Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Today's Specials:
INFOGRAPHIC: Restaurant Marketing Ideas for June
June is right around the corner. Here are some great events for restaurants to market around -- everything from the NBA Finals to Father's Day to the official start of summer.
DID YOU KNOWs…
Detecting Date Rape Drugs
A group of high school students in Florida has invented a straw with color-changing test strips inside indented to detect date rape drugs. These straws are meant to protect women from sexual assaults which remain a staggering problem in many bars.
Hippo Beer
A prematurely-born hippopotamus at the Cincinnati Zoo named Fiona has become a national celebrity. So much so that Fiona is being honored by the Cincinnati Listermann Brewing Company with her own beer called Team Fiona New England-Style IPA. Take a look at the cuteness overload.
Rules Not to Break in a Bar
There is an understood unspoken bar etiquette that all patrons must comply with. Our friends at VinePair understand all too well which is why they featured a list of 10 Rules Not to Break in a Bar. Yes, being nice to the bartender is on that list.
LOVE A JOURNALIST DAY
Why it matters to you: Pizza restaurant offers free pizza to journalists after Gianforte assault.
Recall last week, Montana GOP candidate Greg Gianforte allegedly body-slammed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs after a routine questioning on the GOP healthcare bill. Since the incident, multiple other journalists have been attacked for simply doing their job asking questions. With all of the challenges that journalists have faced in the past few months, a Washington D.C. pizza restaurant announced last Thursday as “Love a Journalist Day” at their establishment. Pi Pizza in DC offered free pizza to any journalist with a legitimate press credential as a way to recognize the difficulties of their work. In Montana, many votes were cast before the altercation and Gainforte officially won the election, however, has been charged with a misdemeanor assault.
“In light of the physical and figurative assaults on our journalists and real news, we at Pi want to thank the hardworking reporters, producers, editors, photographers, videographers and all those who deliver us critical and round-the-clock news,” the St. Louis pizzeria said in a tweet. Restaurants have long stood behind certain causes that they felt aligned with their values and Pi Pizza is no different. Publicly speaking out in defense of the press is a noteworthy gesture considering the difficulties they have faced recently especially in politics. At the end of the day, everyone is just trying to do their job which is why Pi Pizza is recognizing and celebrating their work.
LIFE AS A HEALTH INSPECTOR
Why it matters to you: here’s what it’s like to be a health inspector.
Every restaurant owner has experienced the stress of a visit from the health inspector. Some restaurants may be more worried than others about cleanliness based on a Munchies article profiling the horrors working as a restaurant health inspector. Some of the obstacles that many health inspectors face on a daily basis include being threatened, bribed, all the way to being verbally abused for providing an honest inspection. One horror story explained includes an inspector getting locked in a cooler room by an angry restaurant owner during their inspection. Other amusing anecdotes include what he looks for based on hygiene, raw food, and temperature violations versus how to handle the problem.
Apart from dead mice, some of the worst things he has seen as a health inspector include an ice machine lined with black mold up and down the sides. Many of the situations faced by a health inspector can be potentially dangerous if not handled correctly. Therefore, health inspectors must endure quite a bit of training on how to react properly to problems with mold and bacteria. Sometimes when restaurants get busy some things tend to slip through the cracks. Frequently restaurants understand that health inspections are a part of the game and prepare accordingly for routine inspections.
