Customers sound off

A rose is a rose is a rose, but restaurant customers come in ever-shifting varieties. Treat them right, even in a crisis, and they can be convincing apostles for a place or a chain, as Chipotle is learning from a consumer poll that’s being conducted on its handling of a food-safety situation. But burn ‘em and they’ll turn into town criers of a far different sort, as I was reminded by an e-mail, complete with a photo documenting the transgression, that was sent this morning by a disgruntled KFC patron.

“The picture I have attached is my first, and likely the last, purchase
 of what was supposed to be KFC's new Grilled Chicken Sandwich,” wrote Chris Donaldson of Westminster, Canada. “[It was] advertised at 
the ordering kiosk in the drive-thru as having a bulging piece of grilled
 chicken layered with a generous helping of lettuce and a slice of tomato.” Instead, Donaldson said, it looked like this:



He said he contacted KFC’s corporation operations, who put him in touch with the franchisee, who offered to give him a free sandwich the next time he’s in the area. Donaldson said he lives 30 miles from the store, and a free sandwich just isn’t enough of a draw.

“I appreciate the efforts by some fast food outlets to present a good fair-
for-the- money product, but this turn in my opinion with KFC has to be done 
properly and without ripping customers off, “ he wrote. He also lamented the chain’s discontinuation of Tender Roast non-fried chicken a few years ago.

Contrast that takeaway with the impressions consumers cited in a poll that’s being conducted by Kimberly Palmer, author of U.S. News & World Reports’ Alpha Consumer blog. The survey deals with Chipotle’s handling of a norovirus outbreak that was linked to its unit in Kent, Ohio, near the campus of Kent State. About 450 people were afflicted in the incident, according to local news reports. As we reported yesterday online, Chipotle is inviting victims to submit their medical bills for reimbursement.

“Imagine this: You go to a restaurant. The food makes you sick—so sick you need to visit the doctor,” writes Palmer. “To compensate, the restaurant offers to pay your medical bills. Does that leave you a satisfied customer?”

The posting includes an instant poll that readers can take to express their opinions of Chipotle’s response. Fifty-three percent said their sentiments were best expressed by the option, “It could have happened to any restaurant, and probably won’t happen again to Chipotle.” Another 31 percent said they’d be “a bit wary” but would eventually go back to the restaurant. Only 16 percent responded, “Medical bills or not, Mexican food would nauseate me forevermore.”

Lucca IV: Fighting faintness

By my calculations, there were 2.7 minutes during my first day in Lucca, Italy, when I wasn’t eating or drinking. My hosts ensured such deprivation would end there by dispatching an English-speaking local to take me on a tour that afternoon of the city’s food shops and cafes. Our objective was to sample some of the delectables that are unique to the area. In true Italian style, we ended up trying most of them, though I drew the line at a local blood-and-pig’s-head sausage (at least until the next day). The experience underscored a brother’s contention that Italians could coax a delicacy out of virtually anything that walks, sprouts, flies or swims.

My guide-cum-enabler started me off slowly, suggesting we merely peer through a bakery’s window at a local specialty called torta di verdura. It looks like a green pie, and usually hits the dinner tables on religious holidays, the guide explained. I was about to suggest we give it a try when she described the ingredients: Swiss chard, maybe a little cheese, usually a few other vegetables baked into it to form a strongly flavored savory dish. There was a long pause. “It’s an acquired taste,” she remarked.

The other cake for which Lucca is known, she continued, is the buccellata, which at times looked like a giant bagel, at other times like a giant bagel whose sides are squeezed together to form a long double-tube loaf.

In what would become the pattern for our tour of gluttony, my guide suggested we give buccellata a try, and shot into a food shop. I started getting my Euros together while she chatted up the store keeper, pointing to me every four or five seconds. After awhile the proprietor brought me a dish with two slices of what looked like raisin bread, along with a tiny cup of pinkish liquid. I went to drink the liquid, but everyone in the place moved to stop me. “You dunk it,” the guide whispered. As soon as I lowered the bread into the wine—vin santo, literally holy wine—the whole place seemed to breath a sigh of relief. I realized why when I tasted the wine-soaked bread. The bread itself was mildly honeyed. But the wine could’ve sweetened a wedding cake. Downing it in a gulp might’ve put me into a sugar shock. Besides, the guide explained, vin santo typically costs five times as much as regular wines, and wasn’t to be gulped.

Not that I would have learned any prices from our tour. When I went to pay the proprietors, the guide invariably stopped me. It seems that ignorance of buccalleta or other local specialties is not to be tolerated in Lucca. And clearly I was more ignorant than most. Though we visited easily a half-dozen emporiums, each readily offered up free samples to a stranger they’d never see again. As far as I could tell, the motivation was pride. Which was why I soon found myself trying a rival establishment’s buccalleta. “It’s the best,” the proprietor confided in English. I skipped any vin santo there, still a little buzzed from the earlier sample.

But that was nothing compared with the near paralysis that set in when the guide took me to one of the city’s oldest and most famous cafes, Di Simo, which has been in business at least since 1846. The proprietor insisted we try one of the traditional local alcoholic drinks, a digestif called biadina. It’s traditionally served with several pine nuts, and local lore notes that it actually restores you twice—once with the liquid, a second time when you eat the pine nuts on the bottom of the glass. “Restores” is a carefully selected euphemism; “kicks your ass” might be a more apt descriptor. “It’s 40 percent alcohol,” the guide explained with a smile—after I’d downed a good lot of it.

We staggered out to take in some of the historical sights of the town. But a food option was never more than a few waddles away. My guide showed me several bakeries that stack trays of focaccia in front of open front-of-the-store windows so locals can grab a slice as they dash to work. But that’s as close as Lucca traditionalists come to fast food.

