effective bribing at nice restaurants

Grok Headline matches for effective bribing at nice restaurants

Why do restaurants have menus?

Why do restaurants have menus? 06/06/2004 09:39 AM

Just back from seeing the movie "Super-size Me" and it occurred to me that, in an age of limitedless wealth, cheap food, and universal private automobiles, nutrition is best not left to amateurs (i.e., us).  Consider the process of going to a restaurant.  You, a completely ignorant and probably somewhat fat person, walk in and they hand you a long menu of potential dishes.  For each dish the menu lists a tiny fraction of the ingredients but does not fully disclose sauces or overall calories.  Even if the content of each item were fully disclosed it wouldn't do most of us much good because most of us don't know how many calories are appropriate.  Finally there is the problem that everyone gets the same quantity of food.  If you're a 5'-tall woman and order "Chicken surprise" you get the same quantity of food as a 6'-tall man who orders the same dish.

Here's an idea for a restaurant...  You walk in and give them the following information:  (1) height, (2) weight, and (3) whether or not you have exercised today.  They come back to you with a few choices, e.g., "fish, chicken, steak, or vegetarian?"  You choose one of those and finally an appropriately-sized quantity of food shows up on your table.  This is, I think, how the $1000/day fat farms operate.  But in an age of computerization it doesn't seem as though it would cost a standard restaurant anything more to operate this way.

Thoughts?

[P.S.I went through a 3-month period in which I ate almost every meal at McDonalds.  This was in 1993 while driving to Alaska and back (see Travels with Samantha).  I was a graduate student and the 59-cent hamburgers, 99-cent chicken fajitas, and drive-thrus were hard to resist.  I was about 30 years old and a tiny bit pudgy when I started the trip.  I probably lost at least 5 lbs. during that period.  I didn't order fries or regular (sugar) Coke and I was riding my bike every few days.]

Krystal Restaurants Get Wi-Fi

Krystal Restaurants Get Wi-Fi 06/01/2004 03:25 PM
Free Wi-Fi in about 10 percent of Krystal's restaurants by the end of June: This is a regional chain with 425 locations; 50 will have Wi-Fi this month, available for free. They'll filter content to avoid objectionable images showing up in a family environment -- just as Schlotzsky's does with their service -- but it's otherwise wide open. The restaurants are located throughout the south. Early locations include Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, and one in Texas. [link via Jim Sullivan]...

Five restaurants in Paris

Five restaurants in Paris 01/22/2004 02:19 PM

The NY Times had an article the other day about Comfort Food at Comforting Prices in Paris. While all five spots sound delicious, I'm especially tempted by Le Petit Pontoise if only because it's located on rue de Pontoise, the location of my mother's first apartment, rented for her 1996 sabbatical.

[O]n a recent visit, there was a wood crate filled with freshly gathered girolle mushrooms. It's the season, and the mushrooms were too tempting not to order. Quickly sautéed so that they remained juicy and slightly chewy, they were perfectly accented with garlic and parsley.

I'm really longing for a trip to Paris, it's been just long enough (seven months) that I'm missing it very much, especially since my favorite mittens from La Samaritaine got a hole in the thumb! I mean, I could replace my mittens here in NYC, but somehow French mittens seem superior, certainly these ones are, except for their hole.

Some Wis. Restaurants Rationing Napkins
(AP)

Some Wis. Restaurants Rationing Napkins
(AP) 05/17/2004 01:35 PM
AP - Fierce competition for fast-food dollars has some restaurants taking an extraordinary measure to cut the bottom line — napkin rationing.

McDonald's Restaurants Down Under Unwire

McDonald's Restaurants Down Under Unwire 02/19/2004 12:43 PM
Telstra said last year that it would build hotspots in McDonald's restaurants and now Wi-Fi is available in 44 restaurants in Australia: Telstra plans to build hotspots in as many as 500 McDonald's over the next 12 to 18 months. McDonald's has been really aggressive in building out Wi-Fi globally, but has yet to make a decision on a single provider in the United States as the company indicated it would....

Sushi restaurants as economic indicators

Sushi restaurants as economic indicators 04/23/2004 10:43 AM
Tyler Cowen, economist and co-proprietor of the excellent Marginal Revolution, recently gave a talk to the International Association of Culinary Professionals and offered some food-related investment advice: If sushi restaurants are new to a country, and are succeeding, buy shares in the stocks of that country. Raw fish, of course, can be toxic. Quality can be hard to monitor with the naked eye. Sushi consumption is a sign that people...

