Last week Ashok Selvam of Eater Chicago reached out to me with a couple questions to support his excellent story on the surprise demand for Warlord (a restaurant you read about here the week before). I sent him kind of an essay, most of which didn’t make it in to his piece (understandably)…but as I looked at it, I thought, this is actually a decent commentary for restaurant owners and dining interested people who want to know how the secret story “sauce” behind restaurant and food news is made.
So just create a runaway hit restaurant so you don’t have to use external marketing. You make it sound so easy. Cited Alinea, Virgil Abloh, Supreme, Nike, Louis Vuitton- all established, all at the pinnacle of their industries.
I said that not making everything easy and accessible and free for a certain class of freeloaders creates a kind of scarcity akin to those brands...again this isn’t academic. Warlord brand new restaurant didn’t take reservations, didn’t make special accommodations for writers, not big name chefs and yet they’re now packed. It’s not easy but the part to focus on here is that buying access doesn’t make it easier.
This is why I subscribe here. As someone who is genuinely seeking out excellent food- whether it’s a Detroit pizza spot or drool worthy Warlord- I know you are going to give it to your readers straight (with a generous topping of humor). Pay to play erodes trust.
Hey Mike. Writing in anonymously because as PR professionals, we always have to play nice in the sandbox in our profession— it is public relations after all. But, I have to say, I think you’ve overstepped a bit here and this has a lot of holes. While I agree with you there is a lot of cookie-cutter PR out there, let’s not belittle my and my peers' profession or value as a whole (or imply that we are whores that just want to sleep with our chef clients or bask in their glory) just because a few people may leave a bad impression on you. I can name plenty of bad, even solicitous writers out there at the drop of a hat if I wanted to, but that doesn’t mean I think all writers suck. Furthermore, even if you wanted to approach restaurant publicity with a "survival of the fittest" model, you are forgetting that many chefs/restaurants, even the uber-talented ones, don’t understand what to do with PR/marketing, don’t WANT to handle that side of the business, or simply don’t have TIME to do it because they are busy being “better than everyone else” as you expect them to be... As someone who worked in hospitality, in both back and front of house, for over a decade before transitioning into PR, I can see from being on both sides of the fence the power and NEED for PR professionals. Whether its in-house or through an outside agency, many of us become just as much a part of the fabric of the restaurant as its key players and the rest of the staff, so insinuating that these chefs/owners are throwing away their money on us could be compared to saying they are throwing away their money on their dishwasher— have you ever tried to run a restaurant without a dishwasher? Because I have! It doesn’t work. So stop trying to separate us out because you don’t fully understand the value of PR— or clearly much of what we do behind the scenes really— and are unwilling to accept that our clients WANT us there.
Furthermore, let’s not forget that we are just as much warriors for journalists and reporters as we are for our clients, who are constantly on increasingly shorter deadlines as the editorial world continued to shrink over the past 10 years. Can you imagine every food journalist in the country trying to get what they need from overworked GMs who won’t check their email until three days past the deadline instead of organized and prepared PR professionals who have it ready on deck? The fact is, writers need us as much as we need them, and we our work goes far beyond being "email golfers" as you say. We keep the wheels turning, and we are happy to do so because we got into this profession because we love promoting stories we believe in. I, like you, am also a writer. I studied it in college and what appealed to me about PR was being able to use my writing chops to be an interpreter for my clients. Chefs and restaurant operators are not all writers by nature, some even struggle to spell, and our services are to help them communicate what they are trying to tell the world, in the best way possible. Your comments about our merits are like telling an English translator to tell their client to “Be better than everyone else and LEARN ENGLISH already”! It’s offensive.
Lastly, the reason many PR agencies encourage our clients to host media for meals is because of simply the change in landscape. Years ago, the magazines and newspapers writers were on staff with would pick up the tab so they could go out and experience these restaurants to report on them. In today’s world, that’s rarely the case, and food writers don’t make enough money to foot the bill every night to cover their stories. Plus, many respected writers won’t write about a restaurant unless they’ve actually had a meal there. So you want to punish PR people for setting them up so they can actually experience the food and keep our clients in the running for coverage because the media outlets got their budgets cut and our hands are tied? Or are you suggesting all writers to start picking up the tab for themselves? Newsflash, they won’t.
Do I think influencers are annoying, sure, many of them. Do I hate the number of pay-to-play articles that are circulating and growing, absolutely, especially as someone who works strictly with earned/ organic media. But these are the byproducts of the times we are living in, and PR professionals are striving (and working their asses off) to find ways to navigate the ever-changing news cycle and rules of the game to help our clients stay on top of the pile of a very oversaturated industry. This isn’t about being the best, there are plenty of amazing chefs out there doing incredible things, this is about the top competition at the end of the day, and the power of PR is having people on your side who know how to set you apart from the herd. So before you gravely discount us in a blanket write-up, maybe ask yourself “Do restaurants need food critics?” because personally, I rather just eat there and find out for myself.
