Latest News

Mr. Nice Guy

Category: Latest

Published Date

Over the course of Roadside's 17-year history, I've received amazingly little negative feedback for my efforts. In fact, during the first decade that produced thirty issues, I don't think we received a single correspondence I could call "hate mail." If I did, I would have published it immediately. Lately, however, people seem to be making up for lost time, mainly taking me to task for violating Roadside's original editorial policy that "if we can't say something nice, we'll say nothing." I suspect the sentiment has more to do with the general dysfunctional state of the diner preservation community than any honest assessment by the readers. That said, it gives me an opportunity to clarify an important underpinning of the Roadside philosophy. First, a little perspective. When I initially published that credo in 1990, I knew bupkiss about this industry. I thought diners were cool and I pestered all my friends to eat in one, but the realities of the business were mostly lost on me. At the time I started Roadside, my main credential was my ability to use a Macintosh. Want to hear something funny?