In This Issue

* Feature Article
* Links of Interest to Hospitality Professionals
* Top 100 Update
* Reader Feedback
* Bulletin Board
* Additional E-mail Resources

* Promotional Opportunity!

The Past, Present, and Future of Culinary Arts
By R.F. Keener III
http://www.3chefs.com

The Culinary Arts represent an evolving world. To categorize a period in this discipline is difficult. How will historians report this time that we see as our world? Perhaps an individual could analyze the trends over the last two hundred years and predict the future of Cuisine in the United States. Not possible, the influx of ethnic ideas and alternative techniques have changed the very essence of Culinary Art.

Ideas are as valuable as the Chef. If they do not represent insight and change, then they are dismissed. Classic art was not always that. Artists throughout history have attended schools to expand their minds and explore new ideas. Where do these new ideas develop? In the real world. The methodical study of history will only produce a reflection of old concepts. To experience culture and sample the fruits of true artists is the only school necessary to become a chef. This will allow a student to reproduce the products of masters.

However, reproducing is not what makes an innovative chef. A love for food is the key to becoming a chef. The idea is not the issue. Dismissing classical techniques and following trends is not a solution. A chef will always be a student. If an individual forgets the gift of education, then a dead end has been reached. Becoming a chef allows opportunities to travel and experience life like no other trade.

Anyone can adhere to the criteria required to be considered a chef by modern convention. The acid test of character is found in the individual that displays a respect for classical ideas, and is open minded to the new. Developing this unique character is accomplished by harnessing the ego and never forgetting that even the dish washer may have a better idea than you.

Feedback on our feature articles is welcome. Please send your comments to newsletter@restaurantreport.com

IndustyBooks.com - BeverageNet Bookstore
http://www.industrybooks.com/032671/bevbook2.html
The main page for IndustryBooks.com hospitality selections. Main categories include; Beer, Wine, Spirits, Cigars, Coffee, Management, Hospitality Series

Seeing The Light
http://www.beveragenet.net/pub/bfd/archives/398/398lt.html
Despite all the hoopla about craft brewing, light beers continue both to grow and to dominate the beer business.

Setting up a bar
http://www.webtender.com/handbook/barsetup.html
A sample list of equipment, supplies, and advice on how to stock a bar

Good Vibrations
http://www.rimag.com/806/ops_ms2.htm
Tailoring sound systems to your operation.

TRAINING and PERSONALITY - the KEYS TO SERVER SUCCESS
http://www.beveragenet.net/pub/cheers/archives/398/0398tp.html
How do successful operators build a waitstaff? By training the right people.

Brewing a New Leaf
"Sweet spicy, and served with milk, the American version of India's chai is the hot new sip"

Choosing the Best Fish
http://www.freep.com/fun/food/qchoose25.htm

and

Tips for Storing and Preparing Fish
http://www.freep.com/fun/food/qtips25.htm

Exploring the Wine Joints of New York City
http://www.wine.brats.org/features/gotham/story.html
"What I found while traipsing the streets of Gotham were four places that stand out for the quality of wine and food, great value, cool atmosphere, and a well trained staff."

Interview with Maria Helm, Executive Chef at PlumpJack Cafe
http://www.kitchenette.com/

**New Restaurant Report Stories**

Phillip Silverstone Speaks With Julia Child
http://www.restaurantreport.com/Departments/w_juliachild.html
The incredible popularity of our culinary profession is due in large part to Julia Child and her use of television. Her first appearances as the Emmy-winning French Chef began in 1963, and her use of the medium helped mold an entire generation of chefs now running the kitchens of many of our best restaurants.

James Beard Dateline - April 1998
http://www.restaurantreport.com/Jamesbeard/index.html
Newsworthy tidbits on the happenings in some of the greatest restaurant cities around the world.

So, You Wanna Open a Coffee Shop
http://www.restaurantreport.com/Departments/c_coffeeshop.html

Visit the Restaurant Report E-mail Newsletter Links Archive for a compilation of feature links from all past issues: http://www.restaurantreport.com/Newsletter/featurelinks.html

Each month through June we will be selecting five additional sites as Restaurant Report Top 100 Hospitality Sites Award winners. (Sorry for the delay in picking the March winners. April winners will be announced in the 4/20 newsletter.)