By the time our tour took us to one of the city’s many meat shops, further consumption would have been humanly impossible. So we merely looked at specialties like biraldo, a sausage that’s made by boiling a blood-and-scrap pork sausage for about six hours, if I understood the shopkeeper's account.

We also forewent a taste of lardo colonnata, or lard cured in a marble box. The process gives the lard a special taste, my guide explained. Locals slice the lard thin, put it atop a slice of bread, and toast the whole thing so that the lard starts to melt.

After showing restraint in the meat shops, we ended our tour at a gelateria. I was too stuffed even to taste anything, but my guide provided explicit directions as to how to get there from my hotel the next day. Which I, of course, did.

But that day of eating our way through Lucca had to end. It was almost time to get ready for dinner.

Schultz tries to foster Seattle's fortunes, too

You’d think Howard Schultz would be jittery enough without a court battle on his hands. But the Starbucks CEO filed a lawsuit Tuesday against fellow tycoon Clayton Bennett to scuttle their Seattle SuperSonics deal. Schultz agreed in 2006 to sell the pro basketball team for $350 million to a group led by the Oklahoma City financier. But when Seattle balked at building a new arena for the Sonics, Bennett alerted the National Basketball Association that he was relocating the franchise to his home town. Seattle restaurants of all stripes—including a few, presumably, in Starbucks green—have warned that the relocation would starve them of much-needed nighttime business.

Schultz may have grown up in Brooklyn, N.Y., but he’s loyal to his adopted hometown. He’s asked a U.S. District Court to un-do the deal because it was based on the assumption that the Sonics would remain in Starbucks’ home base. The team would still be sold, the complaint reportedly states. But Schultz would like to find an “honest buyer” who’d keep the Sonics in the only city the team has ever known, the Associated Press reported this morning.

Bennett, meanwhile, could end up as the trial lawyers’ poster child of 2008. He’s also being sued by the city of Seattle and fans who bought season tickets to the Sonics for future years.

Bennett has already agreed to give up the Seattle SuperSonics name, clearing the way for Seattle to secure another franchise. But he seems to be proceeding with his relocation plan. The NBA gave him a green light Friday to make the move, pending the outcome of his court fight with Seattle.

Lucca III: Food trends & traditions

Hearing the local purveyors tout their wares, you’d think the food trends of Lucca, Italy, were the same currents shaping menus back in the United States. The salespeople—nearly always the farmers or artisans who produced the materials—talked up the organic, healthful and gluten-free items that originated from their fields. Throw in the boasts about everything being locally sourced, processed by hand, and produced according to ancient family recipes, and you could’ve been at a food show in New York or San Francisco. Until you got to the farro beer, the chestnut liqueur, or the savory-sounding jams.

Lucca, a part of Tuscany, may be little-known in the U.S., but it’s renowned throughout Europe for its extra virgin olive oil, boutique wineries, and farro, the grain known in English-speaking countries as spelt. Locals also wax rhapsodically about the widespread local use of chestnuts, either by milling them into flour for cakes, breads or pastas, or as a flavoring.

Those items continue to be the bedrock of the local food culture. But a younger generation of producers and consumers are nudging the heritage-revering area to at least look at other ways of using traditional ingredients.

For instance, at a trade show convened for those of us who were visiting from the States, one of the local craftsmen poured samples of his newest beers. One was an extremely light, almost lager-style version made from farro and orzo, also an Italian signature. The other, he said with nearly bursting pride, was made solely with farro, something he’d been told could not be done because of the production inefficiencies.

The 100-percent farro beer, as yet even unnamed, is the same pale yellow as a wheat beer, minus the cloudiness. Indeed, it was crystal-clear, with a head “that could last for two hours,” the brewer explained through an interpreter. I swear I saw a tear forming in his eye.

The brew also has a much lower alcohol content, a mere 4 percent.

The brewer described the beer was an alternative to the darker, slightly heavier brews that Italian elders in the area might’ve sipped when they were youngsters learning the traditions of their elders.

A tour of local food shops and cafes revealed that younger Italians are indeed drinking differently than their parents did. Aperitifs, my tour guide explained, are the current rage among people in their 20s. They’ll head to the same time-steeped cafés where their grandparents might still stop by in the afternoon for a local digestif called biadina, which is served with a few pignoli thrown into the glass. The young adults descend on the places at 7 for aperitifs of one sort or another, often garnishing them with nuts, raisins or other enhancements that are arrayed in glass bowls on the bar. At 9, they head off to dinner, which of course is accompanied by wine.

A liqueur company participating in the Lucca trade show acknowledged that it’s had to make some accommodations to changing drinking habits. The buzz-phrase is “doing it for the market.” The owner cited such concessions as the introduction of a drink that tastes like dark rum, as well as a creamy limoncella and a liqueur, called Halloween, whose flavor was lost to language differences. His product line also includes a chestnut-flavored liqueur.

Several of the trade-show exhibitors featured jams of local produce—such local fruits as raspberries and currents (or what we’d know as blueberries, judging from the labels), to be sure, but also carrots, pumpkins and basil, to name just a few. Samples were given on bread, leading me to say something extremely intelligent about what a strong toast market Lucca must have. I was quickly corrected. In Lucca, one interpreter explained, persons of taste put jams and marmalades on cheese, as an alternative to using honey. Surely I must put honey on my cheese, she suggested. I couldn’t even bring myself to answer. Clearly it was yet another major setback in other cultures’ impression of America.

My shop-tour guide suggested that the jam-on-cheese phenomenon was getting a boost from another recent trend in the local dining scene. A new preoccupation has taken hold of blending salt and sweet items, like desserts flavored with balsamic vinegar, or salts used in baked items.

I could’ve been home, listening to a bunch of foodies discussing what they’ve been witnessing on the local dining scene.

