Author Archives: Robert

A few years ago, I read a restaurant survey that ranked customer’s priorities when dining out. The study listed food, service, atmosphere, and location. The results were a little surprising to me in some areas. Restaurant patrons in that survey listed “service” as their number one priority. Atmosphere came in second, food third, and locationContinue reading “It’s All About the Food”

A couple of decades ago I wrote a column that posed the question, “If you could have dinner with six people throughout all of history, who would you invite?” The column received a lot of response from readers as they sent in their list of six dinner guests. My original list consisted of Paul McCartney,Continue reading “Six Dinner Guests”

Over the past 30 years our company has been busy. We’ve opened fine dining restaurants, New Orleans-themed restaurants, an Italian restaurant, a live-music club, a daiquiri bar, a 20,000-square foot country and western nightclub, a burger joint, a couple of neighborhood bars, four steakhouses, a catfish house, an officer’s club on a national guard base,Continue reading “Mary Virginia”

Community cafes and diners are a dying breed. Years ago, people gathered for breakfast in small cafes in downtown areas. They talked politics, sports, and religion over cups of strong coffee, eggs, and grits. At lunch they often returned to the same café and ate fried chicken, country fried steak, meatloaf and chicken and dumplingsContinue reading “Community Cafes”

If someone is keeping track of honeymoons, mark me down for 23. That might be a lot of honeymoons, though only two are in the typical, “married” sense of the word. The other 21 are associated with restaurant openings. To get the archetypal two honeymoons out of the way, I first married too young toContinue reading “Honeymoons”

An explorer organizes an expedition by studying maps and charts. A petroleum engineer prepares for a drill by scrutinizing geological surveys of the earth’s strata and seismic graphs. A ballet dancer prepares for a performance with years of training and practice. A competitive sailor reads oceanographic surveys, depth charts, and weather history, and a warContinue reading “R&D”

Some people know at an early age what they want to do with their professional life and career. The first job I can remember being interested in was around the time I was six-years old. The year was 1967, and I wanted to be an advertising executive. An advertising executive might be a strange careerContinue reading “Careers and Crushes”

On a recent list of the most stressful jobs of 2018, Aimee Picchi of CBS News listed (in order from least to most stressful): senior corporate executive, public relations executive, broadcaster, reporter, event coordinator, police officer, airline pilot, firefighter, and enlisted military personnel. I have absolutely no qualms about Ms. Picchi’s top four entries of police officer,Continue reading “Opening Nightmares”

The culinary world has evolved in many ways over the course of my lifetime. We have moved from using lard to using butter, and then abandoning butter for margarine (which they told us was “better for us than butter” for a while), only to return to butter. During World War II we were sending ourContinue reading “The ABCs of My Youth—Avocados, Bowens, and Curry”