March Winners:

BeverageNet - Total Score: 93
Elroy's - Total Score: 97
Sidewalk - Total Score: 98
The Webtender - Total Score: 94
Wine & Dine E-zine - Total Score: 93

Visit the main Top 100 page to see the full scoring and "Site Bytes" for our new winners:
http://www.restaurantreport.com/Top100/index.html
then select view Alphabetically to pick out the new winners.

Dear Bob,

I can certainly understand your annoyance at being seated next to two inconsiderate smokers. As a smoker myself, I find it extremely unpleasant when someone else allows their smoke to drift in a direct path to my face.

However, many restaurants, smoking and non, are populated with extremely rude and unpleasant customers. I find crying babies, heavy perfume, and loud people quite distasteful and sure-fire meal destroyers. When seated next to an unpleasant table, I just ask to be moved. If a restaurant has icky patrons often, I exercise my freedom of choice and don't go there.

While I would love to frequent a restaurant that does not allow children or perfume, and think that a restaurant owner should have every right to choose the regulations of his own establishment, I would not support legislation prohibiting cologne. We are a free society, and determine the success or failure of a business by choosing how we spend money. If a restaurant chooses to be scent-free, and enough people feel strongly about a perfumeless environment, that business will prosper. If not, the business will fail. That capitalism & free enterprise.

Yes, you'll argue, but perfume doesn't kill and smoking does. Well, so does alcohol- especially combined with driving, which people usually do in order to get to & from a restaurant. Should alcohol be banned? And I am extremely allergic to perfume, so there are health effects.

I have recently moved to California, and am not too happy with the ban on smoking in bars, although most of the places I frequent have graciously built an enclosed "patio" area for smoking, which allows me to continue to enjoy beverages and conversation without leaving the premises. (actually, they are much more pleasant than a smokey bar, in that they are usually well-ventilated. Smokers don't like the dense clouds of smelly smoke in a small room with bad ventilation any more than non-smokers do.)

I do resent not being allowed to light a cigarette after a meal, however. No, let me change that statement- I resent the government dictating that I cannot light a cigarette after a meal. Well before the ban on smoking, many restaurants chose to be smoke-free. I applauded their choice, and unless they were exceptional places, usually took my business elsewhere. Now, the restaurants that chose to cater to smokers no longer can. That is a little too "Big Brother" for comfort.

While you may welcome government infringement into smoking regulations, I'd like to know the name of your restaurant, so I can make certain to "choose" never to go there!

**Next Post**

The idea that smoking is a "habit" is the cause of most of the confusion between smokers and non-smokers. It is an ADDICTION- (not just a habit), as is drug addiction and alcoholism. People go into nicotine withdrawal just as they do with alcohol, cocaine, crack, heroin or any other brain-altering substance when their bodies are deprived of their "drug of choice". The effects of nicotine withdrawal can be devastating, and under certain circumstances can be deadly. I can tell you from personal experience. Try this one: A three-pack-a-day smoker has a heart attack. Now his heart is trying to cope with the sustained damage while his brain is screaming for nicotine for the body. With arrhythmia already taking place it is now made worse by the withholding of the one substance that would have a calming effect on the body. Or would it in this case make it worse? Of course the victim is unconscious and has no control, so it's now a question of which outlasts the other, the heart or the brain. Good chance here that both lose. Point being that most smokers do not CONTINUE to smoke because they want to irritate other people or contract one of several cancers. They continue to smoke because they are UNABLE TO STOP. IT IS AN ADDICTION. Think about this definition of addiction..."Continues to use, with loss of control, despite adverse or lethal consequences". Most people do not want to live like this. An individual must recognize that the addiction is no longer their FAULT. But they are responsible for their own life and they have a CHOICE of whether or not to ASK FOR HELP!!! Thank you.
Ray S. (restaurant owner)

**Next Post**

Smokers want to smoke and non smokers don't want them to smoke. There is no solution unless a dictatorial group decides for others. Everyone knows the evils of smoking but the problem no one mentioned is addiction and the severity of the addiction---if smoking were declared a dangerous drug and one of addiction more progress Would be made than shouting at one another---push for legislation as an addictive drug. No one mentioned the technology of exhaust methodology--restaurants and casinos have not kept pace with public opinion--it should be possible to have smokers and non smokers in the same room and no odors exists if appropriate technology were instituted.

