Chus On Chow

Just recently I was relaxing and watching the boob tube, when I saw the new Domino’s Pizza ad.  At first I wasn’t sure what was going on.  As I recall, a fellow standing in a professional kitchen (possibly the CEO) was saying that customers had told the Domino’s management that their pizza wasn’t good.  The language he quoted was pretty blunt.  Wow.  He went on to say that they had taken this to heart and changed their recipes (and possibly the ingredients?).  Finally, he asked the viewer to please come in and try the new pizza.  It was hard to believe that this was an ad, with simple candor.  What a concept – no slick sales pitch, and even more amazing, an admission of error by a corporate boss.  Unbelievable!  And refreshing.  Finally somebody who gets it.  Now that I think about it, I wonder if it’s cheaper to make this type of ad than some dazzling, slick, completely phony production.

In the Internet age, with everyone blogging and commenting everywhere, and with news organizations publishing online countless times per day, it’s very hard for a huge business to hide.  If your stuff sucks, people will find out very quickly, whether or not you admit it.  As such, corporate heads can no longer count on preventing negative press from being seen, which they were able to do when distribution of news and information was very tightly controlled.  But it’s still the rare CEO who seems to grasp this.  I suppose that if upper management has been there a long time, and no longer is in touch with rapid changes that make up our modern reality, then you’ll still see the tired, outmoded ad techniques trickling down from their remote ivory tower.  Fortunately, this seems to be changing.

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Lonnie and I were very disappointed to find that the Melt Shop suddenly closed. Jennifer was extremely friendly, we enjoyed the food, and best of all, we could walk there. Even the decor was original and fun. It wasn’t entirely clear to us why they closed. I think it may have had something to do with the rent being increased, and if that’s true, I suspect that their profit margin may have been too tight to afford it.

Already, another sandwich shop has moved into that spot.  (At least I think that’s what it is – it has looked mostly empty each time I’ve gone by)  That location is like a revolving door, I’m afraid – many small restaurants right in a row. You have to wonder why they have the notion that they will succeed where so many others have failed, something I’ve written about elsewhere. For instance, no matter how many pizza joints there are all over, and how many have failed, we’ll always see more – it’s a nearly scientific fact.  Apart from most people’s unwillingness to do any market research at all, I imagine that having kitchen equipment there is the deciding factor. Maybe the landlord has no choice but to try to find other aspiring sandwich shop owners – other businesses may find the location to be a bad fit.

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Recently we were on vacation in the Thousand Islands region in northern New York state.  The weather was great, and our base was in Clayton, NY.  One sunny day we went on a jaunt to look at antiques and neighboring towns.  As we drove along, the car seemed to be buffeted by the wind, which was high that day.  But as drove further, it seemed to get worse, and much as we hated to admit it, the car started to hesitate, indicating that the wind wasn’t the problem at all.

We were between towns, not at all in the middle of somewhere, and we began to make agitated calls to information to see if there were any repair shops anywhere near us.  We managed to get a couple numbers from the operator.  Of course, when dialing information, accuracy suffers somewhat, and though we did scare up some actual people that answered, a look at our map revealed that they weren’t particularly close to us at all.

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Sometime ago alert reader Adrienne asked why our restaurant listings, while neatly categorized and showing contact information, didn’t seem to have much content.

I’ve finally gone through the restaurant listings and added some thoughts on almost all of the ones that were similarly spare.  They are fairly brief, and not fully fleshed-out reviews by any means, but I tried to make them so that they would give some meaningful impressions of each place, enough to encourage you to visit, and at least provide a basis for discussion.

See you at the restaurant!  Your hungry buddy, Dave

Many people have already discovered that OIP pizza is very good.  But their wings are exceptional.  We enjoy regular Buffalo wings, but they’re everywhere now.  OIP’s char-grilled wings are a very nice alternative, and they are what we prefer nowadays.   Getting twelve for dinner has become a frequent meal for us, and it’s right over in Eastwood Plaza, so we can easily walk over, a big selling point for us.  At this time, it’s our favorite “walk-to” Eastwood meal.  If we’re especially hungry, we’ll supplement it with pizza slices.

The staff is quite friendly.  The lighting is somewhat lurid fluorescence, so it’s definitely not a dating spot.  For the sports freaks out there, they have a huge TV.  For us, the lighting and TV aren’t our preferred decor, but the dining room is still nice enough that we like eating there.

Don’t just take it from us.  My brother is from Buffalo and lives about a mile from the famous Anchor Bar, home of Buffalo wings.  After having the OIP wings, he said, “I like these better”.

There are several OIP’s in central NY, and I’ve heard vague rumors that they differ in quality.  This can happen with any chain.  While we think the Eastwood one is great, I’d be curious to hear more about this.