.

At the time, most foodservice events consisted of talking heads standing at a podium or sitting on a panel, broadcasting their wisdom to a passive (or sometimes napping) audience. Two days of lectures, with maybe a half-day golf outing where the real mental and social connecting took place. If the recreational and social activities are where attendees gain the most, Crawford reasoned, why not make those components the major part of the conference? And if they want to learn from savants, why not get people who really fit the bill, regardless of what’s required to bring them there?

It probably wasn’t the first time a conference producer had been filled with that religion. But, bless him, Crawford made it happen, and it was magical. You could go horseback riding in the Arizona desert, or book a Hummer and tear around off-road. One year, he arranged to have dozens of hot-air balloons take us all up for a ride. Another time, he brought in a rodeo. One of my favorite recollections was watching a spring-training game with Dave Winfield, a New York Yankee before he became a Burger King franchisee and fast-food service provider. The Giants were playing the Cubs, and when Barry Bonds homered, Winfield yelled his praise. Bonds saluted in recognition, and might have even smiled. And I sat there with a cold beer, part of the scene, as were the attendees with whom I had become friends.

And then there were the speakers. Jack Kemp, around the time he ran as Bob Dole’s vice-presidential candidate. And Dan Quayle, the year he ran for president. George Will, the noted political and baseball writer, was a regular. Last year, Tom somehow lured former Disney CEO Michael Eisner to speak. On the same program was John Walsh, host of “America’s Most Wanted,” and one day started with a self-defense expert who taught the Walter Mitty's in attendance how to fend off an attacker.

Another year, he not only secured Jerry Colangelo, owner of the Phoenix Suns and Diamondbacks, but booked him to speak in the Diamondbacks’ spectacular retractable-dome stadium. The conference opened with all of us sitting there in an otherwise empty stadium, and the dome suddenly opening to let the sunlight brighten the infield grass to the color of pool-table felt. Tom, our emcee, stood just in front of the pitcher's mound, beaming.

His conferences were so unusual, so anything-goes, as long as the anything fit his goals of stimulating thought or fostering interaction. You never knew who he’d schedule, or what type of recreation he’d add.

Which is why it was chilling to learn this morning that Crawford died from a mountain-biking accident. I was just beginning to mountain-bike when I started attending the Leadership Conference. I used to joke with Tom that he should add off-road riding as an activity at the meeting. He’d nod, then threaten to leave me behind in the desert if we ever hit the trails on our bikes. And then he’d suggest that I come out to Phoenix early for the next conference, so we really could go out and ride together.

And that was him. He could throw his jabs, but it was always in fun. And he was absolutely graceful when a few barbs caught him. One year, before the conference had officially begun, I saw him hobbling about in a foot cast. “What happened?” I asked. “Get your foot caught on a molar?” He flushed, then retold the joke at his expense a few dozen times. I like that mental image, of how he’d laugh each time, usually more heartily than his audience.

You were a class act, Tom, with a big heart and an inquisitive mind. And among all of us who were lucky enough to make your acquaintance, you will be sorely, sorely missed.

Chicago chefs celebrate foie gras while they can

Those kooks in white. Chicago is about to outlaw the sale of foie gras. So what are some of the city’s big-name chefs doing? Convening a Festival of Foie Gras, of course.

In a nose-thumbing the Chicago Seven would have loved (the political pranksters who disrupted the city’s 1968 Democratic Convention, for the sake of persons not of a certain vintage), 13 culinarians are holding a $150-a-plate event on July 11, roughly two weeks before the ban takes effect.

The baker’s dozen of cooks are all members of Chefs for Choice, a group that has already commenced a petition drive to thwart the ban. Proceeds from the Festival will be used to fund Choice’s opposition efforts.

“Many consider this food a delicacy,” the group said in its widely broadcast invitation to the July 11 bash, “but animal-rights advocates decry it as a product of inhumane treatment.

The chefs who have agreed to cook at the event include such local stars as Paul Kahan of Blackbird and Avec, and Dean Zanella of 312 Chicago. They’ll be joined by such out-of-towners as Jean-Francois Suteau of the Adophus Hotel in Dallas, and Hubert Seifert of Spagio in Columbus, Ohio. The dinner will be held at Allen’s – The New American Café.

Chicago is believed to be the first city in the nation to outlaw foie gras.