Jon Lowder

Not a Good Time to Be in the Restaurant Biz

Two weeks ago I posted a rumor I'd heard about South by Southwest, closing its doors (I had a VERY reliable source) and that post was picked up by Smitty who confirmed that the restaurant had indeed closed.  Today I read in a post by Laura Giovanelli on the Journal's food blog that in addition to South by Southwest the Cotton Mill had also shut down. I never made it to the Cotton Mill, but based on Laura's opinion of it I'm truly sorry I missed it.

The restaurant business is brutal any time, but during tough economic times restaurants, particularly higher end restaurants, struggle even more. When money is tight the first place most people will cut their expenditures is eating out, and when you have the combination of higher food prices and higher gas prices like we have now a restaurateur has to work very hard to get people through the door.  As Laura says in her post:

Sometimes, I try to brush off all the economic gloom and doom. Maybe I’ve listening to too much NPR, I’ll think. But it’s been obvious for months now that local restaurants are struggling, particularly the higher end ones, the ones with white tablecloths and the like.

I'm fairly certain we're going to see quite a few more "white tablecloth" restaurants close their doors in the next year or two.  Of course others will eventually replace them, but that doesn't help the many owners who have worked so hard to build their businesses and develop a loyal fan base.  From a selfish point of view it also doesn't help the customers who lose their favorite dishes, or the places that house so many cherished memories like anniversary dinners, graduation celebrations, etc.

To end on a positive note I recommend that you check out the Journal's food blog Dishing it Out.   It's coauthored by Michael Hastings and Laura and they do a great job of keeping it fresh. Personally I think it's the paper's best blog now (sorry Ken).

South by Southwest a Goner?

Rumor I heard at the kids' swim meet on Tuesday: South by Southwest, a great little restaurant on S. Marshall Street in Winston-Salem, is closing its doors.  Not sure if it's true, and if it is I'm not sure what the reason is, but I will say that if it's true I'm really bummed.  I loved their fish tacos.

If you have any info on this please feel free to leave it in the comments of this post or email it to me at jon.lowder AT gmail.com.

The Old Fourth Street Filling Station, Redux

Per my previous post about The Old Fourth Street Filling Station I wanted to give a quick update.  First, I did indeed contact the restaurant via the comments form on their website and last night I received a reply from them.  If I get permission from them I'll share the reply in full because it was a great example of how to handle a customer complaint.  Second, I wanted to post a positive comment I've gotten about the restaurant (I'll update with more if I get them). Here it is:

• From Kathy:
  

  I love the burgers at the The Old Fourth Street Filling Station.  The burgers and the brie appetizer are awesome! 

  I hope you give it another try.

Update: Here's another comment I recently received from Mandie:

I've eaten there once with a large group of friends, and I thought it was fantastic. I even took photos of all the food. We ate Sunday brunch, in April, on the patio. Betty thought the shrimp and grits were excellent, and the salad I had was huge. The pancakes with fruit were to.die.for. The omelets and fries were good, too.

I've seen the letter from the chef, and I hope you do take them up on the offer to go back. Hopefully the second time will be the charm.

The Old Fourth Street Filling Station, Blech!

Last night Celeste and I decided to do something different for dinner so we headed to The Old Fourth Street Filling Station in Winston-Salem.  Take a wild guess which street it's on.  Anyway, we were able to get a table on the patio which is very pleasant as restaurant patios go, but that's pretty much where the pleasantness ended.  Before I get into the bad let me start with the one or two positive's of our experience:

1. We ordered a couple of beer's which were both fine, if not spectacular.  I had a Hefe Weiss and Celeste had  a Red Oak from the eponymous brewery in Greensboro.  The glasses were clean and the beer was cold so no complaints there.
2. We ordered the flash fried calamari as an appetizer and it was tasty and well-cooked (not rubbery), although the portion was kind of small.

