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DaveO

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Everything posted by DaveO

  1. DaveO
    Much of their bar menu was installed by a fellow named Jo Jo Valenzuela. He is one of DC's acclaimed bartenders. You can look up Jo Jo across the web and see a lot of references. I heard he recently went over to Iron Gate, but I'm not sure about that. If he is at Iron Gate I'm sure there will be an excellent cocktail menu there also. I'm pleased to say that Jo Jo is an old graduate of our school. His skills and knowledge though are a testimony to his devotion to the craft. His cocktails are terrific and Occidental has been nice to price them reasonably in today's market. Excellent place for cocktails.
  2. DaveO
    It seems that Bethesda situation is complicated...though it looks like the equipment auction is moving ahead: Story
  3. DaveO
    Oh my. I was friendly with the guy with the Hamburger Hamlet chain that opened those restaurants, a third Hamlet in Georgetown, Portners in Olde Town and other Hamlets in Chicago and Atlanta. That goes back to the early 80's. Ralph Capobianco. He was full of energy, enthusiasm, and dynamic and seemed to be revered by many of his employees. He ultimately went on his own with investors and opened a number of places in Alexandria and elsewhere. Ralph sadly passed away a few years ago. I lived in North Bethesda for a number of years and surprisingly HH in North Bethesda might have been the best quality restaurant in that area (there just wasn't any competition)...and at least did a decent and always reliable job. Again that goes back to the 80's and early 90's. A thirty year run more or less. Sad to see it end, if only if it brings back memories of a dynamic and terrific personality
  4. DaveO
    According to Arlnow the long running Hamburger Hamlet in Crystal City could close. Evidently there are some last minute negotiations going on to try and keep the restaurant operating per the article
  5. DaveO
    It could be that lease negotiations didn't work out for the restaurant owner.
  6. DaveO
    hah. I worked in commercial real estate back in the day. During the entirety of the 80's was when RE developers were buying up swaths of land and building office buildings. My office had the best, most active land sales people in the city and we were involved in a lot of those deals around 14th street and other streets. It was called the "meeting of the well heeled and the high heeled." The well heeled "bought out" the high heeled. But where did the "high heeled go?" where are the ladies? geez. i miss em.
  7. DaveO
    Hot chocolate!! This is simply one of the richest tastiest drinks I've ever had. Well worth a visit.
  8. DaveO
    "Want The Urban Lifestyle? DC's Best Corner Is ..." by Dan Malouff on GreaterGreaterWashington.org makes a case for the best corner in Washington DC, to take advantage of as many amenities as possible, being 14th and P, NW. What do you think?
  9. DaveO
    In the last 6 months I've eaten at appleby's, chilis and ruby tuesdays; all large chains, all in the casual dining category, and all the types of restaurants that will (applebees) or could switch to tablets. In none of the cases was the food memorable. In all cases the food was adequate and met expectations. (Expectations were not very high) Each dining experience was fine. The server at appleby's was extraordinary. She connected. She was enjoyable. She had/has a great personality and would work well at any dining environment IMHO. Regardless of the training no establishment teaches personality. I've witnessed the Clyde's training program for waitstaff. Its excellent. There are other chains with similarly well developed training programs. Regardless training programs and management and oversight of waitstaffs still don't improve upon personality. That can be an innate skill or learned skill, but its a terrific skill in a dining environment. I believe that expansion of tablets will both limit jobs at front of the house and probably limit the opportunities. Its also technological progress. If it proves to improve upon the bottom line I'm sure many chains will follow.
  10. DaveO
    Chef Geoff's and the landlord made a deal....and nobody is talking about how big a payoff it is.
  11. DaveO
    Don: I believe Yelp has over 42 million reviews. That is a lot of moderating.
  12. DaveO
    "Why David Chang Wants To Buy The Redskins" by Sarah Kogood on washingtonpost.com Sounds like a good idea to me. Besides getting rid of a miserable owner it could lead to the best food in any stadium anywhere in the world!!!
  13. DaveO
    I'd think that for fast turnover places, places where its more about eating and convenience than dining this type of technology would fit in. It still looks to me like it would kill employment at the front of the house. The effect could be dramatic across the country. Being a waiter/waitress is one of the great and voluminous "first jobs" for millions of people. Its also becomes a well developed skill for countless others. It just seems to me that massive usage of this technology would cut the number of "first jobs" and more substantial jobs for a lot of people. By example Applebees and IHOP are both under the control of the same corporation. There are about 3500 of them around the world, most franchised and most in the US. How many thousands in the US...I didn't check but I bet its a majority of that 3500 and that is a lot of waitstaff. It just seems to me this would cut down on the number of jobs. Then multiply that by all the Ruby Tuesdays, and all the other similar type establishments that are somewhat similar and it seems to me it would cut out a big massive volume of jobs.
  14. DaveO
    I see the following scenario more often these days: Two people out to dinner. They don't converse. Each one stares at his/her own mobile device. Between eating food and interacting with one's own mobile not a word is spoken. And by the way they aren't speaking to somebody on the mobile. They could be texting, reading texts or whatever, or doing something else on the mobile...but they don't speak to one another. Is that everywhere? No. Is it more frequent in some types of places and not others? Probably so. I certainly find it disconcerting to see and I don't do that when out with others, and frankly if I'm with others I cut mobile phone conversations. But I see that social phenomena more and more. Maybe that occurs a lot in Applebees and similar restaurants. I don't know. But if the trend is there...the restaurants would be diverting that into their own devices as opposed to the current self owned devices that people own and use. Extensive usage of these devices would certainly cut down on the number of front of the house staff such restaurants would require. I don't see that as a good thing. On a related topic having to do with front of the house staff...... It made me think of the restaurants that use both wait staff and food servers. That is supposed to free up wait staff to "upsell" and sell better. Its stunned me at certain places where all I see are wait staff hanging out more and they never upsell or are never that knowledgeable about their menus. Clyde's is one place where the waitstaff across the board has always seemed knowledgeable, updated and helpful while their food runners deliver food. There are plenty of other places where I don't get that impression from the wait staff. I wouldn't look forward to this technological trend. On the other hand if the chains find that it cuts costs and actually enhances customer retention it may well take off.