Dr. Frederick P. Zuspan (non-smoker)

**Next Post**

While I realize this response may be a little late, I would still like to put in my two cents, if possible. While I was reading all of the responses to your article, I was becoming more and more upset by the one sided opinions so strongly biased against smokers...until I read what Paul had to say. I believe it is very important to look at things from all points of view, in any situation. In this situation, the smokers should be acknowledged as having a right as well. As Paul mentioned, for whatever reason, people do start smoking and it is a very hard habit to break, but it is a form of relaxation for many, so ponder this ....Why do people go out to eat? Mostly it is to relax. I do not believe that people who smoke should be deprived of their rights of relaxation. The idea of a smoker being able to relax in a restaurant, enjoy a nice meal, and light up is something that should not be taken away. I think it is and has been very possible to maintain smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants without conflict. Why does this have to change? If you have not been able to tell, I am not even a smoker myself, and in fact I even hate the smell of smoke and what it does to people. It is terrible. However, it is a personal choice for those who smoke, and the right of smokers to light up when they please should be acknowledged, as long as it doesn't affect the non-smokers, and as I have mentioned....it has been done.

KC

**Next Post**

Mr. Bradley

My name is Allan Chapman and I am a smoker And what you wrote makes a lot of sense to me . I also am a chef and see on regular occasions smokers and non-smokers clashing in my dining room.

I do smoke but I also respect non-smokers I do not smoke in public places unless I am with other smokers and there are no non-smokers around I do not smoke around my children because they deserve to have a chance for healthy lungs. I am hurting myself with these cigarettes I don't want to be responsible for hurting anyone else especially my children.

It would be a God send if smoking were band completely maybe it would make it easier for me to quit.

I am not proud of smoking I just haven't found the courage to be able to quit.

Thanks
Allan Chapman

**Next Post**

I am a Respiratory Therapist who is adamant about NO SMOKING.

I just wanted to tell you a story about my sister who is a smoker. She complained to me about her mother-in-law who lives next door to her and is not allowed to smoke in her home, per her husband. So she comes over to my sisters house and smokes at my sisters. Her complaint is that she comes over to her house and sits down at there dinning room table and smokes a cigarette while they are eating dinner and how rude that is. I told her that's exactly how I feel when we go out to a restaurant and sit in the smoking section, to accommodate her after dinner smoke, and the person at the next table lights up.

I also really dislike the littering of cigarette buts on the ground and thrown out of car window. It also makes me crazy when a person smokes in a car and thinks that because they crack there window no one is getting any of their smoke.

I enjoyed your story.
Jackie

**New Post**

In further response to your article regarding smokers in restaurants:

The majority of smokers also demonstrate a lack of respect for society in other ways. Not only is second-hand smoke a killer, viewing the world as an ashtray is equally boorish. While generalizations always have their exceptions, rarely do I see a smoker outside actually walk the three extra steps that would be required to extinguish and deposit a finished cigarette in a trash receptacle. (Any smokers reading this who have NOT flicked cigarettes onto the ground, out a car window, or onto a sidewalk, I applaud you.)

Each morning and evening I walk five city blocks in Chicago between the train and my office. During that short five block walk, I see several smokers discarding their lit cigarettes with a flick onto the sidewalk -- seemingly oblivious to litter laws and acting as though it is their god-given right to uglify the streets and sidewalks upon which the rest of society travels. On occasion, a flicked cigarette has even skipped across my shoes -- showing further inconsideration for others.

The same thing has happened to our beaches and wilderness areas -- cigarettes and other trash have invaded the most prominent and the most isolated reaches of our landscape (of course, much of this is the fault of smokers and non-smokers alike). Although banning smoking in public places entirely may seem a bit extreme to some, perhaps litter laws should be enforced more stringently with steep fines for litter of any kind -- including cigarette butts.

