RoadsideOnline

Help Wanted!

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:00:35 GMT

We have all seen the roadside signs in front of a nice looking restaurant or diner that say, GOOD EATS, HELP WANTED. That may not inspire many of us to stop in for a meal but you have to understand, some restaurant owners really can't help it sometimes. We are that desperate for help. But getting that help we need and then keeping it is a key to every diner's success. After all, we are only as good as the people we hire. The bigger the staff, the greater the challenges. The less people that we employ the more difference a single employee or hiring becomes. A restaurant with thirty employees can usually get by when a few fail to carry their weight. On the other hand, with only a half dozen employees, a restaurant's success depends...

Of Juicy Burgers and Slamming Doors

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:00:15 GMT

by Dirk Burhans Neighborhood shops. My childhood home town of the 1960s in southeastern Ohio had a half-dozen that I recall. As far as I know, they're all gone now. Mostly, they sold candy, soda pop, and sandwiches. Some had unfinished oak floors, the woodgrain raised smooth and wavy from decades of buffing by customer's shoes. Others had floors of black & white checked linoleum. The ones that I recall invariably had screen doors that announced entry with a jingly little metal bell... after which they...

Patti Vs. the Highway

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:50 GMT

by Doug & Polly Smith. Photos by Bill Seifert LAWRENCEVILLE, PA. -- Like a concrete blob, the I-99 monster is oozing toward Patti T's alongside US Route 15 in Lawrenceville, PA. Will it squeeze the life out of this splendid little eatery into which Patti Tillinghast has poured a decade of her life? Her employees think not. "We'll do just fine, most of our customers are local," a waitress says while handing over a heaping helping of Patti's signature...

Celebrate Sustainability at EcoFair

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:44:06 GMT

Downingtown, Pennsylvania � The green movement celebrates a sustainable future at this town's first EcoFair. The free festival will run from 10 A.M. to 7 P.M. at Downingtown's Kerry Park at Pennsylvania and Wallace Avenues on September 28. Almost 200 million Americans bought green products in 2007 and the number continues to skyrocket. Additionally, educating consumers on green alternatives to eco-friendly products drives business and positively impacts our environment. EcoFair is a free to the public, inclusive, community-based event promoting renewable energy, sustainability issues, and green living. EcoFair features 7 key attractions: live local music, local green friendly vendors, a �buy fresh buy local� farmers market (free to...

Gaming the City

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:00:52 GMT

The City of Philadelphia recently elected a new mayor, Michael Nutter, who almost immediately after his inauguration announced his intention bring true design standards back to the city's development process. With an understanding and appreciation for the nature of the urban fabric Roadside hasn't seen since John Norquist ran Milwaukee, Mayor Nutter vowed to apply these concepts first to the city's long-suffering waterfront upon with developers want to build two major casino complexes. While we can't disparage gambling casinos enough, especially those within struggling rust-belt cities, Nutter hopes to minimize their detrimental impact by either shoe-horning them into the newly proposed streetcape restoration plan or relocate them over...

Gardening Moves Up Front

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:00:14 GMT

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a feature last Friday about people who want to bring back the "victory garden," and put them in their front yards. The idea of replacing lawns with vegetables could be considered downright subversive in some communities, but it makes complete sense to us. In fact, we do it. This year, I turned over a small patch of turf between my driveway and my property line and planted four tomato vines. It had more to do with the amount of sun it gets there than...

You Can Call It Al

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:00:12 GMT

In a rare bit of diner move news with a happy ending, we learned this past month that the former Foster Street Diner, Worcester diner number 598, located in Peabody, Massachusetts has shipped to Shannock, Rhode Island. Its new owner Sandy Neuschatz plans a full restoration and has hired Richard Gutman as the project's consultant. Richard also serves as the director the Johnson & Wales Culinary Museum which is currently working to restore its own diner, the former...

Ride Trains: Apparently You Are

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:00:23 GMT

Amtrak ridership shot up 12% this year over last, with some trains riding at capacity. Our local transit authority, SEPTA, reports a similar jump in ridership, and recently announced plans for a major expansion in service to coincide with the addition of new equipment next year. All around, the drumbeat for expanding existing service and intitiating new routes just gets thumps louder in the face of rising oil and gas prices. Indeed, the future for passenger rail hasn't looked this promising since Grover Cleveland's administration -- either one. Unfortunately, despite the rising popularity, passenger rail remains a money-losing proposition and remains dependent on government subsidy. Amtrak desperately needs to upgrade and add to...

A Family Affair

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:00:22 GMT

by Rick Savard If you thought about ways to spend some quality time with your family, taking them to work wouldn't spring to mind right away, especially if that means the stressful environment of a busy restaurant or diner on a Friday evening or say, a Sunday morning shift serving four hundred hungry patrons after church services. Or would it? I doubt that most people would choose to work with their spouses in the tension filled atmosphere of a family-run restaurant, where it is not unusual to have a son or daughter in the workplace, or even a brother or sister or a parent even. It is a situation that many people in the food service industry find themselves in, especially as help gets harder and harder to find and keep. When...

Food Museum Hosts Pickle Day

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:42:22 GMT

New York, New York -- Co-hosted by the Lower East Side Business Improvement District and the NY Food Museum, The Eighth Annual NYC International Pickle Day is a free, fun street festival held on Orchard Street between Broome and Grand Sts. in the heart of the old Pickle District of the Lower East Side. On Sunday, September 14th, between 11 am and 4:30 pm, Pickle Day will feature music, cooking and home canning demonstrations, children's activities, neighborhood walking tours and of course pickle samples! And for the first year Pickle Day is welcoming a full-length production Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, produced by The Drilling Company. New York's pickle menu includes more than just cucumbers!