There endeth the positives and here begineth the negatives:

1. Our waiter was slow and had zero personality.  I'm usually very forgiving of wait staff because in my two month attempt at waiting tables as a college student I firmly claimed the position of Worst Waiter Ever.  Still, this guy was a humorless dolt and he managed to make us feel rushed in our ordering and then extremely delayed in our exit.
2. I ordered the Seafood Pasta ($17) and I can tell you it's the first time I've had scallops so over cooked that they almost snapped when I cut into them.  If there's a spice in the restaurant it didn't make its way into that dish, although they made up for it with an over abundance of butter/oil.  Perhaps they felt they needed to grease the tubes to enable the seafood to actually make it to my belly.  Whatever the reason it was pretty bad.
3. Celeste ordered the  Brie and Spinach Stuffed Chicken ($17) and got about two forkfulls down before giving up.  She asked me to taste it and regrettably I did so I'm able to give you my own description of the dish.  You know when you burp and a little something comes up with the burp?  The chicken tasted like that little something.  Celeste was relieved when I gave her my opinion because she was concerned that maybe there was something wrong with her.  She had a hard time believing something could taste that bad.
4. When the waiter returned to ask if we wanted to order coffee and dessert we couldn't say no fast enough.  Apparently that removed any incentive for him to get back to us because it took at least 20 minutes from the time our bill was run for us to actually receive the bill and then it took another few minutes for us to get the payment processed.

Unfortunately the food left a remarkably strong aftertaste so we went to the Borders at Thruway to have a cup of Seattle's Best coffee while we browsed some books.  Thankfully the coffee killed the taste but I can tell you that for the rest of the evening we paid gastronomically for our little dinner adventure. 

Suffice it to say we probably won't be back, but if you've had a good experience at The Old Fourth Street Filling Station please share them in the comments.  In the interest of fairness I'll be happy to move them into a separate post as well. 

Update: I'm adding this because I've had a bad feeling about this post all day while I was working in the yard.  In thinking about this I should have asked for the manager while at the restaurant to let him/her know that we weren't happy with the food.  Unfortunately I'm really uncomfortable doing that so it usually doesn't occur to me to do it.  I don't usually look to get my money back, and I wouldn't have asked for it in this case, but it would have been the better thing to let the manager know and to attempt to rectify the situation.  If nothing else they would know that they might have a couple of dishes they need to work on.  I figure the best thing I can do at this point is to send the management a note letting them know about our experience.

Also, as I noted above, I'd like to hear from anyone else who's eaten at the restaurant.  Please leave a comment sharing your experience and I'll be happy to move them to a separate post in the interest of fairness.

South by Southwest, Winston-Salem

Celeste and I had dinner with our friends the Ewings last night at South by Southwest on S. Marshall Street in Winston-Salem. Celeste had the Mesa Verde Grilled Fish soft tacos, which she described as absolutely delicious.  The fish was finely grilled, moist and light.  She found it to be a little bland, but once she added some salsa from our chips appetizer she found it perfect.

I had one of their specials, a  pork tenderloin and pineapple fajita that was huge (one of the few times in my life I've had to ask for a doggy bag) and extremely tasty.  The pork was moist and tender, the spices were just right and if anything I could have used about 15 more soft tortilla to wrap the meat in.  Like I said, it was HUGE.

Entrees range in price from around $11 to $20, the atmosphere is casual and cozy, and it's definitely a very relaxing night out.  They open the doors for their bar at 5:30 and they begin seating for dinner at 6:00, and are open until 10:00.

Highly recommended if you like New Mexico style  food and are looking for something thats a step or two above your average Tex-Mex fare.

Google map link.

Cross posted on TriadFamily.com

Eats in Greensboro

Greensboro, NC is about a half hour east of where I (and my lovely family) live in Lewisville, NC.  Since we're right outside of Winston-Salem we usually spend our time there, but we've had some opportunities to go to Greensboro and we'd like to go more. So I thought I'd pick the brains of Greensboro's bloggers for places to eat.  Following are recommendations mined from some blogs and comments on those blogs about eating in Greensboro.  These aren't in any particular order, just a random sampling of what I found while browsing the blogs of Greensboro's finest.  I'll update this as I come across more.

Monk's Cheese Steaks and Cheeseburgers
1030 Summit Avenue
275-1105
Recommendations from David Wharton's and Ed Cone's blogs.
Quote from Wharton: "Monk's Cheese Steaks and Cheeseburgers in the Northeast Shopping Center knows exactly how to make them. Visiting Monk's is like taking a little trip to an everyday New York eatery, complete with an airbrushed mural on the wall featuring the Twin Towers. The staff is friendly in that New York kind of way, the place is immaculate, and the cheese steaks ... oh, yes.

The meat comes handsomely piled on the soft bun, laced with just the right amount of gooey cheese, onions, peppers, and seasoning. The fries were hot and delicious and the service was fast. The only complaint comes from my cardiologist."