Restaurants Closed for Opium Soup, Stews
(AP)

Restaurants Closed for Opium Soup, Stews
(AP) 06/17/2004 10:37 PM
AP - The soup wasn't just good. It was downright addictive. Narcotics police in southwestern China shuttered 215 restaurants found to be mixing opium poppy into their soups and hot pot stews, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

Home Is Where The WiFi Is (And In Some
Fast Food Restaurants)

Home Is Where The WiFi Is (And In Some
Fast Food Restaurants) 01/07/2004 06:35 PM
A new study shows that more and more homes are likely to get WiFi connections. This seems like one of the more obvious predictions around, but it's still interesting to look at the numbers. The study points out that there are currently about 100 million broadband connections to the home worldwide - and only 5 million home users have WiFi. However, with the technology getting cheaper every day, and the clear benefit of having a wireless network in the home, it's likely to grow pretty rapidly (and, of course, that 100 million number isn't static either). This leads to two thoughts: (1) we still need to make setting up a WiFi network easier. Early adopters will mess around with finicky access points, but most users won't. It really needs to be plug and play. (2) Once more homes get WiFi, expect the unexpected in how they're used. Just like businesses are discovering - once that wireless network is there, there's no reason not to use it for other purposes as well. More devices are going to come with WiFi, and if they can just hop on an existing network, people are going to come up with all sorts of creative uses. Meanwhile, McDonald's continues their "we'll test a different location every few months" rollout of WiFi, as they've agreed to WiFi up over 500 restaurants in the UK. It looks like they're just teaming up with BT to be a part of BT's Openzone WiFi offering. That doesn't seem like the best choice, since already there are (reasonable) complaints that Openzone's pricing is way too high for what people get. In early tests in the US McDonald's was using a very smart pricing plan (buy a meal, get an hour of free service). It's unclear why they're not going with a similar plan in the UK. By offering up service with a meal, the internet access becomes a promotion to get more people into the restaurant. By charging insanely high fees for it, it doesn't bring in too many extra people, and certainly won't bring in much money.

Los Angeles bars & restaurants of the
40's & 50's

Los Angeles bars & restaurants of the
40's & 50's 04/15/2005 03:11 PM
Los Angeles bars & restaurants of the 40's & 50's

latimemachines.com/index.html
track this site | 3 links

"experiences tipping maître d's to get
into insanely popular restaurants"

"experiences tipping maître d's to get
into insanely popular restaurants" 04/09/2004 09:09 PM

How's Your Digital Dinner? Restaurants
Go Hi-Tech (Reuters)

How's Your Digital Dinner? Restaurants
Go Hi-Tech (Reuters) 05/24/2004 10:47 AM
Reuters - Some of the world's biggest technology companies are setting their sights on the U.S. restaurant industry, to help them improve operations ranging from hiring wait staff to planning menus to buying appliances.

nice survey of a nice market....but can
u plz tell me of which city this survey
is?

nice survey of a nice market....but can
u plz tell me of which city this survey
is? 09/08/2004 11:26 PM
TechTree Sep 9 2004 3:48AM GMT

Client uses wacky dummy text for real
website: "We are truly the finest of all
possible restaurants."

Client uses wacky dummy text for real
website: "We are truly the finest of all
possible restaurants." 04/11/2005 05:12 PM
Mark Frauenfelder: A Boing Boing reader read my earlier entry about text greeking and sent me a hilarious anecdote. He designed a website for a restaurant called Windows On the Bay. The client had not yet given him the copy for the site, so he filled the page with what he describes as "incredibly overblown, remarkably pretentious text."

He says the client ended up using the copy!

Windows on the Bay is the finest restaurant on the Jersey Shore. We are the alpha and the omega in seashore dining and freshly prepared gourmet seafood. No other restaurant in New Jersey looks out over such a commanding view. We are truly the finest of all possible restaurants.

Our chefs have all been trained at the finest schools in the world, and they put every ounce of that training to work for you. We create each made-to-order dish fresh and put every ounce of our considerable skill and knowledge to work to make you the best meal possible.

Our highly-trained wait staff are here to serve your every need. They are ready to bend their skills and energy to every table, every serving; you will be waited on as you have never been waited on before.

We are sure you will come back for more. Once you've come to Windows on the Bay, you will never want to leave.

