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Wednesday, January 30, 2002
I'm quite fond of the sign they hang outside of Eddie Rickenbacker's. It's too bad the service inside doesn't quite match up.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 4:01 AM | 2 comments
Tuesday, January 29, 2002
It's a shame to see what's happening to Jones Diner in NYC. I've never been there myself, but from what Jason and Anil describe, it sounds like Jones is exactly the kind of restaurant any respectable city-dweller would want to have at their disposal. And yet, it's just a few committee meetings away from being shut down for good.
What troubles me most about this situation -- besides a pair of perfectly decent human beings losing their business and lifeblood for the sake of a bigger profit -- is the message it sends about our own restaurant's chances of survival. If a place like Jones Diner, a place that serves up authenticism, history, and charm by the ladle-full without even trying, can get squeezed out to make room for more Crap, then what chances do we possibly have?
posted by Sandor Weisz at 12:49 AM | 1 comment
Thursday, January 24, 2002
It's fascinating observing the Google searches that lead people to our site. A lot of people Google "restaurant," for which we are in the top 20 of results. Many others Google "owning a restaurant" or "dream restaurant" (we're No. 2 at both).
Somebody recently Googled "owning a restaurant in Chicago," for which we are the No. 1 result. No. 2 is this profile of Richard Mott, a Chicago restaurateur. "It’s a tough business and a hard lifestyle: You work long hours, nights, and weekends, and you’re always on your feet. There are a lot of easier ways to make money.”
Mott owns the Jackson Harbor Grill and North Pond Cafe.
posted by Luke at 11:58 AM | 2 comments
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
Speaking of helping out our movie-going customers: If we managed to locate our place near a movie theater, we could put together a promotional tie-in. Anyone who walked into our place with a ticket stub from that night's show would get 10% off of their meal. The theater would scratch our back by sending us business, and we'd scratch theirs by advertising the promotion in our place, hopefully drumming up business for the theater.
If movie theaters aren't avaialble, we could also try playing off of the theatre-, sport- or concert-going crowds.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 12:02 AM | 3 comments
Tuesday, January 22, 2002
An idea for our menus struck me while browsing the food listings in the print edition of SF Weekly. What if we designed them like newspapers? On the cover, we'd put the story of our restaurant, and maybe a few pictures. The menu would take over the back page, and the rest of the paper would cover stories about our neighborhood, our city, the industry, whatever we felt like. Page two would, naturally, focus on the gossip surrounding the personal lives of our most popular customers.
It makes a lot of sense, seeings as how both of us have boatloads of experience in this arena. Luke and I would get a new forum for our design skills, and our J-school friends would have a free outlet for publishing their stories, in case they're having a hard time getting the Reader or NewCity to pick them up.
It'd be a great asset to our customers. Solo diners would be happy to have someting to read while eating. For couples, it would provide a great out for a bout of conversational distress. When the discussion come to an awkward standstill, they could whip out the menu/news (menews?) for inspiration. A movie and theatre listing would prove handy for anyone looking for some post-dinner entertainment. And when the customers left, they'd be encouraged to take the paper home and file it along with their piles of other restaurants' menus. There'd be coupons for future visits to our place, along with coupons to neighboring establishments.
Possible, though admittedly obvious, title: Food for Thought.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 1:16 AM | 9 comments
Monday, January 21, 2002
The dinner conversation at Matt and Kay's turned, as it's prone to do with them, to Iron Chef. It must have been Kay's homemade pasta that triggered her to recall an episode where a chef presented, as one of his dishes, a single bite of pasta, served to the judges pre-wrapped around a fork. What a tremendous waste of dishwashing power this would be, we realized, were it to be employed in a real restaurant. All those dirty forks! Surely, there must be an elegant answer to such a problem. Immediately, the idea bulb above my head flickered on.
Edible silverware! It was such an obvious answer, I was amazed it hadn't been thought of earlier. (Upon cursory googling, I've found no evidence that it has been.) We were now stuck with the task of determining the best material from which an edible piece of silverware would have to be made. Something cracker-like sounded right, as they have the right firmness, but they're too absorbant. Stick a saltine into a pile of warm, saucy spaghetti, and you'll pull out something resembling used Juicy Fruit. Matt suggested using a cracker for the shape of the fork, and then reinforcing the tips with something less absorbant, yet flavorless. Not sure what that'd be, exactly.
I doubt using edible forks and spoons exculsively would be terribly practical. Assuming we couldn't convince any supplier to start producing them en masse, we'd be shouldering the production costs ourselves. If nothing else, it'd be a cute gimmick, something we could use for certain dessert items. After all, the concept of purposing an item as both a food container and food itself has long been in effect in the common ice cream cone. We'd just be taking it a few steps further.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 12:40 AM | 8 comments
Sunday, January 20, 2002
Looks like Matt and Kay have warmed up to our idea of fun and danger.
posted by Luke at 6:01 PM | 1 comment
Friday, January 18, 2002
There's something I don't understand. Sometimes, when I order wine at a semi-nice restaurant, they'll serve it to me not in a traditional wine glass, but in a short, cylindrical, normal-looking one. Why is this? Is there a charm in small glasses that I'm not seeing? I remember being in Italy and witnessing the same phenomenon, but at the time I just chalked it up to cultural differences. Now I'm not so sure.