Ganache
403 N Elm St
Greensboro, NC 27401
(336) 230-2253
Quote from Sean Coon in the comments on Cone's blog: "by far the best cheesecake i've had in town to date is the chocolate chip cheesecake at ganache"

Ghassan's
3 Locations in Greensboro
Battleground: (336) 273-2266
State Street: (336) 378-1000
Coliseum(336) 294-4060
Quote from Jerry Bledsoe on Cone's blog: "Damn, all these Blogsboro soft-bread Cheez-Whiz (it ain't even food)lemmings. Try a real cheese steak. Go to Ghassan's."  And another quote from Wharton in the same post comments: "Yes, Ghassan's fries are special. From the taste, they're not fried in vegetable oil. Probably beef tallow."

Solaris Tapas Restaurant & Bar
125 Summit Ave.
Greensboro, NC, 27401
(336)-378-0198
Quote from Potato Stew: "We’ve been to Solaris twice, and we enjoyed it quite a bit. Very tasty tapas. We’ll be going back there more..."

Cafe Europa
200 N Davie St
Greensboro, NC 27401
(336) 389-1010
Quote from Roch101 on Plead the First: "The food is good, the wine list extensive and dining on the terrace this time of year is a treat."

Undercurrent
600 South Elm Street
Greensboro, NC 27406
(336) 370-1266
Quote from Patrick Eakes on Plead the First: "It is on the more expensive side, but provides plenty of coziness and a romantic setting."

223 South Elm Restaurant
223 South Elm Street
Greensboro, NC 27401
(336) 272-3331
Quote from Potato Stew: "It was great! Very interesting menu. I had the trout which had a black pepper goat cheese on top that was amazing. I would defenitely recommend the restaurant."

Bistro Sofia
616 Dolley Madison Rd.
Greensboro, NC 27410
(336) 855-1313
Quote from, well, me: "Celeste and I had dinner there a couple of months ago and I can tell you it is one of the two or three best meals we've had since we moved to NC.  Can't recommend it highly enough."

Update: Ed Cone has posted a list of restaurant recommendations here.  I'm going to shamelessly steal his list which you'll find below...thanks Ed:

My personal list would start out something like this:

Best Indian food in Greensboro: Saffron

Best sushi in Greensboro: Sushi Republic (formerly Sushi 101)

Best fine dining in Greensboro: Undercurrent

Best cheesesteak in Greensboro: Monk's Cheesesteaks and Cheeseburgers

Best pizza in Greensboro: Vito's (traditional); PieWorks

Best soul food in Greensboro: Madison Kitchen/UHoP

Best low-key seafood in Greensboro: Bert's

Best Vietnamese food in Greensboro: Saigon (mentioned by Astro Boy in the comments, I concur)

Best wings in Greensboro: Minj (via Wharton)

Best carniverous experience in Greensboro: Leblon churrascaria (the usual suspects, such as Ruth's Chris, are available for traditional steakhouse experience).

Best barbecue? Tough call. I will vote for the Brunswick Stew at Stamey's.

First Trip to Lexington for Some BBQ

Today Celeste wanted to do a little exploring and stop in on a couple of open houses in Davidson County.  We're not looking to move but Celeste is always looking for a chance to be a Peeping Tom-ette.

Since we were already down there we decided to drive into Lexington for a BBQ lunch.  We stopped in on Smiley's on NC-8 and had quite a nice meal which I highly recommend.  Here's a picture of Justin, Erin and Celeste (Michael was at a friend's house) in front of their outdoor menu and a picture of Justin in front of what he called a "cool car":

Bistro Sofia and an Evening in Greensboro

On Tuesday night (June 6) Celeste and I drove over to Greensboro for an evening out.  We started with dinner at Bistro Sofia, a restaurant that I found thanks to writing this blog.  The restaurant had a run-in of sorts with someone who wrote about it and then I picked it up and wrote about it a couple of times.  Well, the general manager of the restaurant found my first post and emailed me directly to discuss some of the issues and in the process did exactly what I think any small business should do when confronted with a negative PR situation. That led to a follow up post that kind of laid out the restaurant's side of the story, but really focused more on how I felt they had done a great job of dealing with a bad situation.

Celeste and I had somewhere to be at 6:30 so we got to the restaurant right when it opened at 5:00.  We were greeted by Kerrie, the GM, and seated in the dining room.  Since we were so early we had the room to ourselves until the end of the meal.  I'm no food critic but I can tell you without hesitation that:

• Celeste and I agreed this was the best restaurant we've eaten in since we moved to North Carolina.
• We'd put the food, service and ambience up there with any restaurant in D.C.
• We'd have paid a LOT more in D.C. for a comparable eating experience.