Fred Turner takes McD's podium again

McDonald’s bi-annual chainwide meeting offered something a little different this year, at least for individuals who’ve logged at least 20 years with the brand. Included among the 15,000 franchisees, executives, employees and suppliers who gathered in Orlando this week for the quick-service giant’s Worldwide Convention were 1,500 people who have spent at least two decades within the system and are still logging days on the job. Another 500 are retirees. Together they constitute what the chain has dubbed—what else?—McVeterans, and they were honored for their role in building the company at a two-day, invitation-only gathering that dovetailed with the larger get-together..

According to an attendee, the turnout included several executives whose tenure dated back to the days of Ray Kroc, including former chief executives Fred Turner and Michael Quinlan. But, the attendee indicated, this wasn’t a then-vs.-now thing. The McVeterans McEvent included presentations by both Turner and current CEO Jim Skinner.

Instead, he said, it was a tribute to the folks who stoked the economic engine that just keeps chugging along.

Lucca II: A few words about green toilets

Green has been a concern for so long in Europe that it may be showing a little gray. Conservation seems to be a standard operating procedure, even in a city steeped in antiquity, like Lucca, Italy. The evidence can be as close as the nearest bathroom.

Toilets like the ones in our hotel, the San Luca Palace, have a nifty feature that must save a considerable amount of water. The flush mechanism is a two-piece touch plate on the wall. One piece is a smaller oval inset into a larger one. No instructions are given, but when you stop and wonder why the device has two components, the intent becomes apparent quickly: Touch the small oval for a lighter flush. For, um, tougher jobs where more water and flush power are needed, touch the larger part of the plate.

Here's what it looks like:


Bathrooms are not the only component of hotels and restaurants to be retrofitted with high-tech features for the sake of conservation. The hotel where we’re staying, for instance, features an impressive electricity-saving measure. When you enter a guest room, some lights will go on. If you put the card key into a slot by the door, they’ll stay on after the door closes, and you can of course turn on others, or snap on the TV. If the card key is not in the slot when the door closes, all the electricity shuts off. That, of course, means all lights will go off when the guest leaves the room with card key in hand. It’s nearly a failsafe way of guaranteeing the patron snaps off the power when he or she doesn’t need it.

Taking a limoncella for the team

Ah, the things we have to do to make a living. Today, for instance, I’m sitting in Lucca, Italy, getting ready to eat and drink my way through local specialties. I’m on a tour to learn what foods and wines—and let’s not forget cigars and coffee—could be feasible for restaurants back in the States that want to differentiate their menus with authentic regional Italian cuisine. Man, what a grind.

The tour began last night with dinner at one of the city’s most historic restaurants, which is saying a lot. Among Lucca’s distinctions is the retention of a wall that was built around the city for its defense back in the time of the Roman Empire (but updated twice, most recently during the Renaissance). Our guides explained that they wanted to start off our visit with dinner at Buca di Sant’ Antonio because it features the foods they ate at the family table while growing up. These were the dishes made by their grandmothers, who in turn learned them from their grandmothers.

We were steered toward the 226-year-old restaurant’s specialties by the crackerjack staff. Meanwhile, our guides, both from companies that promote Lucca business and tourism, selected local wines. My meal started with sautéed chicken livers served with a specialty bread that had a coarser grain than usual. It had almost a nutty taste, like the nut and whole-grain breads you see in health food stores back in the States. Several of my fellow visitors tried the “pies” that were offered as antipasti—one with leeks and ricotta, the other with asparagus and ricotta. All were terrific.

My second course was a pasta and rabbit dish with a very robust sauce—one of the highlights. Something about it was very familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I might’ve had it before. Later, one of our hosts noted that the chef of New York’s Beppe restaurant was from Lucca. I realized that’s where I’d enjoyed a similar dish, though I doubt it was made with rabbit.

My meat course consisted of roasted baby goat, with a simple accompaniment of roasted potatoes. It was delicious--juicy, flavorful, yet mild. The meat had a slight but pleasant musty flavor, like amplified dark meat turkey. It was as tender as a braised pork shank, but deeper in taste.

The meal wrapped up with a local specialty: Cookies that are made with olive oil in place of butter, lard or other shortenings. They were a bit heavy, but tasty. And just perfect with the dessert wine that our hosts chose. The wine was made with the local grechetto grape. The vintner later explained that the grapes are dried on mats for two to three months, until they’re largely dehydrated. Then the pulp is pressed, yielding a wine with extraordinary depth. The sweetness was more of a highlight than the sugary backbone of the wine. And as my wine-centric colleagues noted, it had great fruit.

The experience wiped out the surpisec we got when we saw our first restaurant in Lucca--a McDonald's.

Okay, I’d better rest up before I move to the next sampling. I’ve heard that we may actually have to heft more wine glasses this morning.

What's in Ted's garage--and hangar

It’s fitting on tax day that we remember what the titans of industry are driving these days. Take Ted Turner, for instance. The media-mogul-turned-rancher-turned-restaurateur (he’s a principal in Ted’s Montana Grill, the 55-unit bison chain) cleared up the mystery during a presentation in New York last week. “I drive a Prius, that’s my primary car,” the billionaire explained during the “green tour” he and Ted’s CEO George McKerrow, Jr., are currently undertaking to raise ecological awareness within the restaurant business.

The revelation about Ted’s wheels drew some guffaws and murmurs from the audience. This, after all, is a guy who could probably buy Ford or GM, never mind a Rolls, Bentley or Maybach.

“What’s wrong with that?” he challenged the audience when it mumbled about his choice of car.

“So what do you think when you see a Humvee on the road?” asked Deborah Roberts, the ABC News personality who moderated the appearance by Turner and McKerrow.

“Well, I have one Humvee, but I only use it for quail hunting in New Mexico,” he admitted.

