Restaurant Rewind

The Beatles were still newcomers to the music scene when Scoma’s served up its first bowl of cioppino on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. The Fab Four would disband in less than a decade, but the restaurant remains a star of the local restaurant scene at age 59, the payoff from navigating the latest currents in dining while remaining true to the operating philosophy and standards set by founder Al Scoma in 1965. By design, the experience of today’s customers is not radically different from what Al sought to deliver decades ago to their grandparents and great-grandparents.

It's a common goal of landmark dining establishments, but not an easy one to attain, given how widely generations’ preferences can diverge over time. On this week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind, Scoma’s President Mariann Costello shares how her charge has handled that challenge of balancing the new with the revered, and what has kept Scoma’s successful for six decades.

She also shares her thoughts on how the San Francisco market has changed in the 40 years she’s been affiliated with the restaurant (and, no, she’s not the longest-serving member of the team, as she’s quick to point out).

Press “Play” for a download of how a restaurant with sales exceeding $11 million a year has sustained its success through wars, recessions, a pandemic and the loss of a fishing boat.

With summer just a few heatwaves away, the restaurant business is within a Maraschino cherry toss of prime ice cream season. Is there any better time to retrace how a treat that began as honeyed snow has morphed into an all-American restaurant staple?

This week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind is betting “no.” The installment looks back at the origins of the frozen treat and its twisty evolution over the centuries that followed. In what other account might Nero, Thomas Jefferson and Howard Johnson all play memorable roles?  

So scoop yourself a bowl of rum raisin, bury it in whipped cream and press Play.

Even the name suggests a climb out of a rut: TGI Friday’s, as in it’s time to cut loose and have some wicked fun. The casual-dining trailblazer didn’t disappoint, aiming from Day One to offer a different sort of experience to children of the conformity-conscious '50s.

If you’ve been in the chain restaurant business for an appreciable stretch, chances are you’ve either attended or heard about the Restaurant Leadership Conference.

It’s the top-to-top event where you might see Magic Johnson jump off the stage to give someone a hug, two chain builders lay the groundwork for a merger (Cava and Zoes Kitchen, 2018) or a big-name CEO careening around a Go Kart track. Be mindful of who may be behind you in the coffee line, because it could be a best-selling author checking out the tech demonstrations in the tradeshow area.

Yet even longtime attendees are likely unaware of how the conference, now hosted by Restaurant Business parent Informa, came to be. In those roots are the reasons why the RLC continues to reign as an event where you’re likely to be surprised by what happens on the stage and the number of industry all-stars you’ll meet.

This week’s edition of our Restaurant Rewind retro-focused podcast revisits how the conference got started, why it zigged when other conferences zagged, and some of the brush-with-greatness presenters who left attendees a-buzz.

Check it out, whether you are there or want to be.

Popeyes is emerging as a tough bird to beat in the quick-service fried-chicken market, a distinction that would have delighted its late founder, the flamboyant and pugnacious nonconformist Al Copeland.

Had Copeland done nothing more than create Popeyes, he’d deserve a prime spot in a restaurant industry hall of fame. But his leadership of that chain is only one of the reasons he should be remembered today.

In an industry of cowboys and rebels, he was a standout in his brashness and insistence on marching to his own beat. Industry long-timers would have a tough time naming someone who came close to his uniqueness.

Consider, for instance, that he once not only ran Popeyes but its next closest rival, the chain now known as Church’s Texas Chicken. He fought openly with the author Anne Rice and other neighbors, never yielding an inch. And then there were his ghost stories.

But that’s just a sampling of what made Copeland so unusual. Press play on this week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind to learn more about his exploits in and outside of the restaurant business.

It’s probably a myth that tax-code writers refine their knack for inscrutability by taking a whack at state and local liquor regulations. The complexity and illogic of the rules governing alcohol sales are enough to make a restaurateur long for a seat on the other side of the bar, knocking back Jell-O shots with fellow scofflaws.

In New York and other areas, theirs would be an outlaw’s life, the result of gelatin made with vodka being prohibited for sale or giveaway by restaurants and bars. Yes, you read that correctly. You can buy a hefty blunt from a streetside establishment, but a wiggly 1-inch cube of spiked Island Pineapple Jell-O is pure contraband, even in a place as wild as New York City.

Join us for this week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind as we look at why so many regulations governing the sale of alcoholic beverages seem stuck in the age when revelers would hit their local dram shop for a flagon of mead.