Link

Community Service Site Paves Information
Highway to Myrtle Beach Restaurants

Community Service Site Paves Information
Highway to Myrtle Beach Restaurants 01/02/2005 04:48 AM
Non-profit, community service Myrtle Beach website benefits web surfers and local restaurants [PRWEB Jan 2, 2005]

JobFlash Serves Restaurants Great Hires,
Fast. Round Table Pizza and others Slice
Costs and Turnover

JobFlash Serves Restaurants Great Hires,
Fast. Round Table Pizza and others Slice
Costs and Turnover 03/17/2005 03:02 AM
JobFlash, the award winning pioneer of Voice Recruiting, today announced the successful deployment of their recruiting automation solution at popular restaurants such as Round Table Pizza and Mimi’s Café, bringing immediate relief to high turnover and time-to-hire costs. [PRWEB Mar 17, 2005]

"Museums, restaurants, bars,
theatres and galleries across Italy have
signed up to entertain the striking
viewers."

"Museums, restaurants, bars,
theatres and galleries across Italy have
signed up to entertain the striking
viewers." 12/13/2003 07:06 AM
Some folks in Italy are turning off and tuning out this weekend .. Italian TV strike .. beautiful

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3313187.stm
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Effective XML

Effective XML 12/02/2003 01:27 AM

Transhumanism and effective use of the
Web

Transhumanism and effective use of the
Web 03/14/2005 06:29 PM
More than Human - Ramez Naam's site promoting his new book (about emerging technologies for engineering human biology, more or less), has excerpts, a list of upcoming appearances, and even a full-fledged blog linking to articles and commentary that might be of interest to people curious about the book's transhumanist ideas. Now this is the way to do it.

Define "effective"

Define "effective" 05/07/2004 02:45 PM

CAN-SPAM not seen to be effective

CAN-SPAM not seen to be effective 12/27/2004 10:43 AM
A year after the U.S. Congress passed the first federal antispam law, observers see no evidence that it has cut the amount of unwanted commercial e-mail arriving in U.S. residents' inboxes

Effective C++, Third Edition

Effective C++, Third Edition 06/17/2005 03:47 PM

Effective e-gov: think customers

Effective e-gov: think customers 06/14/2004 11:05 PM
Computer Weekly Jun 15 2004 1:18AM GMT

Effective Email Communication

Effective Email Communication 07/21/2004 09:41 PM
WebDevInfo Jul 22 2004 0:11AM GMT

Effective Finance Management

Effective Finance Management 12/15/2003 08:12 AM
marcus evans Dec 15 2003 7:09AM ET

Using XHTML/CSS for an Effective SEO
Campaign

Using XHTML/CSS for an Effective SEO
Campaign 01/07/2004 07:10 PM
Improve your search engine ranking by harnessing the benefits of well-authored XHTML and using CSS to boost your code-to-content ratio.

The Eight Habits of Effective Job
Searchers

The Eight Habits of Effective Job
Searchers 07/28/2004 06:22 AM
You got the offer, now what? Questions every candidate should ask before signing on.

Looksmart Australia, How Effective is
it?

Looksmart Australia, How Effective is
it? 12/07/2002 08:31 AM
Looklistings in the land down under.

Less is Moore in subdued, effective
'9/11'

Less is Moore in subdued, effective
'9/11' 05/19/2004 12:14 AM
When is Michael Moores film "Fahrenheit 9/11" coming out? .. Roger Ebert

suntimes.com/output/eb-feature/cst-ftr-cannes18.html
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How Effective Is Your Keyword Research?

How Effective Is Your Keyword Research? 08/30/2004 01:46 PM
Source: ClickZ - Keyword analysis can be performed on three levels: keyword research tools, web analytics software, and site search engines. Data-mining all three levels provides site owners with the full perspective of how target audiences find the information on...

Effective Practices Clearinghouse

Effective Practices Clearinghouse 01/22/2004 07:10 AM
ACRL's Effective Practices Clearinghouse
http://www.acrl.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/effectiveprac/ef fectivepractices.htm

ACRL is frequently looked to and contacted for descriptions of effective practices in the academic library profession. The goal of the Effective Practices Clearinghouse is to recognize effective practices in academic libraries in areas such as programs, services, facilities, technology, and initiatives and share them so they are accessible to academic librarians and the entire education community. If your library has an effective practice to share, ACRL encourages you to complete and submit an Effective Practices Form. Your practice will be peer reviewed and considered for this site. The Effective Practices Clearinghouse is a work in progress.

