This week's chart hits (and misses)

Showbiz celebrities have given us such catastrophic restaurant ventures as Minnie Pearl’s Fried Chicken, Mickey Rooney’s Weenie World (the hot dogs were flat and round), and Johnny Carson’s Here’s Johnny’s. Yet they still can’t leave the business alone.

In case your subscription to People and Us! have expired, here’s a list of recent crossovers into restaurants by rock stars. In some instances, there are things worth noting about their ventures. But in others…well, that’s why they call it the blues.

Gene Simmons, Rock & Brews
The snake-tongued bassist for Kiss is a principal of this new Hard Rock Café-like concept, which debuts next month near Los Angeles Airport. The restaurant expertise is coming from Michael Zislis, though Simmons has (theoretically) had exposure to the industry through his band’s Kiss Coffeehouse. The design will supposedly capture the feel of a concert arena’s back stage, and the menu will carry over the theme with sections like Opening Acts and Headliner sandwiches.
Outside help: Zislis, concert promoter Dave Furano.
Worth stealing: The fleet of flat-screen TVs, now required of anyplace with a beer tap, will feature concert footage and rock clips, like MTV on, um, steroids, not that other banned substance. It might be a welcome change from 24-hour sports.
What should get the hook: The dumb menu names. Desserts called Encores, and apps slugged as Opening Acts? Ugh. That’s so eight-track.

Flavor Flav, House of Flavor
You can’t help wishing the rapper had named the fried-chicken restaurant Worlds of Flavor, just for the entertainment value of seeing the Culinary Institute of America square off with the Public Enemy singer in court (the CIA uses that name for a conference). Dr. Tim Ryan in his three-piece, Flav in his signature oversized clock…but enough what-iffing. The key thing here is that the Flav Master is coming back to the business after his first chicken venture, Flav’s Fried Chicken, died in four months. The new entrant, set to open in Las Vegas, sounds more upscale, and will be inspired décor-wise by—what else?—Flav and his musical career.

Flav has played it close to the clock about the new concept’s menu. But he did divulge this tidbit in an interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek: “FFC is fried chicken and House of Flavor is, you know, a house of flavor.”
Outside help: Book publisher Farrah Gray.
Worth stealing: Flav’s double-flavor breading approach. He revealed that he’ll spice the meat before rolling it in seasoned bread crumbs, yielding what he calls a double dose of flavor.
Hook-worthy: Anything that shows up on the menu with the name, Flavor of Love, the title of his reality TV show.

Beach Boys Good Vibration Restaurant
Few details have been leaked about the concept, which is slated to open in Vegas, like Flav’s new one. The Boys’ hotspot will be housed in Bally’s, and will have a theme built around surfing, girls and cars. Whoa. Who’d have thought such a thing, given the involvement of the Beach Boys.

You have to hope that Brian Wilson, the genius behind the band, will really be involved. It’d definitely add some surrealism. When I saw him perform solo a few years back, his band (the Wondermints) rolled out a huge cake for his birthday. He not only wasn’t aware of his birthday, but that the cake, after it appeared, was for him.
Outside help: Caesars Entertainment, Monsoon Group
Worth stealing: How bankable nostalgia remains. It’s been roughly 50 years since “Surfin’ USA” hit the airwaves. Also, GrubStreet.com's suggestion for the concept's name: Wild Honey.
Hook-worthy: Mike Love, the band’s lead singer. He can be like fingernails on a blackboard when he opens his mouth to do more than sing.

No way this'll stay in Vegas

When the Hawaiian shirt of trend forecasting’s grey-suit world says he’s about to be “turned loose on Vegas restaurants for 24 hours with a camera following me—some real crazy stuff,” you realize the importance of having the mayor’s office on speed dial. Hearing Andy Ford warn of crazy stuff is like having Lady Gaga snipe that your get-up is freaky. The city might want to relocate the elderly and at least Siegfried, if not Roy, too.

Andy has a very adult job—chief insights officer for Noble, a Springfield, Mo., company that runs a foodservice trends-tracking business and a food-focused website, FoodChannel.com. His job is to detect anomalies in consumer preferences and discern a pattern before the incremental shifts harden into a mainstream trend.

He goes about it with the elan of an impish kid taking a road trip to Six Flags with a lax uncle. Who says you can’t take a bath in the motel pool if the sun is shining?

That tepid regard for the rules was evident when Andy told me about his mission to Sin City. For 24 hours, he’d be hitting some of the town’s offbeat eating places—not just restaurants, but any joint where the subcultures of a pulp novelist’s favorite town might grab a bite. Did I have any suggestions?

Well, yeah, but most of them are either closed to the public or likely to test the extent of an uninvited guest’s emergency-room health coverage. I wouldn’t just barge into some of the insider haunts in a town like that.

Great! Could I shoot him some suggestions ASAP?

That was a week ago. Tomorrow is D (V?) Day. Starting at 7 o’clock Vegas time, Andy will be on a blitz of eating places that only a city like Glitter Gulch might harbor. Along the way he’ll interview people on and off the Strip about the unusual places where they might eat. This probably won’t be a project that wins Chamber of Commerce approval.

But chances are high that it’ll be a jaw-dropper. I’m going to follow Andy via his Twitter feeds and blog posts. You can get the distillation via my own tweets, via twitter.com/peterromeo, or follow Andy directly via @aford. Or look for the hashtags #vegas and #iraves.

And if you know of any bail bondsmen in the area, drop me a note. Just in case.