New breed of restaurant weeks

Now that every nook and cranny has its own restaurant week, a growing number of locations are tweaking the formula to create a second promotional opportunity for local eateries.

The twist is showcasing local ingredients as part of the deal. Not only can foodies try the must-visit places at a discount, but now they can bask in the locavore movement, munching on fresh and artisan products from producers just a morel toss away.
Washington, D.C., jumped on the bandwagon with the inaugural Eat Local First Week, which concluded for participating restaurants last week. It’s not be confused with the Farm-to-Street Block Party, where local beer and wine makers had the spotlight.

The much-bigger and more heavily marketed DC Restaurant Week begins next month, a warm-weather follow-up to the Restaurant Week that was held in mid-January.

Not all the new restaurants weeks are big-city affairs. Ohio’s Athens County is in the midst of its local-food restaurant festival, 30-Mile Meals. Thirty restaurants are featuring foods from farms and producers within a 30-mile radius of Athens, Ohio, the home of Ohio University.

There’s an obvious limitation to the local-foods restaurant fests: For most areas, the promotions have to be held in the summer or early fall, when local produce is in season. Yet summer is typically the busiest seasons for restaurants. They need the boost in winter, when patrons are loath to leave the warmth of their homes and brave icy roads.

It’s not an issue for Sonoma County, Calif., whose farmers and artisan producers are busy all year. So it can focus on local produce during late February.

Other areas are obviously exploring the shoulder seasons, where some produce might be available, but has to be supplemented with foods like cheeses, beers, wines and even seafood.

If you want a sense of how big the promotions can be, head to the Lone Star State next week for the Go Texan Restaurant Roundup, where places throughout the state will be featuring local foods. The event not only promotes dining out, but generates funds for local food banks.

The event, funded in part by the state, was started four years ago.

A thaw in big-chain thinking?

Slowly but audaciously, big restaurant chains are starting to address the public’s interest in localized ingredients and preparations.

You can see it in two high-profile introductions of the past week: Cheesecake Factory’s relaunch of its burgers as regionalized “Glamburgers,” featuring ingredients associated with a particular place, and Applebee’s debut of what it describes as “neighborhood-inspired Realburgers,” with flavors ascribed to three local preferences.

No, these aren’t products made with West Virginia ramps or Jersey peaches. A cynic would say the burgers embody culinary clichés of certain regions—pulled pork as a topping on Cheesecake’s Memphis burger, for instance, or the hoagy roll used for Applebee’s Philly Burger, which is dressed with the standard cheesesteak fixings.

But at least the big systems are trying to get away from their One Bland Taste Fits All myopia, an orientation that’s clearly less feasible today. Cheesecake is actually using goat cheese and arugula on its Sonoma burger. By big-chain standards, this is bold stuff.

Connecting an ingredient or item to a region, or using components actually sourced locally, isn’t completely alien to the chain market. Small systems like Burgerville and Smashburger have been doing it for some time. As RestaurantRealityCheck noted last fall, New England’s D’Angelos and Papa Gino’s now use cheeses from Vermont for a number of their selections. Louisiana officials were delighted when local Outback Steakhouse units decided to stick with locally caught shrimp.

But those noble efforts were undertaken on a relatively small scale. Bigger chains just couldn’t overcome the logistical issues, much less the need to be one thing to all people. That coast-to-coast consistency is viewed as absolutely necessary when you’re spending millions of dollars to advertise via national media.

The new endeavors of Cheesecake and Applebee’s are hardly bungee jumps off that safe ledge. But they may signal a change in the hoary thinking that a chain should offer what works for its well-grooved systems, instead of serving what consumers want.

Good, bad and ugly behind today's headlines

Sometimes it's difficult to cover the news and remain impartial. Wait a minute--I don't report for a paper anymore! I can be as judgmental as I want!! With that in mind, here are my nay's, yea's and to-the-gallows uptakes on a few restaurant-industry developments that came to light today:

• A shout-out to the Maine Restaurant Association for including a mushroom-picking guide on its website. At a time when the restaurant industry is trying to incorporate more local, fresh ingredients, the association is providing information that can help members be part of the trend. It’s a nice touch--and so distinctly Maine.



• A big Good, Eh? to Canada for emerging as a nation of foodservice thought leaders. This Saturday, McDonald’s units there will be turning off roadside signs and rooftop lighting for Earth Hour, a concentrated version of our Earth Day. The units are also ahead of their Yank counterparts in trying a new Snack Wrap made with burger patties, a favored contender for No Brainer Potential Hit of the Year. And how do we repay our neighbor to the North? By abandoning some of its markets, as Outback Steakhouse is doing in shutting all nine of its Ontario stores. The country that gave the world Timbits definitely deserves better.



• A definite raised eyebrow is turned to the parents in Bellevue, Wash., who formed a group to teach their children how to eat better. The notion is noble, but the name raises some concern about the mindset that’s being instilled: Future Foodies of America. Little kids dressed in black, pairing juice to chicken fingers? Insisting that the fingers be of the free-range variety? And specifying that only an aged Wisconsin variety will do for their grilled cheese? I’ll have to look for the pint-sized members at the James Beard Awards. And I guess it could be worse. Minis for Molecular Gastronomy would’ve been cause for an intervention.



• A hearty slurp for the James Beard Awards, the industry's version of the Oscars. It's a celebration not only of the nation's best chefs, but also the often-overlooked communications side of the business. Full disclosure: I was a judge of the journalism competition. We’ve got a lot of smart people in the U.S. media who can write beautifully and provocatively about food and food-related issues. I’ll bet we could whup Canada’s ass on that front any time.



• A definite raspberry to Maryland officials for blowing the dust off a regulation that probably hadn’t been applied since spats. They’re employing it now as a sneaky way to squeeze a few more dollars out of restaurants and bars. The measure mandates that soda fountains pay a licensing fee. Isn’t a soft drink tower or a fountain gun nothing more than a modern day version of the soda fountain? That’s what the officials are arguing as they hit up anyplace that doesn’t sell soda exclusively in bottles. Fortunately, the fee can be as low as $10. Still, it’s something you’d expect from a guy in a white straw hat as he pushes snake oil. How about levying an ice-wagon fee for each reach-in?