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) Restaurants blog for patrons
Downtown restaurants are turning to the Internet in their attempt to recover from the financial strain of having to serve only cold food or to shut down altogether after gas service to the area was interrupted for several days.A public relations firm started a website called "Financial District Open for Business" to allow area restaurants to update customers on their status. It is available at fidoboston.blogspot.com.
"We are based in the Financial District and noticed there was a lot of confusion about who was open and who was closed because of the repair work," said Dianne Falaguerra of the firm Solomon McCown & Co. She also said that some of the newly opened restaurants were seeing slower-than-usual business. She said the firm was not charging restaurants for the blog postings. More>>
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) National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2008 NEA National
The NEA National Heritage Fellowships program is made possible through the support of the Darden Restaurants Foundation and family of Red Lobster, Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze, and Seasons 52 restaurants.These awardees were chosen for their artistic excellence and contributions to our nation's cultural heritage. They represent a cross-section of ethnic cultures and traditions including Native American, Peruvian, Ethiopian, Brazilian, and Korean and art forms ranging from saddlemaking and dance to bluegrass music and drum making.
National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia said, "It is important to recognize the diverse traditional arts that enrich America's cultural landscape and to award those whose dedication and artistry are so integral to the continuation of these art forms."
The 2008 NEA National Heritage Fellowship recipients are:
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) Restaurants say times are getting tougher
Prospects for the restaurant industry continued to weaken in March along with the worsening economy, according to a leading trade group.The monthly performance index published by the National Restaurant Association came in at 97.9 in March, down 0.9 percent from February and its lowest level on record. A value of 100 or greater indicates the industry is in a period of expansion.
The Restaurant Performance Index is based on the responses to a Restaurant Industry Tracking Survey, which includes restaurant operators nationwide who are asked to comment on a variety of indicators including sales, traffic, labor and capital expenditures.
The indicators include same-store sales, traffic, labor, capital expenditures -- both current and future -- employees, business conditions and staffing. More>>
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) Smoking ban has worked for restaurants elsewhere
I can't tell you how nice it is to go into a restaurant and not have to ask for a nonsmoking area.Restaurants have been smoke-free here for a number of years now. I don't know of any that have failed because of the smoking ban.
As to Jackson County Commissioner Phil Duckam's assertion in Friday's story that cheeseburgers are just as bad as breathing secondhand smoke, well I don't know of anybody being harmed by somebody else eating a cheeseburger.
I'm sure Commissioner Duckham is pro life. I would think he would be just as pro life for those who don't like breathing secondhand smoke.
Douglas G. Carpenter
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) Grease pirates plunder tanks of old cooking oil
Richard McClere, owner of a small independent Houston grease-collecting business, estimated up to a third of the used oil he buys from restaurants is stolen before he can pick it up.Shawn Griffin, Texas manager for the national Griffin Industries waste removal company, said record prices for grease have fueled record thefts � especially in Houston, the most grease pirate-plagued city in the state: "It's a huge problem, the worst I've ever seen."
Liquid gold"We have a theft that happens almost every day," lamented Christina Tisdale of Quality Restaurant Services. Tisdale said her company replaced plastic tank lids with metal, but thieves broke them open. Then it fastened them with padlocks, and the thieves cut them off. Now, at substantial expense, the company has fitted its big tanks with metal barriers that make siphoning difficult. More>>