Like I said, I will respond to every point if you're willing to share your true identity because I think that's the only fair way to exchange here. However, I will respond to a couple points now. I will say if everything you say is true, then I am not talking about you and you do bring high value which falls under the paragraph about how there are some good PR professionals. But I'm telling you, you're the exception, not the rule. And I'm not saying this to be stubborn. I'm saying I get at least 20 emails a day from PR professionals or more daily and 99.9% of them are of the limited value I describe. In 20 years as a writer, I have gotten less than 20 high value well thought out pitches and this is when I was writing for national magazines too.
Also, if a writer or journalist can't do the leg work of taking their own photos etc, they aren't worth the time either. They're not doing their job.
Also if a writer or their publication won't pay for the meal, then they aren't doing their job.
I do think it's interesting though that you say, we don't need food critics but in the same response you say I need the writers to come so I give them free meals so they will cover my clients. Which means you do need them or you don't need them?
I'll respond to this if you use your real name. Otherwise it has no credibility in my mind, especially since as I acknowledge there are some good PR professionals and therefore thids isn't a blanket statement. I will say I agree with you, no one needs food critics at all.
But what do you do if you don’t mix your own floor tile dyes or break shards of stuff and paint chocolate directly onto the diner’s table? What if you just want to open a restaurant that cooks the best food? Is there just no room for that anymore?
Totally room. If you cook great food this applies. The only reason I specifically mention Warlord is that the questions are answered in this context. If you're that good with the food, people will notice.
I certainly hope you’re right! I think there’s a bit of randomness to it all anyway, with or without paying PR and influencers. Sometimes great places make it, and sometimes they don’t.
No doubt, the world in general sometimes is random. Though I believe great place well run and well differentiated has a much better chance of making it. People like you pick up on the good and spread the word. The bigger problem i think is low barrier to entry, so if you're a great chef, you might not have the business savvy and so you just have a tough time being profitable. I think in those cases often one of the poor decisions is spending thousands of dollars on low value stuff like free stuff for influencers or below average PR going through the motions. There are some PR people who bring value and there are some influencers who bring value, but also those people know it and charge accordingly. A lot of small scale restaurants can't afford that value. Or if they can, they should consider paying that high value deliverer instead of a bunch of people with tens of thousands of followers a high percentage of who were generated by bots and algorithms. The algo people might even like your stuff, but often they're disengaged and mostly just a free follower who isn't going to heed much of the influence anyway.
So just create a runaway hit restaurant so you don’t have to use external marketing. You make it sound so easy. Cited Alinea, Virgil Abloh, Supreme, Nike, Louis Vuitton- all established, all at the pinnacle of their industries.
I said that not making everything easy and accessible and free for a certain class of freeloaders creates a kind of scarcity akin to those brands...again this isn’t academic. Warlord brand new restaurant didn’t take reservations, didn’t make special accommodations for writers, not big name chefs and yet they’re now packed. It’s not easy but the part to focus on here is that buying access doesn’t make it easier.
This is why I subscribe here. As someone who is genuinely seeking out excellent food- whether it’s a Detroit pizza spot or drool worthy Warlord- I know you are going to give it to your readers straight (with a generous topping of humor). Pay to play erodes trust.
Hey Mike. Writing in anonymously because as PR professionals, we always have to play nice in the sandbox in our profession— it is public relations after all. But, I have to say, I think you’ve overstepped a bit here and this has a lot of holes. While I agree with you there is a lot of cookie-cutter PR out there, let’s not belittle my and my peers' profession or value as a whole (or imply that we are whores that just want to sleep with our chef clients or bask in their glory) just because a few people may leave a bad impression on you. I can name plenty of bad, even solicitous writers out there at the drop of a hat if I wanted to, but that doesn’t mean I think all writers suck. Furthermore, even if you wanted to approach restaurant publicity with a "survival of the fittest" model, you are forgetting that many chefs/restaurants, even the uber-talented ones, don’t understand what to do with PR/marketing, don’t WANT to handle that side of the business, or simply don’t have TIME to do it because they are busy being “better than everyone else” as you expect them to be... As someone who worked in hospitality, in both back and front of house, for over a decade before transitioning into PR, I can see from being on both sides of the fence the power and NEED for PR professionals. Whether its in-house or through an outside agency, many of us become just as much a part of the fabric of the restaurant as its key players and the rest of the staff, so insinuating that these chefs/owners are throwing away their money on us could be compared to saying they are throwing away their money on their dishwasher— have you ever tried to run a restaurant without a dishwasher? Because I have! It doesn’t work. So stop trying to separate us out because you don’t fully understand the value of PR— or clearly much of what we do behind the scenes really— and are unwilling to accept that our clients WANT us there.