  15. DaveO
    Applebees Installing tablets and will cut back on wait staff and bartenders. OMG. This is a significant technological change that will have severe repercussions on front of the house staffing. The tablets can take orders accept payments and have entertainment capabilities. Evidently other restaurants or chains are also making these changes.
  16. DaveO
    @Porcupine: I don't know any of the answers to any of your questions. and I hate driving in this slip sliding messy weather. I've spun out of control, hit guardrails and parked cars, etc. Not good at all. I've been fortunate that none of those spin outs caused worse damage or injury. Stay at home. Pour yourself a whiskey or a rum or whatever. Mix with hot liquids. Flavor appropriately. Play music. Fill the house with the aromas of a wonderful soup. Stay off roads. Do us all a favor.
  17. DaveO
    Interesting from the above maps that in an areas where dunkin donuts and starbucks compete such as NYC and in this area as bookluvingbabe referenced dunkin goes for the outer suburbs and less expensive locations and starbucks goes for the "glitzyier" closer in locations. Meanwhile there is a Starbucks and a Dunkin in the Courthouse area in Arlington. Ahhhh....time for a taste test and price comparison of chains with thousands of locations and billions of $$ in revenues.
  18. DaveO
    Reviews are tremendously powerful, incredibly controversial and, for a website, difficult to manage. Consider the following: 1. Faked positive reviews 2. Faked negative reviews 3. Negative reviews that try and destroy a business 4. Assessing whether reviews are honest or not (its in the eyes of the beholder). I'm sure our various businesses received purposeful attack reviews. Try as I could I was unable to completely identify the people who did this. (but I got close). I interacted with a manager for one of the larger review sites, and pointed out a group of reviews I was certain were faked and purposefully crafted on behalf of the business. The manager gave me an acceptable reason why they wouldn't take them down en masse. 5. Political forces will unleash their politics on a business and slam it with reviews such as this example in Birmingham Alabama If you go to the google reviews in that case and sort by worst or lowest rated reviews one can see the obvious political perspective. They are wonderful to read...but highly controversial.
  19. DaveO
    On a cold wet dreary Sunday which began with more depressing #snyderskin news I made my first Shepherd's pie. I do enjoy stick to your ribs comfort foods on these kinds of days and shepherd's pie hits the spot....though undoubtedly an aromatic soup would have filled the air better during still another #snyderskin debacle. Great dish for cold wet weather. I'm going to work on it over this winter. ...and it was acceptable but clearly not great with ad hoc ingredients. there's a lot of room for improvement.
  20. DaveO
    that is so funny. It just went from appetizing to unappetizing all in the flash of a single post!!! (note to self--don't add tomato sauce)
  21. DaveO
    Robeks, which had been on Clarendon Blvd in Courthouse just closed last week. Too bad. I enjoyed their fruity healthy smoothies. Shots of mega vitamins with neato flavors. Robeks was immediately adjacent to Me Jana on one side and on the other side of the building and block is Ray's the Steaks. In fact across the street is Fire Works Pizza. They are of course all busy. Rays and Me Jana are destination places; I suspect often from afar. Fire Works seems very crowded and gets a huge crowd from nearby. But alas, Robeks never seemed tremendously busy and despite the aforementioned great restaurants its a quiet street with little everyday foot traffic. But I'll miss ya, Robeks.
  22. DaveO
    Acme Pie Company Pies. OMG!!! YUM. Acme Pie Company Website and article about Acme and the chef in ArlNow This is the 2nd time I've had a slice of an Acme Pie that are now available at the Java Shack. It left me in tears of delight...and especially today on a cold, damp and dreary day. How perfect with the Autumn brew coffee today at Java Shack. Today I had the apple cranberry. Perfection. Scrumptious crust of perfect proportions and thickness against the firm slightly tart and sweet apple cranberry mixture. Dang I could have scarfed down an entire pie today. These are terrific. Acme is distributing their pies in a number of outlets and their website and the article describes how to get a hold of them.
  23. DaveO
    Ha. That brings back a powerful memory. I dated a woman in Manhattan. She was small (but so am I). Her apartment was small. I used to drive up there and parking spaces were small and terribly hard to find. The bedroom was small. Simply maneuvering around the apartment was tough. It was small. The kitchen was small. We did eat out a lot. I seem to recall all the restaurants we went to were small and the spaces between diners were tight. The lingering recollections of that long ago relationship was claustrophobia.......which is a pretty weird memory to associate with a relationship. LOL
  24. DaveO
    Yelp has made a slight change that hasn't gotten publicity. It has to do with filtered reviews. What was once called "filtered reviews" which showed at the bottom of the list of reviews is now described as "xxx (a number) of other reviews that are not recommended". When one clicks on the link to those reviews instead of a captcha the link directly takes you to those reviews. Its slightly easier for a visitor to access these reviews. From my quick scan of this with regard to some businesses and restaurants with a lot of "filtered reviews" I didn't see a difference or significant difference in the quantity of reviews that are not included in the top and whose rankings would be rated. Its a subtle change and I couldn't find publicity on it.
  25. DaveO
    Sad. He was an extraordinary modern hero for freedom.
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