I fully admit I know piffle about wine, though smarter people than myself have explained that there is a purpose to the way a wine glass is shaped. So why would any restaurant that cares enough about wine to publish a wine list come up short in the glassware department? Is it too costly to carry regular wine glasses? Too bothersome to wash them? Too trendy to use them? None of those reasons seem to hold water. So to speak.
Not that any of this puzzlement affected my ability to enjoy my wine or my meal. Be a glass cylindrical, bulbous, fluted -- wine still tastes like wine to me. Like I said, piffle. I get into all this because I want to do right by our customers, when it comes to that. So I continue to wonder: what's the reason?
posted by Sandor Weisz at 12:20 AM | 5 comments
Thursday, January 17, 2002
Mental note: keep our waiters away from the funny pages.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 10:09 AM | 1 comment
Saturday, January 12, 2002
In honor of the new year, here's a glimpse of what you can expect from M.O.A.R. in 2002:
January: Luke spends the entire month hunched over his keyboard, writing, though barely a word will be about restaurants. Nope, Luke's writing a novel -- 50,000 words, no less, maybe a little more -- and if he manages to squeeze out more than a couple words for this blog, I'll be surprised. (Besides the two posts he already made, of course. Luke, get back to work already!)
February: The blog turns one year old. There was going to be a big party, but Luke will be travelling in Europe the whole month, so it looks like it'll just be me and my laptop on a nice night out on the town. Expect YACMIs from abroad that involve smashing plates over our customers' heads and dressing our waitstaff in togas and olive branch wreathes.
March: We're driven to promise to never serve green-tinted anything, unless Ma Nature intended it that way.
April: La Cumbamba reopens to much fanfare. By "much fanfare," I mean "Luke and Sandy lead a two-person parade up and down North Avenue waving a banner and the Columbian flag." We subsequently spend the entire month talking about how inspired we are by William.
May: One or the both of us get laid off from our jobs. We briefly flirt with the idea of starting down the long path of restaurant ownership, presumably by getting a job as a dishwasher. Instead, we decide that we're still better suited at coming up with ideas than with implementing them, and it's best that, for the time being, we try to build up capital with more real jobs.
June: More weddings, more chain restaurants, more griping about the sorry state of authentic American cuisine.
July - December: In an extreme act of our dedication to fulfilling even the weakest of jokes, all posts in these six months are just copies of those in first six months, but in backwards order. This is owed, of course, to 2002 being the year of the palindrome.
Happy New Year!
posted by Sandor Weisz at 10:34 PM | 1 comment
Wednesday, January 09, 2002
Yet Another Pet Peeve: "grilled to perfection."
Maybe if your restaurant's signature skill is mastery of the grill. And maybe if you've had the accolade thrust upon you by your customers or critics, who don't hand out perfect grilling scores lightly. Excepting those circumstances, if I never see another menu boast about a product being grilled to perfection, it'll be too soon.
We will never use such language on our menus, unless we can back it up with reliable and noteworthy sources. Superlatives, they are for suckers.
posted by Sandor Weisz at 9:20 PM | 1 comment
Monday, January 07, 2002
This week's Reader profiled Chicago's newest restaurant, the Magnolia "$27 entrees in Uptown?!?" Cafe. The owner, Kas Medhat, commented on culinary school vs. the real world: "At school they would say, 'Today we're going to make mayonnaise,' and at work it was like, 'Just do it!' Culinary school alone just doesn't cut it. Young chefs have to get their asses kicked, spend tons of hours in a working kitchen, and the pay sucks ... You have to have the passion."
posted by Luke at 9:21 AM | 1 comment
Sunday, January 06, 2002
Today's New York Times had an amusing essay on how to find a good restaurant in a foreign city: "You should ask someone who looks like you, or a slightly better-fed version of yourself, maybe someone just a little paunchier than you are and a year or two older ... You're looking for the person you'll be in a couple of years, the one who really knows where to go and what to order, not the person you are now. For as much as you love yourself at the moment, it goes without saying that in the future you expect to be someone you'll love even more, someone you'll absolutely worship, a person you'd spend every waking moment with if you weren't that person already."
This is timely advice. In February I leave for a trip through Europe, which gives me a month to learn the following phrase in four languages: "Hello. I am but a poor Canadian student. Can you recommend an affordable, quirky restaurant that shows off the charm and flavor of your fine burg?"
I expect to spend time in Rome, Munich and a few undetermined points between. Any suggestions?
posted by Luke at 11:06 AM | Comment?
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