Furthermore, let’s not forget that we are just as much warriors for journalists and reporters as we are for our clients, who are constantly on increasingly shorter deadlines as the editorial world continued to shrink over the past 10 years. Can you imagine every food journalist in the country trying to get what they need from overworked GMs who won’t check their email until three days past the deadline instead of organized and prepared PR professionals who have it ready on deck? The fact is, writers need us as much as we need them, and we our work goes far beyond being "email golfers" as you say. We keep the wheels turning, and we are happy to do so because we got into this profession because we love promoting stories we believe in. I, like you, am also a writer. I studied it in college and what appealed to me about PR was being able to use my writing chops to be an interpreter for my clients. Chefs and restaurant operators are not all writers by nature, some even struggle to spell, and our services are to help them communicate what they are trying to tell the world, in the best way possible. Your comments about our merits are like telling an English translator to tell their client to “Be better than everyone else and LEARN ENGLISH already”! It’s offensive.
Lastly, the reason many PR agencies encourage our clients to host media for meals is because of simply the change in landscape. Years ago, the magazines and newspapers writers were on staff with would pick up the tab so they could go out and experience these restaurants to report on them. In today’s world, that’s rarely the case, and food writers don’t make enough money to foot the bill every night to cover their stories. Plus, many respected writers won’t write about a restaurant unless they’ve actually had a meal there. So you want to punish PR people for setting them up so they can actually experience the food and keep our clients in the running for coverage because the media outlets got their budgets cut and our hands are tied? Or are you suggesting all writers to start picking up the tab for themselves? Newsflash, they won’t.
Do I think influencers are annoying, sure, many of them. Do I hate the number of pay-to-play articles that are circulating and growing, absolutely, especially as someone who works strictly with earned/ organic media. But these are the byproducts of the times we are living in, and PR professionals are striving (and working their asses off) to find ways to navigate the ever-changing news cycle and rules of the game to help our clients stay on top of the pile of a very oversaturated industry. This isn’t about being the best, there are plenty of amazing chefs out there doing incredible things, this is about the top competition at the end of the day, and the power of PR is having people on your side who know how to set you apart from the herd. So before you gravely discount us in a blanket write-up, maybe ask yourself “Do restaurants need food critics?” because personally, I rather just eat there and find out for myself.
Like I said, I will respond to every point if you're willing to share your true identity because I think that's the only fair way to exchange here. However, I will respond to a couple points now. I will say if everything you say is true, then I am not talking about you and you do bring high value which falls under the paragraph about how there are some good PR professionals. But I'm telling you, you're the exception, not the rule. And I'm not saying this to be stubborn. I'm saying I get at least 20 emails a day from PR professionals or more daily and 99.9% of them are of the limited value I describe. In 20 years as a writer, I have gotten less than 20 high value well thought out pitches and this is when I was writing for national magazines too.
Also, if a writer or journalist can't do the leg work of taking their own photos etc, they aren't worth the time either. They're not doing their job.
Also if a writer or their publication won't pay for the meal, then they aren't doing their job.
I do think it's interesting though that you say, we don't need food critics but in the same response you say I need the writers to come so I give them free meals so they will cover my clients. Which means you do need them or you don't need them?
I'll respond to this if you use your real name. Otherwise it has no credibility in my mind, especially since as I acknowledge there are some good PR professionals and therefore thids isn't a blanket statement. I will say I agree with you, no one needs food critics at all.
But what do you do if you don’t mix your own floor tile dyes or break shards of stuff and paint chocolate directly onto the diner’s table? What if you just want to open a restaurant that cooks the best food? Is there just no room for that anymore?
Totally room. If you cook great food this applies. The only reason I specifically mention Warlord is that the questions are answered in this context. If you're that good with the food, people will notice.
I certainly hope you’re right! I think there’s a bit of randomness to it all anyway, with or without paying PR and influencers. Sometimes great places make it, and sometimes they don’t.
No doubt, the world in general sometimes is random. Though I believe great place well run and well differentiated has a much better chance of making it. People like you pick up on the good and spread the word. The bigger problem i think is low barrier to entry, so if you're a great chef, you might not have the business savvy and so you just have a tough time being profitable. I think in those cases often one of the poor decisions is spending thousands of dollars on low value stuff like free stuff for influencers or below average PR going through the motions. There are some PR people who bring value and there are some influencers who bring value, but also those people know it and charge accordingly. A lot of small scale restaurants can't afford that value. Or if they can, they should consider paying that high value deliverer instead of a bunch of people with tens of thousands of followers a high percentage of who were generated by bots and algorithms. The algo people might even like your stuff, but often they're disengaged and mostly just a free follower who isn't going to heed much of the influence anyway.
i have to send you a screen shot of my last "Creator" interaction
Yaaasss!🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
Truth bombs all over the place lol. 👏👏👏