As for inconsiderate behavior in restaurants, smoke has become so irritating to me that unfortunately my wife and I have become dissuaded from going many places we once enjoyed. We no longer enjoy live music because of the smoke, going to the local pub to shoot pool is out of the question, and many clubs we once danced at are too smoke-filled to enjoy. And, many an otherwise enjoyable meal has been ruined by an inconsiderate smoker.

Furthermore, why is it that smokers cannot wait until they are out in the open air to light their cigarettes? In many places clearly marked "non-smoking," smokers proliferate. For instance, while exiting the train into a crowded train station, many smokers are inconsiderate enough to light up even though those around them have no escape. The same is true in the underground pedway in Chicago. On many a miserable day in Chicago, the pedway could offer a welcome respite from the cruel wind, precipitation, or temperatures. Instead, smokers have become so common that the air has become unpalatable, and sometimes nauseating to the point that it dissuades many from taking advantage of the shelter that the pedway offers.

While smokers may feel put-upon by the majority because they are relegated more and more to the nooks and crannies of society, the spill-over costs to society in terms of second-hand smoke, the social and fiscal costs of treating smoking-related diseases, and the litter we all now endure greatly outweigh any right smokers might claim to enjoy their habit.

**New Post**

I applaud your feature article. It's time for smokers to realize that non-smokers have rights too. They ruin our dinners too......yet they can always have their "smoke" when they leave the restaurant. Enjoy filling up their cars with all that wonderful smoke and let them have the fun all to themselves.

S. Weston

Send newsletter feedback and comments to us at newsletter@restaurantreport.com

Would you know of any topic/problem, which could be made as a subject for my thesis? Thesis is the last requirement to complete a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management and I can't seem to think of anything interesting or worth researching about. Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you.

Nicole
Respond to mailto:rocden@tri-isys.com

**Next Post**

I am building a new restaurant and need help in selecting a new P.O.S. system and accounting package. We will have about 275 seats and I would like to find a POS package that will directly integrate with my accounting package if that is possible. Any suggestions? Respond to mailto:tafarmer@msn.com

**Next Post**

Enjoy your newsletter immensely. I have been on the accounting end of a fast food franchise for eleven years. Would like to explore the possibility of opening my own restaurant. Many of the franchises require a hefty pocketbook. Can you offer any suggestions as to any that might be a bit more reasonable for a beginner? I am not interested in fast food, more of a diner atmosphere. Being experienced in watching food costs & labor and having connections as to good management, I feel I could "make a go of it." Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Respond to mailto:Gin259@hotmail.com

**Next Post**

We are a fast growing fast food restaurant in Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia. We are planning to build a new fast food outlet in a beautiful sea front in Madinat Al-Jubail Al-Sinaiyah, Saudi Arabia.

We are need some help from people experience in turnkey projects for restaurant management. We will appreciate your reply expeditiously.

We also welcome offers from readers on agency in Saudi Arabia.

Thanks
Saad Al-Thawad
Respond to mailto:zadsystm@khaleej.net.bh

**Next Post**

Seeking to purchase existing restaurant business in northern or central NJ. Any info or leads are appreciated.

Please respond to Rich Cialone mailto:rcialone@openix.com

**Next Post**

I'm a restaurant manager and I'm currently conducting some research on "typical" salary ranges for kitchen-manager positions at restaurants on par with, say, Ruby Tuesday's, Bennigan's, or TGI Friday's. I saw a recent article on-line that said an increased demand for kitchen managers at such restaurants has caused their salaries to jump -- with the current range being anywhere from $40,000 to $45,000 annually. Does that ring true (on the East coast)??? I'd appreciate any insights!! Thanks.

Gary Vines Jr.
Respond to mailto:1VINES@prodigy.net

**Next Post**

Hello there,
I am looking for a White Mountain Ice Cream Freezer 20 quart unit (new or used) for a small operation in Hong Kong. Would someone direct me to the sources which might carry it.

Thanks.
KC
Respond to mailto:hkkclo@hk.linkage.net

*****
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