Cost-effective Divorces

Cost-effective Divorces 07/02/2004 10:00 AM
Divorces often cost thousands of dollars -- but they don't have to.

Dreaded Spam Still Effective

Dreaded Spam Still Effective 06/29/2004 09:48 PM
CBS News Jun 30 2004 1:35AM GMT

Planning an effective DR strategy

Planning an effective DR strategy 04/02/2005 08:32 PM
Express Computer India Apr 3 2005 12:15AM GMT

Effective PR for open source projects

Effective PR for open source projects 04/22/2004 10:47 AM
This Saturday we're holding an IRC discussion with OSDN editor in chief Robin 'Roblimo' Miller about how to get the media spotlight to shine on your project. Robin recently wrote a NewsForge article article headlined Getting good PR for your open source project, and he's the author of The Online Rules of Successful Companies, so he's as strong an expert in this area as you're likely to find. The (moderated) chat will be at 2000 UTC (4 p.m. EDT, 1 p.m. PDT) on IRC server events.oftc.net, #promo, Saturday, April 24, 2004.

SEC declares Google IPO document
effective

SEC declares Google IPO document
effective 08/18/2004 04:57 PM
Reuters Aug 18 2004 8:14PM GMT

phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL
Management

phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL
Management 12/19/2004 03:24 PM
"As a mission statement, the introduction of a book written for tutorial purposes forms the foundation for judging the success or failure of the subsequent pages. Marc Delisle has written Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management as a tightly focused tutorial that is as successful at guiding its readers along its stated path as it is at avoiding the common pratfall of straying off target." Story

I Don't Think You Get My Point: The 5
Hurdles to Effective Communication

I Don't Think You Get My Point: The 5
Hurdles to Effective Communication 06/22/2005 02:38 AM

