You wouldn’t create Ronald today. He’s not ironic. They try to make him that way, but they fail. And I hereby declare without fear of contradiction that there are two basic communication modes today: surprisingly honest, or ironic. He’s neither. The health advocates who are attacking Ronald and asking McD’s to dump him surely know…
Something that’s fun to do: compare the eyewitness accounts of two different people who went to the National Restaurant Association show this year. On the one hand, we have the reporter from Nation’s Restuarant News, observing and summarizing as usefully as possible. Then there’s the AV Club reporter with a little less familiarity with the restaurant…
I once got to work with the guy who says he developed the lemon squirt for Red Lobster: those manicured lady fingers, that slow-motion squeeze, the little sphritz of citrus over …over what? Who knows? You’re not really thinking about what that juice is going to land on. You’re intent on that squeeze. Why? Why…
Slate writer Justin Peters tries to find something special about Sbarro, in the midst of its public struggles. He comes up empty. This story probably isn’t all told, but when it is, its moral will be pretty simple: when people don’t have any reason to be emotionally involved with your restaurant on any level, and…
You know what I love? I love that even after all this time, nobody can agree completely on what makes customers trade money for food. Not the professsionals with their PowerPoint decks and marketing MBAs and Effie Awards and years of experience. Not the directors who specialize in super close-up, slowly rotating shots of perfectly…