Polls is polls. We do three major polls each year: the restaurant poll, the
results of which you hold in your hand; the Best of Austin, which appears in
August; and, of course, The Austin Chronicle Readers Music Poll,
the ballots of which will run in January this year instead of starting in
December. Nonscientific, the polls all return more than enough votes for a
valid random sampling of the readership, yet their measure should always be
that this is what our readers who cared to write in thought at this time.
Still, looking back over the years, the choices in all the polls hold up
remarkably well.
This is the 10th annual Austin Chronicle Readers Restaurant Poll. The
critics, at our behest, chip in with their thoughts as well. There are a slew
of fine restaurants in Austin: old favorites and — thanks to the current
economic boom — new favorites and eateries still waiting to be discovered.
Regularly, we hear of new and interesting restaurants and try to keep our
readers informed. As always, the poll is best used as a map, guiding you around
interesting places to try.
Polls are odd beasts. Ideologically, they are great, because the readers get a
chance to give their opinion and the writers and critics shut up. They are also
good advertising issues, everyone reads them and keeps them, so many businesses
want to be included. Sales didn’t even cross our mind when we launched our
first poll, the now world-famous Austin Chronicle Readers Poll, which
appeared only a few months after the Chronicle began publishing in
September, 1981. (The results were published in early 1982 and the first music
awards show was at Club Foot in March, 1983.) Soon after, however, the music
poll became one of our biggest annual issues. Over the years, issues we
planned as advertising generators usually fell flat. Such are the
mysteries of publishing.
I probably should talk about something else in this column. The KAZI cover
story is worth commenting on, but what to say besides KAZI is an ever-improving
radio station that is a treasure of the community? Louisa Brinsmade’s story,
while examining some of the station’s controversies, says that already. Perhaps
a note about the constant Chronicle staff reshuffling or obscure points
of Chronicle letters to the editor decorum (as a rule we don’t publish
letters replying to Statesman articles, relaying complaints about
consumer establishments, or letters that are photocopied with out of town
addresses, and so on), but all this talk of food and restaurants just seems to
have slowed everything down. n
This article appears in November 17 • 1995 and November 17 • 1995 (Cover).