"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred." -- George Bernard Shaw If Shaw is right, what can we do about it? We spend over half of our working life, and a considerable portion of all our waking hours, engaged in some form or another of communication, yet for all our practice most of us seem to be very poor at it. The problem, I think, is that it's hard to learn from your mistakes when you don't know you're making them. I've often watched and listened to someone try valiantly to make some critical point about which they are both passionate and informed, and then when I talk with their audience immediately afterwards I've discovered that almost no one got it. I've been equally astonished at some of the comments and e-mails my weblog articles have provoked that indicate the reader has not understood in the least the point I was trying to make. But I'm less stressed and self-critical about that than I used to be, because I've learned that the miscommunication often wasn't my (or anyone's) fault. I've come to appreciate that there are five major hurdles to effective communication, and you have to vault them all or your communication will fail. Here they are: Your point must be explainable using language. This might seem obvious, but most of our important life learnings are not taught through language. We learn for the most part by doing (and by making mistakes), not by listening to someone tell us something. Try to explain to someone (or write a manual to explain) how to ride a bicycle. Try to describe the difference in taste (or smell!) between a Merlot and a Shiraz. Much of our knowledge is instinctive, and much of what we learn is subconscious or unconscious. The comprehension 'bandwidth' of oral and written language is surprisingly narrow, and language is much better at conveying some things than others. Language itself is an artificial construct, a feeble model to try to depict reality abstractly. What's worse, we may have a shared vocabulary of no more than a few hundred words with our audience, and their subjective connotationof many of these shared words may be completely different from ours. I once listened to two people on a train argue vociferously for an hour over what strategy their organization should pursue, only to discover that they had a completely different idea of what the word 'strategy' meant.  Why should we be so surprised at language's limitations? There are a variety of devices that can be used to push the idea you want to communicate across the line from incomprehensible to comprehensible -- most notably metaphors, analogies, stories and conversations (iterative communications) -- but we would be best to realize that there are many explanations and teachings that language is just not equipped to do. When we love to teach, it is hard to acknowledge how much cannot be taught with language. Maslow said "When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." (That's a metaphor: did it help you understand this hurdle?)If your point is not explainable using language, take your audience out of the lecture hall and into the laboratory and show them instead. You must be able to articulate your point clearly and persuasively. If you've vaulted the first hurdle, this next one is just as tough. There are two parts to it -- clarity (rational appreciation) and persuasiveness (emotional appreciation). Although debates are supposedly models of persuasiveness, their focus is really on clarity. Clarity is tough enough to do, which is why the aforementioned techniques like stories and conversations and metaphors are so vital. Persuasiveness is a much subtler achievement, one that requires both personal conviction and an understanding of and empathy for the audience. I don't know whether this is a lost art, or if we have just given up trying. I see a lot of sermonizing (in churches, on talk radio and in the editorial pages) but no real persuasion -- sermonizers preach only to the choir, and change no one's mind. They only reassure. True persuasion takes an appreciation of why the audience doesn't agree with you now. It involves tact, diplomacy, consensus-seeking, compromise, and creative thinking. Such skills tax our patience and attention span. It is usually easier to use power and deceit than persuasion to get what you want. So it's not surprising that those who want to change people's minds are more preoccupied with getting power and perpetrating myths than with appreciating other perspectives and thinking through how to win people over in a non-coercive and non-manipulative way. The only way over these hurdles is through a ton of research (face to face as well as online), openness, attention skills, empathy and an enormous amount of practice. Your audience must be ready to listen. If your audience is ignorant of the lessons of history, or complacent about the state of the world, trying to teach them about the importance of separation of church and state, or the steps they need to take to reduce their contribution to global warming, is like trying to teach calculus to pre-schoolers. Your audience needs an appropriate intellectual and conceptual foundation, and an informed sense of what is urgent and what is important, before they will be ready to listen. Daniel Dennett says "On any important topic, we tend to have a rough idea of what we believe to be true, and when someone provides the words we want to hear, we tend to fall for it, no matter how shoddy the arguments". If your audience doesn't think they need what you're selling, they probably won't buy. Until your audience is ready for what you have to tell them, you're wasting your time, and theirs. There's only one thing you can do to overcome this hurdle -- pick (and invite) your audience carefully. Your audience must be listening. They're probably not. They're thinking about the cutie they met last night or sitting next to them, or what they have to do next, or what they'd rather be doing now than listening to you. They may be multi-tasking. they're almost certainly daydreaming. So you need to get their attention. To do that you need to distract them from all their other distractions. The best way to do that is not by impressing them with the importance or urgency or cleverness of what you have to say. It's to entertain them. The work 'entertain' means literally to hold attention. That means start, and pepper what you're saying, with interesting stories, amusing anecdotes or jokes, and facts. That means talking in an animated manner. That means relating to the audience in a personal way that keeps them engaged -- first names, eye contact, relating something about them. That means giving them something. That means paying attention to the audience, understanding why they're not listening (perhaps because their sidebar conversation is more interesting, urgent or important to them), and drawing them gently but powerfully back in. That doesn't mean criticizing them for not paying attention -- that's blaming them for your inability to keep their interest. How many of us are good at doing all this? I don't see many hands. We need to go back to school on this, and learn how to be better presenters (even if we're only 'presenting' to one person) -- not just more prepared and articulate, more entertaining as well. Your audience must be able to understand your point from their frame of reference. This is not the same as point 3. Even if they're ready to listen, they're coming to whatever you're talking about from a very different place, and their brains, like yours, is wired by history of personal experience. Lakoff says: "Frames trump facts. All of our concepts are organized into conceptual structures called frames (which may include images and metaphors) and all words are defined relative to those frames. Conventional frames are pretty much fixed in the neural structures of our brains. In order for a fact to be comprehended, it must fit the relevant frames." That means even if they're ready for your message, even if they need to hear what you have to say, you still need to say it in a way they can understand. How do you do that? Spend lots of time talking with people whose frames are very different from yours, and practice understanding their frames and explaining things in their context. And rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. All of this isn't as hard as it might sound. We have an enormous number of opportunities to practice vaulting each of these hurdles every day. Mostly, we just need to pay better attention, be more conscious of what we're doing wrong, and work on all those bad communication habits we've picked up. And these five hurdles apply as much to written communications as oral ones. As I worked through this list, I cringed at how much work I have to do at improving my own communications. So I'm guessing it must be a pretty good list.

Writing effective link text

Writing effective link text 07/23/2004 04:21 AM
Hypertext links are what connects web pages together and are at the very core of the Internet. As they're so important it's essential that your link text is effectively written and displayed - find out how.

Kerry:'I Can Fight More Effective War on
Terror'

Kerry:'I Can Fight More Effective War on
Terror' 07/27/2004 09:38 PM
Reuters via Wired News Jul 28 2004 1:43AM GMT
Grok Description matches for effective bribing at nice restaurants
GrokA matches for effective bribing at nice restaurants

effective bribing at nice restaurants

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