The top national restaurant stories of 2009
Happy New Year's Eve, boys and girls. If you aren't sick of lists, and even if you are, I have the National Restaurant Association's list of the top restaurant news stories of 2009:
THE YEAR'S TOP TEN
* 129 rules at La Bernardin
* White House chef is named
* What makes a burger?
* Top 10 tips for restaurateurs
* In-N-Out thrives on work force's professionalism
* What was Tom Colicchio's biggest cooking mistake?
* The secrets of the modern burger
* How does Darden Restaurants stay successful?
* Burger King plans edgy interiors
* Custom-burger concept succeeds despite recession
Many of these, maybe most of them, probably mean nothing to you. ...
When I looked more closely at how the list was made up, it turned out that these were the stories whose links were most clicked on by the readers of the group's e-newsletter.
What struck me about it, though, was how many of them involved burgers. I don't quite know what to make of that. After all, these are mostly people in the restaurant business or media types who are reading the newsletter.
Theories welcome. Just post below.
The one of these stories I remember most and for some reason didn't get around to blogging about was the first, 129 rules at La Bernardin. The rules are real ones, given to employees by the four-star La Bernardin restaurant in New York City. To me this was more interesting than the wish list rules I posted here earlier.
Unfortunately, because of the time span, some of the links to the actual stories are broken. But if there are any that you'd like to know more about, I'll try to hunt them down.
If that burger in the photo looks good to you, don't come asking where you can get it. It's an Elevation burger.
(Lloyd Fox/Sun photographer)
Comments
Everyone loves a good burger. Plus, I would imagine a burger is an appealing offering for restaurants in this economy. What was Tom Colicchio's big error?
Here you go. This link happens to be working. EL
Posted by: matt hudock | December 31, 2009 7:56 AM
I thought we talked about the 129 rules? They were certainly interesting.
Posted by: Lissa | December 31, 2009 8:15 AM
matt hudock, I usually agree with you, but I have to say that not everyone loves a good burger. I am not a vegetarian, but I try to avoid ground beef on general principles. (You want E. coli with that?) Many people are reducing their consumption of red meat. The last few years I have eaten exactly one burger per year (usually at In-N-Out while traveling in California).
But I want to know Tom Colicchio's big error as well.
Posted by: Dahlink | December 31, 2009 8:16 AM
No doubt Tom's most grievous error was shilling for Diet Coke, Just sayin......!
PS the black dots on the captchas make them even HARDER to read.
xanadu not !
Posted by: MDtopdad | December 31, 2009 9:01 AM
A pretty good list, although I feel cheated because there were really only 128. A couple seem obsessive: does anyone really care if the salt shaker is only half-full? So long as there is enough salt, that's ok with me. And I didn't know a cocktail napkin even had a right-side-up.
Posted by: Bob | December 31, 2009 9:34 AM
Burger King's edgy interiors are the same to me as McDonalds. Big deal. The food will be the same and so will the nasty teenage employees.
Posted by: Joyce W. | December 31, 2009 9:55 AM
The BK at 29th street in Remington always has nice kids working there. It is also always very clean. I find it to be well managed and a much better dining experience than the other fast food option around me, the McDonald's on 38th street in Hampden, which always seem to be operating in a state of confusion with little adherence to standard operating procedure.
Posted by: Robert of Cross Keys | December 31, 2009 12:03 PM
"But I want to know Tom Colicchio's big error as well."
I'd say addmitting to calling "Harold and Maude" his favorite movie.
Clearly one of the strangest/stupidest films to ever grace the silver screen.
But the Girls who recommended it to me back in the 70's were of the "earth children, flower power, Love peace Karma" collective.
Ruth Gordon never looked better though! I actually saw Bud Cort in something recently...Ah, the memories....
Posted by: Bud J | January 1, 2010 4:42 PM