Turner also revealed that he takes a cloth bag with him when he shops, so he doesn’t have to get a new plastic or paper one from the store. He also recounted how he’ll pick up litter, both in Georgia, where he sponsors the clean-up of some highways, and outside of the Ted’s unit in midtown Manhattan.

“I’ll pick up a couple pieces of trash if someone’s looking because that has double the impact,” he said. “Someone’ll say, ‘If Ted Turner can pick up trash, so can I.’”

He even noted that he’s mindful of waste when he travels. Other billionaires are buying airliner-sized craft and converting them into private planes. His plane is merely moderate in size, Turner assured what seemed like a decidedly pro-green audience.

Turner is not the only mega-rich person in the restaurant business to drive a Prius, by any stretch. A few years ago, after an industry dinner in Dallas, Norman Brinker and his wife, Toni, waited outside for the valets to bring around their ride. They, too, drove a hybrid.

A class action by any other name...

After pounding a keyboard for 29 years, I foolishly assumed the English language was no longer Greek to me. But a Baltimore litigation firm set me straight Wednesday. The statement it issued clearly states, “Brower Piven Announces the Filing of a Class Action Lawsuit Against Darden Restaurants, Inc.” To me, that means a party named Brower Piven had filed a class action lawsuit against Darden Restaurants, the operator of Red Lobster and Olive Garden. But, oh!, was my participle dangling.

Turns out, if you read further, that a lawsuit had been “commenced,” which doesn’t necessarily mean “filed” under the rules of language that are now applied to law-firm press releases. As we’ve learned in recent weeks, many are trumpeting lawsuits that are not really lawsuits, or at best not yet. The hope is to scare up plaintiffs—specifically shareholders who lost money on the would-be defendant’s stock—who might like to join a legal action when one is actually undertaken. It’s the equivalent of a chain declaring it’s bigger than McDonald’s, then muttering in an aside that it just hasn’t opened the 35,000 units yet.

The Brower Piven statement does not expressly say the lawsuit has yet to be filed, so let’s take the company’s word that the action has indeed been taken. But it seems the key figure of a lead plaintiff is still missing. “You may, no later than May 12, 2008, ask the Court to allow you to serve as lead plaintiff,” the release notes, explaining that someone who lost a bundle on Darden’s stock would have an edge.

Indeed, they’d lead the class, so to speak. Yet, the statement acknowledges, “no class has yet been certified in the above action.” Despite the statement’s headline, there’s no class-action suit.

Maybe there will be one, even by the time you read this. But the class-action suit that Brower Piven declared in its statement as being officially underway clearly wasn’t at the time, by the company’s own admission.

Plenty of companies may feel the pain of shareholder class-action suits during the present economic downturn. Language and the truth, it seems, are already being bent to that purpose.

How lemmings draft a menu

Listen: That crunch you hear is the sound of quick-service chains squashing their points of differentiation. Instead of learning from the tragic blunder of casual dining, players one click down the service spectrum are just as avidly turning their menus into clones of the competition’s line-up. If they haven’t already copycatted McDonald’s Snack Wrap, vis-à-vis Wendy’s, Sonic, and KFC, it’s only because smoothies, premium coffees and espresso-based drinks are higher on their To Develop list. And that’s after deciding how to join the discounting binge.

In the currrent environment, you can readily understand why a chain copies a sure-fire hit for someone else. But it clearly speaks to a dearth of cleverness and creativity within the sector. Instead of analyzing why a certain product appeals to consumers and then crafting an alternative that sates the same desire, even contenders with considerable marketing knowhow are merely giving a twist to what’s already selling well.

The follow-alongs are not only betting that lightning will strike twice, but leaving themselves vulnerable to the upstart that hatches a true New Idea. If a newcomer hits on the next Bloomin’ Onion, fajita, Blizzard, chicken nuggets or smoothie, the old guard is cemented into the role of hawking commodities. How much pressure on prices can a concept take when costs are squeezing margins from the other direction?

The copycats would be better served by staying attuned to what makes their concept unique and then nudging their menus in the direction in which public tastes are moving. Leapfrogging to a far afield idea just because it worked for another player is like trying to make it as a rock star by covering last week’s hits.

A different sort of Big Mac attack

Fast food is getting less respect these days than Kevin Federline’s acting abilities, even from quick-service chains themselves. Marketing campaign after marketing campaign is disparaging the fare as the sort of mass-produced plastic you won’t have to choke down at ______ (insert the name of whatever family, casual or fast-food chain is airing the ads, be it McDonald’s, Denny’s, Taco Bell, Bonanza/Ponderosa or KFC). Invariably, the spots proceed to point out that you don’t have to pay more, in time or money, for “real” food.

Much of the mud is being flung at fast-food breakfasts, which have been selling like, well, hotcakes. Denny’s current campaign blasts them explicitly as fake, unlike the true platters you’d find at the home of the Grand Slam.

McDonald’s touts its McSkillet Burrito as “a sit-down-style weekend breakfast you can eat on the go.” Translation: The real food you’d buy after church at a Denny’s, available every day via a drive-thru.

Panera Bread is bragging that its new breakfast sandwich line is a morning option “made by bakers, not microwaves.” In Tuesday’s announcement of the rollout, CEO Ron Shaich crows that “we’ve developed a hand-crafted, made-to-order grilled breakfast sandwich that literally breaks the mold.”

