Letter fly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yep."

"Wanna borrow the asbestos pouch again?"

Stuck in neutral on idling?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take note, Bob Evans Farms

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

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

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

A pothole on the information superhighway

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Canadian maniacs go trans-fat-free

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Turnng the tables on pesky customers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reservation no-shows were also blasted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greetings from the Seventh Circle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Always Slammed Grille, perhaps?

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

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

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

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

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

McD's Hong Kong units to get worms

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

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

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

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

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

Who's afraid of mice?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, let it be

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

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

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

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

Feeding a green monster

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where's a cat when you need it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now they're chasing human assets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where there's smoke, will there be fire?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Jupiter in the Seventh House?

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's good. But what is it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Save the pool table!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strands of industry DNA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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