It was those damn celebrity chefs who did it...

publication date: Aug 6, 2007

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author/source: Robert Bickell

It's a very, very difficult space to operate in the restaurant business-it requires a lot of human beings to intersect at just the right place to make it all work out. -- Rocco DiSpirito

More on the subject of service from Tim Zagat of the famed Zagat surveys... "It's the single biggest problem facing the restaurant industry today" (perhaps, but the ever-rising rental rates are right up there). He goes on to suggest that it's the service - "not noise, congestion, parking, prices, or the food itself." He then goes on to suggest the real reason behind poor service as he sees it - and that would be the new celebrity chef culture..."becoming a waiter leads nowhere."

Maybe it's me, but I don't get the connection that celebrity chefs somehow contribute to poor service. I believe that that poor service is a direct result of the lack of training by the owners. It's more complex than that, but I'm having a real problem blaming the celebrity chef culture.

Celebrity chefs can be a lot of things (including annoying) but in my mind they have been great for the restaurant business. They have succeeded in elevating the status of chefs, and they have created a new level of interest in food, and they have made tons of money for all those culinary schools. People who choose to wait on tables are making more money because of the celebrity chef movement.

The comment that "becoming a waiter leads nowhere" is disturbing and even ridiculous. To blame the celebrity chef movement for our problems with service is a reach at best. I don't get it, but Mr. Zagat publishes the Zagat Guide, so he must know something.

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