We won’t say a word if you should happen to listen with a cube of cherry-red gelatin at your elbow.

America loves its pranks, as fast-food chains learned years ago in turning April Fool’s Day into a major marketing opportunity. Consumers have brought considerable gullibility to the day, while big brands like Taco Bell, Burger King and McDonald’s have gone to extreme lengths to hoodwink the public, with remarkable success.

The combination has turned several of the put-ons into major news stories because the deceptions were so successful, as stupid as they might appear in hindsight. In a surprising number of those instances, perpetrators had to ‘fess up afterward that they were pulling off a joke and not actually adding burgers for lefthanders or edible fashion accessories.

This week’s edition of Restaurant Rewind looks back at some of the outstanding con jobs and what they wrought. Join us as pranksters rev up their tricks for this year’s April Fool’s Day, which falls on Monday. No foolin’.

After Wendy’s charge and retreat on dynamic pricing, the restaurant business can’t seem to talk about anything else. Perhaps that’s because variable pricing is as much a part of the business as knives and forks.

Indeed, you may not be aware of the various forms dynamic pricing has taken over the years. In this week’s edition of Restaurant Rewind, we take a look at some of the forgotten manifestations, including ones from big-name operators like McDonald’s.

Join us as we look at early instances of dynamic pricing and how it’s waxed and waned.

True crime stories have become a major entertainment genre, delivered in big numbers by podcasts, streaming TV shows and even several whole networks. It’s about time Restaurant Rewind, Restaurant Business’ retro-focused podcast, made its contribution to the field.

In this week’s episode, we look back at the small role a restaurant played in the assumed murder of Jimmy Hoffa, the labor leader and known organized-crime associate who disappeared without a trace in 1975. Even today, tips periodically surface about what happened to the Michigander, only to lead nowhere.

One of the few things known for sure is where Hoffa intended to dine on the day he disappeared. There’s no dispute that he was scheduled to lunch with two known gangsters at what was then one of the country’s most famous fine-dining restaurants, Machus’ Red Fox in Bloomfield, Mich.

He never made it past the parking lot, where his car was later found abandoned. But that was enough to indelibly connect the restaurant and its proprietor, an upstanding industry luminary named Harris Machus, to one of the most infamous disappearances in American history.

There was never any suggestion that Machus or his establishment had anything to do with what was later adjudged to be a murder. But a restaurant formerly noted for the caliber of its service and food became a popular destination for another reason overnight. Interest in true crime stories was popular even then, nearly 50 years ago.

The irony is that Machus was as solid of a citizen as you could hope to find, having served with honor in World War II, and forever shaping the modern U.S. restaurant business as it emerged in the 1950s and '60s. He even served as president of the National Restaurant Association, where he was a director for a solid decade.

Little is remembered about Machus today other than the connection to Hoffa. But there was so much more to the man, as this week’s podcast episode attests.

 But listen for yourself. Hit Play to learn about an often-overlooked pioneer of the business.

If Mad Men’s Don Draper was trying to impress a prospective client, he may have taken the target to New York City’s cathedral of French cooking, La Pavillon—the 1960s landmark, not the modern reincarnation opened by Daniel Boulud.

There, he would have sampled the fare of a young French chef who’d leave more of an imprint on the American dining scene than mere memories of outstanding meals. By that time, Jacques Pepin was already a culinary star on both sides of the Atlantic, having served as personal chef to France’s Charles De Gaulle before leading the kitchen team at La Pavillon. In modern parlance, we’d have called him a celebrity chef, if not a rock star.

So how did he build on that fame? To the astonishment of many, Pepin took what was essentially the job of corporate chef for the Howard Johnson’s restaurant chain, a mass-market phenom known for its orange roofs, fried clams and ice cream.

It was one of the many curious twists to a culinary career that’s now in its 74th year. At age 88, Pepin is still making appearances in the fine-dining world. Yet many of the young chefs who’ve been unknowingly influenced by the kitchen master may not recognize his name, even though it’s graced some 30 cookbooks and 17 cooking shows. 

This week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind shows why Pepin should not be overlooked by any student of the restaurant business. On the occasion of a tribute to Pepin by one of the educational institutions he helped to found, the podcast delves into the chef’s career and his lasting influence on the business.

Give a listen to learn how a one-time R&D chef for Howard Johnson’s brought fine dining to the masses.