Chains of all stripes are equally adamant about differentiating their lunch and dinner fare from fast food. The campaign that broke Monday for Bonanza and Ponderosa touts the sister chains’ buffet specifically as an alternative to burgers and that lot. Give it a try, the promotion stresses, “because great tasting meals aren’t served in a wrapper.” It slams quick-service value meals in particular, asserting that they’re "not much of a value or a meal.” Curiously, however, the effort subtly promotes visits to a quick-service chain. The budget steak brands are inviting patrons to submit a bag or receipt from a fast-food place to get a break on the price of the buffet. Eat at a burger or fried chicken joint one day, the promotion suggests, and you can have unlimited fresh fare the next day for $5 at lunch or $8 at dinner. “This is an incredible alternative to getting lunch or dinner in a bag at a drive-thru window,” says Sheryl Randolph, senior director of marketing for the pair.

Here again, even the major fast-food brands are scrambling to showcase products you wouldn’t associate with fast food. Taco Bell describes its Fiesta Platters as “a complete real meal solution,” “the favorite dishes of a sit down Mexican meal in a convenient and portable plate.” Promotional materials also stressed the price: a mere $4.99, or probably less than you’d spend in a full-service place.

Sister concept KFC is sounding a similar tune for its new Kentucky Grilled Chicken. President Gregg Dedrick proudly cites research indications that consumers view the fast feeder's new non-fried option as a "step above fast food."

All of the initiatives echo what Carl’s Jr. did several years ago with its Six Dollar Burger, a sandwich touted as being as good as the burger you’d spend $6 to get in a casual-dining restaurant, available at just over half that price from the West Coast stalwart. You’d think it’d be the most zealous proponent of the movement. Yet the CKE Restaurant holding is one of the few quick-service burger brands not to adapt the café-caliber coffee that consumers can now find at almost every other player of size. Nor is Carl’s racing to develop the Jamba Juice-caliber smoothies you’ll soon be able to buy at fast-food places ranging from a Taco Bell to a Dairy Queen.

If Carl’s is once again astutely gauging which way the pendulum will swing, the key question could be how long fast food remains the standard against which all chains, even the brands most readily affiliated with that style of fare, are favorably gauging what they serve.

'And why is there no Mrs. Ronald?'

This just in from the lunatic fringe: McDonald’s is promoting a homosexual agenda, if not homosexuality itself. The story may have slipped by such hack media as The New York Times, CNN and The Financial Times, but the vast left-wing conspiracy couldn’t push it past the newshounds at WorldNetDaily.com, otherwise known on the net as WingNutDaily.

The site—“A Free Press for a Free People”—broke the news Sunday that the chain “famed for the Golden Arches, Ronald McDonald and kids meals has signed onto a nationwide effort to promote ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ business ventures.” The story cited the incontrovertible proof: McDonald’s USA’s vice president of corporate communications, Richard Ellis, was elected to the board of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Ellis even acknowledged that he was “thrilled” to be chosen, and shared the organization’s “passion” for promoting business within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. The insinuations were clear. McDonald’s may strive to be as wholesome as American Pie and a John Birch Society picnic, but it’s secretly celebrating diversity and opportunity for all. It may even have an Obama-supporting Democrat within its executive ranks.

The story was illustrated with a picture of a poster promoting McDonald’s kids meals. It depicted a boy dressed as a pirate and a girl in princess garb, no doubt secretly listening to Melissa Etheridge tunes in the background.

The story drew a combination of disbelief and ridicule from sectors of the blogosphere where most contributors walk upright and believe the moon landing wasn’t staged in a soundset. But the knuckle-dragging forces of reaction jumped on the report as proof we’re one cross-dresser away from outlawing heterosexual marriage and weaving a pentacle into the flag.

Those of us who cover foodservice have often remarked that the industry’s overt commitment to diversity often stops short of expressly welcoming persons of all sexual orientations. McDonald’s is showing itself once again to be a leader by working with the NGLCC. It may catch heat from the black-helicopter crowd planning to build a new community in the mountains of Idaho, but it’s demonstrating how attuned to the modern world it intends to stay. No wonder its sales have remained strong while many competitors wheeze and stumble.

Signs of the (new) times

This is a good time to be in the sign business. First KFC reveals that it might replace its familiar exterior logos with ones reading, “Kentucky Fried & Grilled Chicken,” a dramatic act of support for the chain’s new roasted chicken (it’s roasted on a plate that leaves grill marks; hence the name. Apparently “Kentucky Fried & Roasted/Grilled Chicken” was adjudged to be a bit much.)

Then sister chain Pizza Hut disclosed that the home office in Dallas will replace its exterior nameplate with one reading, “Pasta Hut,” a not-so-subtle shill for the $11.95 trays of pasta that will be added to stores’ delivery menu on April 6. The rechristening is supposed to happen next Tuesday, otherwise known as April Fool’s Day, and last for a month. But, remember, Pizza Hut is run by the same company that announced on a past April 1 that it had purchased the Liberty Bell for promotional use by its Taco Bell chain.

You have to wonder what Taco Bell’s parent has in store for the exterior signs of that chain. If it follows the patterns set with its other holdings, Yum! Brands will be swapping out the current trade dress for logos reading, “Taco Platters,” or “Taco Smoothies.” Platters were introduced a short ways back, and smoothies are on the rollout schedule for this summer.

But in the meanwhile, the signage business can pick up a little more coin from Ruth’s Chris Steak House Inc. The high-end operation doesn’t feel that its corporate identity should be based on only one restaurant brand when the fold was enlarged through a recent acquisition to include the Mitchell’s Fish Market, Mitchell’s Steakhouse and Cameron’s Steakhouse concepts. It reportedly plans to ask shareholders at their annual meeting on May 22 to approve a switch to the more inclusive handle, “Ruth’s Hospitality Group Inc.”

