In October 2011, my wife returned from a Manhattan party wearing a pin that read “F.O.J.B.” This, I soon discovered, stood for “Friends of Jimmy Bradley”—the celebrated New York restaurateur who co-opened The Red Cat in 1999. Bradley used the code, and others like it, to indicate which diners deserved a priority table or some extra love.

The existence of F.O.J.B. intrigued me: Did other restaurants have similar secret systems? And, might there be an article in it? They did, and there was. I wrote a piece for The New York Times chronicling the “the secret codes used in the dining rooms and in the kitchens of some of New York’s finest establishments.”