To top it all off the owner of the restaurant and one of the bartenders (Beth and John respectively) stopped by our table to check on us and to talk about the whole "blogging" thing.  Very nice people and again they set a fine example of how to deal with negative PR.  Without going into details I'd say they have a firm grasp on what happened, the mistakes made on their end and also some strong feelings that the other side of the story was skewed.  Fair enough and totally understandable.  I hope that the two sides can get together and come to an understanding.

Suffice it to say that I give the Bistro Sofia a very strong "5" on a five star scale.

After dinner we headed over to the News & Record for a meeting with Lex Alexander and a bunch of bloggers from Greensboro.  It was nice meeting some people whose writings I've been reading for years, and there was some interesting conversation about how the newspaper can work with the community in the future.  You can read about it here.

We didn't hang around after the meeting since we needed to get home to make sure the kids were in bed and ready for their third-to-last-day of school.  But we enjoyed the drive through downtown, which was a Greensboro first for the two of us.  Celeste very much liked the neighborhood around Greensboro College and mentioned how much fun it would be to own a house there and rent it to students.

That, my friends, is a sign of how much we enjoyed dinner and the meeting; it made my wife delusional.

Bad Business at Greensboro's Bistro Sofia

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**Update** There's now a follow up post about this that contains the restaurant's version of the story, and a good lesson in modern PR.**

There's a woman over in Greensboro who writes a regular column for the News & Record, is a blogger and is a "foodie."  She and her husband decided to celebrate their anniversary by going to a restaurant called Bistro Sofia and allegedly had the following occur (ed. note: I should have used 'allegedly' here sooner and did not, for which I apologize):

• The waiter made an anti-Semitic remark; the woman is Jewish.
• The waiter accidentally overcharged their debit card by $1,000 so they ended up with overdraft fees, etc.
• They got the situation resolved with the bank with the help of the waiter's boss later that evening.  The restaurant also credited back the cost of the meal.
• She wrote an email to the owner of the restaurant to give her feedback on the dining experience and mentioned the meal had been credited back. She also offered to come by the restaurant to pay if the meal credit was in error. The owner replied with a fairly polite email.
• Later, when doing her online banking, the author discovered that the meal had been charged again (including tip) after the owner's email had been sent.  No warning came from the owner that she was going to charge the meal after all.

This is what has happened to the restaurant:

• The woman blogged about her experience.  You have to figure at least friends and family have read it.
• One person who did read it was Ed Cone, one of the most widely read bloggers in the area.  He's called the "Godfather of Blogsboro" for a reason.
• Lots of people read it and at least one in Winston-Salem blogged about it himself.  And knowing the power of blog headlines in Google he made sure to use the town name and company name in the headline.

Despite the fact that the woman also gave the restaurant's product, the food, a glowing review the restaurant got a black eye. That, my friends, is called bad PR in this day and age.  Unless they pull some business-judo and make it work to their advantage...maybe Klan night every Monday?

Dinner at Zevely House

To celebrate our 14th anniversary Celeste and I treated ourselves to dinner at Zevely House Restaurant in Winston-Salem.  We truly spoiled ourselves.

We shared a bottle of 2005 Hogue Riesling that came in a twist-top bottle, but now that we've been wine-educated by Bruce Heye at Salem College we know that good wines can come with screw tops and this was a good Riesling. We also shared an appetizer of baked brie (had some kind of great crust, but I can't remember what it was made of) and doused with a raspberry/Sangria sauce and garnished with sliced fruit.

Celeste got a green salad with nuts and fruit (can't remember exactly what but she loved it and I'll update later with her info) and I had a salad that came with a crab cake and fried oysters that was REALLY good.  For dinner she had lamb chops served with greens, potatos, greens and a vegetable mix while I had a Moravian chicken pie with a fantastic sauce (I call it gravy) and greens, rice and a vegetable medley.  If you ever get the chance try the greens; they're amazing and have a great kick.

For dessert we split a piece of Lemon Pecan Pie served hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  The lemon balanced out the sweetness of the pecan pie so it wasn't overly sweet as many pecan pies are.  We finished with some house blend coffee which was also excellent.

We had a great time and if you want to spoil yourself this is the place to do it.