Chicken fight

Truth be told, Goliath usually squashes David. So when KFC lunged for the public’s attention with a carefully choreographed announcement of its new non-fried, non-grilled yet still sear-marked roasted chicken, El Pollo Campero must’ve realized the heat would be on. Yet the plucky Guatemalan chain countered with some marketing ju-jitsu. A day after KFC drew headlines in everything from USA Today to The Podunk Press with its plan to introduce Kentucky Grilled Chicken by next year, Campero, a chain with 38 restaurants in the United States, announced that its new grilled chicken would be offered as of today. “Pollo Campero beats competition to market with choice of grilled and fried bone-in chicken,” the much-smaller chain crowed in a press release. And presumably it’s a true grilled chicken at that.

Campero president Roberto Denegri acknowledged that the chain was bringing its non-fried option to the U.S. “a little early,” but attributed the timing to America’s love of grilling during the spring. He failed to explain why that should be a factor, given that the restaurants would be grilling the chicken, not their patrons.

But back to KFC. We at NRN were astonished other media failed to note a monumental point that didn’t slip by executive editor Richard Martin. To call attention to the rollout, Col. Sanders’ brainchild is allowing franchisees to rename their stores, “Kentucky Fried & Grilled Chicken.” In the world of restaurant reportage, this is a big move. Huge, in fact. Though it remains to see if it will be adjudged a smart one.

We were also surprised by the chain’s efforts to prolong the announcement, asserting at one point that the news was “embargoed” until March 24, or provided only on the understanding that it not be disclosed until that date. Yet it allowed selected media to go ahead and publicize the year-away rollout (the product is currently only in test, albeit it on a large scale) as soon as they heard about it, rendering an embargo void by the rules of publicist-journalist engagement. Nor did we make any pact prior to being fed the info on the product last week. So we went ahead and reported it.

Maybe the chain is preoccupied with its ambitious goal of convincing the public that KGC is truly grilled, when in fact KFC acknowledged to journalists that it’s cooked in a high-tech oven, up to 80 pieces at a time. The claim to being grilled comes from the use of a special plate in the roaster that sears grill marks onto the meat. That’s like putting “singer” on your resume because you sometimes belt out a tune while soaping up in the shower.

A grande serving of what?

There had to be a secret message encoded in Howard Schultz’s presentation yesterday, because even Mike Tyson would know better than to pin Starbucks’ turnaround to rickety measures like adding a new coffee roast or installing a newfangled coffee maker. And let’s not forget the pledge to do more for the environment and the startup of a social-networking site. But maybe the real message of his address to shareholders was blurred by all the specifics. If you step back and view the elements as a package, it’s clear Schultz is taking a bold gamble. The one-time coffee-carafe salesman is trying to infuse the brand with more showbiz than the industry has seen since the heyday of eater-tainment.

Schultz described Starbucks’ purchase of a company that makes a new type of coffee brewer, a device called the Clover, as the most dramatic of the steps he and other execs detailed for investors. The machine supposedly makes a cup of coffee superior enough to justify a price of more than $2.50. Schultz said he saw it being used by a place in New York that charged $7 a cup. But how it generates the nectar of the bean may be as important as the quality of finished brew. Starbucks described the machine as a cross between a French press pot and a vacuum-style coffee maker, which provides a bit of a show with every cupful that’s produced.

Similarly, Starbucks disclosed that it’s rolling out a new espresso maker that gives the baristas more control over the coarseness of the coffee grind and the way the milk is steamed. Not coincidentally, the devices are not as high as the machines currently being used, which will allow patrons to see their drinks being made, and possibly even interact with the coffee maker.

Even the new frequent-guest program has some dazzle to it. Guests present their cards to be wowed a little by the service they’re then given. The benefits rendered don’t sound that amazing. Free half-and-half or soy milk? Whoa. But the give-and-take about the freebies does give the counter servers and baristas a chance to strut their stuff a little.

The bland-sounding moves that Schultz disclosed yesterday may prove anything but. It’s a bit of razzle-dazzle from someone who could prove to be a very adept ringmaster.

Don't picture this

Trend worshippers are hailing a new restaurant feature as the mark that differentiates a merely haute place from one that might actually be a haunt of Mary-Kate Olsen, Lindsay Lohan or other bold-faced tastemakers. To make fashionistas’ must-try list, say the sort who care about such matters, a newcomer has to set a policy—ideally through an exterior sign—that photography is prohibited on the premises. How else can Brittney Spears cross her legs without worry?

Yet some of the places using that sign of distinction don’t seem like worthy shooting ranges for the paparazzi. Take the newest Pinkberry frozen yogurt outlet in New York. Grub Street, New York magazine’s excellent blog site, revealed last week that the store is banning picture-taking. As it pointed out, the treat shop is located in the heart of the East Village, a haven for the ridiculously body-pierced and absurdly tattooed. Are Brad and Angelina really going to stop by for a yogurt with mixed-in Captain Crunch?

Other Pinkberry outlets feature a similar warning, suggesting it’s a corporate policy. You can see for yourself by checking out any number of blog postings—many of which document the feature with photos of the signs.

The trend seems to be more prevalent in Europe and Asia. But the smattering of examples suggests it’s catching hold here in the States as well—on the coasts first, as per the usual process for a trend.

But fashion zealots may be surprised to learn the policy was first adopted more than a decade ago, and not just by private clubs or other hangouts for persons who stood a chance of seeing their names in a gossip column. The most-noted proponent was not some velvet-roped club, but Eatzi’s, the prepared-food cathedral of Chili’s parent Brinker International. So many people from the industry came in with their Nikons snapping during competitive reconnaissance missions that management had to curb the spying with a no-shooting rule. It certainly wasn’t to protect Miley Cyrus or Paris Hilton from appearing in the supermarket tabs. I’m not sure either gal was even walking yet.

'President Skinner here'

It’s 3 a.m. and American families are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone ringing in the White House. Who do you want to answer it? If it’s a financial crisis, I’d vote for Jim Skinner, CEO of McDonald’s. With the chain posting an 8.3 percent leap in domestic same-store sales for February, after a nearly unbroken stream of bad news from other restaurant chains, he and his team have shown they know how to pull prosperity out of a trying situation. Indeed, we might want to consider steroid testing.

