I had a rather distressing phone call from the general manager of a prominent Downtown restaurant last week about something that happened at his place. According to the young man, a small group of people came into his restaurant and said they had been referred there by this newspaper. They claimed to be working on a story about high-profile Downtown restaurants for a website and asked to see several menu items free of charge, which they wanted to photograph with a camcorder. When asked for business cards or other documentation, they were unable to provide any. Evidently, this scenario was repeated at several eateries in the Downtown area during a period of two weeks. After our conversation, I decided it was time to reiterate our policies on restaurant reviews. For the record, no one from this newspaper is ever authorized to approach a restaurant and request a free meal, nor would any reviewer announce themselves as such when arriving at a restaurant to dine for a review. We don’t arrange reviews by invitation or appointment, and reviews cannot be based on free meals. Advertising representatives cannot arrange for restaurant reviews. Restaurateurs are encouraged to send us press kits, menus, and/or fact sheets announcing new operations or changes to existing businesses. It is our policy to allow new restaurants four to six months to get their operations under control before considering them for a review. We do our best to dine anonymously on two separate occasions. (Note to waitstaff: If you think someone at one of your tables is there for a review, don’t ask them – it puts everyone in an awkward position.) Once the review is written, a staff photographer will contact the restaurant and make an appointment to photograph the food. Sometimes, restaurants choose to feed the photographer, and sometimes they don’t, but he won’t arrive with his hand out. Once a restaurant has been reviewed, it is unlikely that we would review it again for a few years, unless there are substantial changes, such as the sale of the restaurant, a new location, the hiring of a new chef at a high-profile eatery, drastic (as opposed to seasonal) menu changes, etc. Due to the fact that the success of chain restaurants is based on their necessary similarity to one another, we rarely review chain restaurants. Now, regarding our policies for the submission of information for inclusion in this column, “Event Menu,” or “Restaurant Roulette”: The paper comes out every Thursday, and the deadline for information for the Food section is a minimum of eight days before the publication date, but two weeks is optimal. Information can be submitted via e-mail or regular mail. Please include the name, address, and phone number of the restaurant or business, as well as the date, time, location, and description of any event. Information submitted to other departments at the paper (advertising, Calendar, marketing, Music Listings, etc.) is not automatically passed along to the Food section, so if your information, tips, or questions relate to food, please submit them directly to food@austinchronicle.com. Restaurant Roulette listings are chosen at random from the database of previously reviewed restaurants and should recycle about every six weeks. Our online Restaurant Guide is currently undergoing a complete and thorough overhaul and should be more informative and user-friendly as a result.
This article appears in August 24 • 2007.