Okay, okay—Leap Year helped a lot, with Feb. 29 getting credit for four percentage points. But we’re still talking about a pretty heady jump in comps. And from what? The chain says the pole vault over last year’s tally is due to the push behind breakfast, coffee and everyday bargains. With the exception of Yum’s and CKE Restaurants’ brands, what quick-service chains aren’t doing that right now? How many have succeeded the way McDonald’s has?

Of course, it helps to have the chain’s marketing kitty, which is roughly equivalent to NASA’s budget for the Saturn project. But even competitors will have to acknowledge that they must be doing something right up at Oak Brook. Barack and Hillary should stop by for a quick tutorial on turning a wheeze into a “Whoa!”

Divide and conquer?

I hope you can hear me over all that fiddling. It’s that damned pack of economists, wailing away as they watch the business climate soften like an overripe peach. They’re more concerned about declaring a recession at precisely the warranted moment than they are about the meltdown already evident in industries like the restaurant business. It’s a good thing the trade is taking matters into its own hands. While the Brooks Brothers set jams away, restaurateurs are trying R-word remedies like this recent phenomenon of adding more pricing tiers.

If you stop by an Au Bon Pain bakery-café right now, you can forego the usual salad or sandwich and economize a bit with one of the regional chain’s new small plates. But your options don’t end there, or even with picking which of the 14 new Portions you’d like. Go for the hummus and cucumbers, and you pay $2.99. Trade up to one that includes meat, like the Thai peanut chicken, and you’ll have to pop for $3.49.

In another economic climate, might the fast-casual chain not have bothered to create two pricing groups a mere 50 cents apart?

Similarly, if you wanted to trade up from fast food to a full-service breakfast, Denny’s has just the option for you. Or options, really. Try one of its three new “real” breakfasts (as opposed to the “fake” ones purportedly offered by quick-service restaurants), and you’ll pay $5.99. But each has a trade-up option: Pay a buck more, and get a few add-ons—another bacon strip, sausage link and hash browns, maybe.

The notion is certainly not new. It’s a staple of the industry to offer a soup or salad add-on for a slight bump in the price of an entrée.

But the tactic seems to be gaining momentum, and sometimes with a twist. In the standard version, you offer a lower priced option, like Quiznos’ $2 Sammies sandwiches. In some instances, even that price is segmented, into Bargain and Bargain Plus.

Perhaps the poster concept is Starbucks. Once upon a time, the coffee king offered its drinks in three sizes, in prices ranging from high to stratospheric. Now the chain is testing a $1 “short” option that comes with free refills. Some stores are also experimenting with coffee made in a press pot, priced at more than $2. That price falls between the charge for a standard cup of Coffee of the Day and the usual hit for premium espresso-based drinks.

Ming sings about his blings

Having a famous chef join your table for a preview of his next restaurant project is just another can of Schlitz for my blogging colleague Bret Thorn. But it’s a heady treat for a non-food-writing, chain-focused schlub like me. So when Ming Tsai pulls up a chair at his Blue Ginger restaurant in the Boston suburb of Wellesley, you tend to listen raptly as he details the venture he’s undertaking with rock-star designer David Rockwell. Not that the endeavor needs any underscoring by a celeb. A 50-seat lounge with a menu limited to “bings,” a lstyle of Asian dumpling, isn’t exactly another burger place.

Yet Tsai invoked White Castle in explaining the rationale for Ming’s Bings, which will be the only items offered at the 50-seat lounge he's adding in the space adjacent to Blue Ginger. With young kids at home, Tsai has not gone for a namesake Vegas restaurant or the other bling of celebrity chef-dom. The add-on lounge and accompanying private dining rooms will be the first extension of his single-restaurant empire, despite the offers he’s fielded continuously in the 10 years since Blue Ginger opened. But Tsai slyly suggested that Ming’s Bings might not be his last undertaking. He explained that the bings he’ll serve are light, healthful riffs on the simple Asian street foodknown as xian bing. Usually the potstickers are made with gingered pork. Tsai indicated that his array might include a burger that’s encased in a dumpling-style wrap and served in a box—“like White Castle,” but “with a thinner layer of carbohydrate around the protein.”

So, asked NRN executive editor Richard Martin, are you going to see Ming’s Blings pop up in airports and other the other usual sites for chef-created finger fare?

“It all depends on what kind of a write-up I get in a leading industry publication,” he joked with our party, which also included NRN editor-in-chief Ellen Koteff, executive editor Robin Allen, regional business development manager Chris McCoy, and his wife, Martha.

Tsai graciously fielded our questions about high and low points in his career, including the moment he knew a career in engineering wasn’t for him. During a test in college, he was supposed to compute the speed of a dot traveling atop a tube that was riding on on a 33 1/3-rpm record. Instead of computing the answer, Tsai scrawled in his test booklet, “I don’t care,” and stormed out with the conviction he was destined to be a chef, not a bridge or skyscraper builder.

He also shared his secret for cooking calamari, which is served at Blue Ginger with what he described as a sweet potato coating. His chefs learn to cook it to the restaurant’s standards by closing their eyes and listening to the sound. The loud SHHHH of the calamari hitting the oil, or what Tsai calls the “crescendo,” quickly tails off to a near hush. The calamari has to come out of the oil at precisely that point because Tsai estimates the window for “perfect” calamari extends only for 40 seconds. The expeditor ensures the chef’s ear was acute by tasting a piece from each plate; Tsai noted that the expeditor might sample 60 pieces in a night.

In keeping with the blogging style set by the esteemed Thorn, it’s only right that I end this installment with a list of what I ate: Hawaiian Bigeye Tuna Poke served on a crispy cake of sushi-style rice, followed by Mom’s Famous Three Vinegar Sauteed Organic Shrimp, and completed by a shared platter of hush-puppie-like delectables that were sold as donuts. Bret could tell that this dish was perfected with a kiss of tamarind, or that one featured an ingredient you could only get in one section of China on a spring Tuesday, but I’d be out of my league. But if you’re ever looking for the lowdown on a Bloomin’ Onion, I’m your man.

No longer coverage-worthy

Two days ago, a 60-year-old in a suit and tie walked into a Wendy’s in West Palm Beach, Fla., and pulled a pistol. First he fired at the lunchtime crowd clustered near the counter, killing an off-duty EMT who’d already eaten but had come back into the restaurant to exchange the toy his child had gotten in a kid’s meal.

The shooter then turned toward the dining room and blasted away at random, hitting four people. Without having uttered a word, Alburn Edward Blake then shot himself in the head and died. The police say any explanation went with him.

Google any of the details and you’ll snag dozens of stories about the incident in local and even some national media. But you won’t see a word about it (other than these) on the pages or website of Nation’s Restaurant News. Because we’re a national news outlet focused narrowly on the business of restaurants, a multiple shooting in a lone fast-food place just isn’t coverage-worthy. The situation per se offers no business insight, and the incident is no longer sufficiently extraordinary, like the shootings some 15 years ago at a Luby’s in Killeen, Texas, or the rampage a few years earlier at a West Coast McDonald’s. It’s a heartless call, but a sound one news-wise.

But it’s unnerving to think we’ve reached a point where a random multiple shooting is no longer enough of an unusual occurrence to merit a spotlight.

Off your chest

I was polishing my Olympics medals when the President called to let me know that two more best-selling authors had just admitted they'd bent the facts of their blockbuster non-fiction works. If I hadn’t been for my C.I.A. training to withstand shock, I would’ve toppled for sure into the Pope, who had popped over for lunch with Angelina Jolie and me (he loves those pizzas I developed for Wolfgang Puck). But it only got worse: The New York Times reported this morning that restaurateur Robert Irvine was replaced as host of a Food Network show because of acknowledged exaggerations on his resume, like claims he’d been knighted and counted Prince Charles among his buds.

At least all three of the truth stretchers admitted their fudging, obviously hoping that confession truly is good for the soul. It would only be appropriate that we keep the good karma building by making a few candid admissions here on the part of the industry:

• Twelve or 14 dollars for a glass of wine should only be collected by servers wearing bandanas over their faces, a la Butch Cassidy. Unless the bottle wholesales for a few hundred dollars, there’s no way a wine should be priced that high, especially in a casual place.

• Restaurant groups named after a famous chef often only see their namesake at the Christmas party.

• Part of casual dining’s current woes is the lousy food that’s offered by even some of the most respected players. The sector seems to be suffering the same inertia in that regard that tripped up the big quick-service chains before they realized a frozen hockey puck of ground beef might not be that appealing to a public that spends its leisure time watching the Food Network. The segment needs to shake out of its lethargy and catch up with the higher standards of the times.

• Bio-diesel fuel, though a smart re-use of something that might otherwise end up in refuse pits, is not as green as the industry suggests. It’s not the cleanest-burning fuel available, and, thought it minutely lessens our reliance on imported oil, it’s not as much of an eco-boon as some of the publicity suggests.

Splashing into the family market

Fast food’s success with beverages clearly hasn’t gone unnoticed by family specialists one notch up the pricing spectrum. Today brought news of IHOP and Steak n Shake both giving their drink menus a tweak, possibly foreshadowing an overhaul by the whole sector. And all you can think is, What took ‘em so long?

With few exceptions—IHOP and Steak n Shake among them—the segment has been squeezed flatter than a short stack by casual chains edging down market and quick-service players, particularly fast-casual upstarts, creeping upscale. Beverages were always a part of the casual sector’s assault, since places like Friendly’s or Denny’s could hardly compete mojito a mojito. Then came the more recent onslaught of the quick-service restaurants, touting their coffees and floats the way they once hyped burgers. What’s a family restaurant chain to do?

Village Inn responded with a new format that incorporates a distinct coffee bar inside. Clearly the venerable chain is giving more than a nod to Starbucks, the concept that kicked everyone’s butt until the QSRs started kicking back.

But it’s not alone in flycasting new beverage choices into the public’s pool of options. Today IHOP opened the curtain on its new Dr. Seuss-inspired promotional items, including one that sounds like a Bill Cosby hangover remedy. The Beezlenut Splash consists of cherry and blueberry-flavored Jello cubes plopped into lemon-lime soda. It’s just the thing to sip while wolfing down the limited-time special of Green Eggs and Ham, which aren’t nearly as Cat and the Hat-appropriate as they sound. The eggs are your conventional color, though scrambled with spinach to justify the name. “Green” only modifies the eggs; the ham is roughly the hue of a Spalding Pinky.

Steak n Shake’s new drinks are far less surreal. In a breakfast marketing push aimed directly at QSRs, the always-open concept today added a line of morning smoothies. Curiously, although the equipment to whip up the smoothies is obviously always there, the drinks will only be offered at breakfast, suggesting the concept doesn’t want to undercut its lunch or dinner selections, or possibly slow service.

Those brands may actually be a little behind one of the sector’s sumos, Denny’s, which has been steadily expanding its roster of drink choices. Last April, it added a new line called Juicy Fruit Fusion Favorites—basically, blends of juices and soft drinks reminiscent of mocktails.

It remains to be seen if beverages will deliver the sort of sales boost that has helped the QSR segment during a trying time for the industry as a whole. But clearly the family sector is giving that route a try.

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.