I have been thinking about this for a while, and now I would like your feedback. Lurkers, I want your feedback, too! Pretty please!
It's clear that many of the regulars around here like food, especially when we're talking about local food. Much of my search engine traffic comes from people looking for information about local dining options. Like Nebraskans generally, we like to eat.
How about starting an informal food "club"? Every week we will pick a restaurant that we will try to visit at some point that week. After each individual has visited that week's restaurant, he or she will post a review or summary of his or her visit. No meetings, no club president. Maybe a secret handshake, though.
One of the most obvious benefits of this sort of a club is that we get to support area businesses. That's always a plus. But there are additional benefits as well. For example, our summaries of our visits to the restaurant will be accessible to folks who try to find out information about that restaurant in the future. (I might even compile the summaries into a format that I will then post in Lincolnite's Reviews section.) Those summaries will likely be pretty varied; some will love the restaurant, some will like it, and some will hate it. That's a good thing.
Our summaries are also useful to the restaurants themselves. If everybody loved the taco salad and the funky music, the restaurateur should know that. He should also know what features of the restaurant people didn't like. (Service too slow? Temperature too cold?) I can make sure the restaurant manager and/or owner sees our feedback.
There's another bonus that really intrigues me: the possibility that we could actually run into each other now and then. Have you always wanted to chat about the Al-Skeini decision with Mr. T? Or about Husker athletics with D.M.B.? Perhaps you can connect with them for lunch or dinner.
I should clarify that we don't always have to eat at locally-owned restaurants. I know a bunch of people wanted to try Granite City when it first opened up, for example. Our purpose ought to be trying a variety of foods and restaurant styles. There's nothing wrong with trying a chain now and then. But if anybody suggests Applebee's, I swear....
Does the general idea sound at all interesting to anybody? Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the idea? Where should we go first? What should the "club" be called?
Comments
See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
I think that is a fricking awesome idea
Butt
he he he said butt
who picks where to go? And you know it would be someones favorite place they want others to visit.
How about a we all get together (preferably at a bar) and use little pieces of paper and put places in a hat. After many jager shots we have some hot chick draw them and we go in that order.
Or maybe use the ground zero’s suggestion and do it for the next week.
anyway I am down.
I just stumbled across this blog over the weekend; for whatever reason, I can’t shake the feeling that I *should* know some of the regulars.
Anyway, my friends and I also enjoy eating at many of Lincoln’s dining establishments; it wouldn’t take much to incorporate our dining habits into a venture like this. I’d like to see where this idea goes…
Kudos Mr. Wilson - What is great about the idea is that it does not involve a consensus or peer-related influence. After all, there are those in the world who like haggis, and those who don’t.
Welcome, Swid! Thanks for chiming in.
beerorkid, your “pick a joint out of a hat” idea is fine, but I don’t want to make this venture an “every Wednesday at 6:30” sort of a thing. It’s hard for people to commit to this sort of thing on a weekly basis. Add in kids, classes, and the hundreds of other commitments we’ve all got going on, I just don’t see the “club” lasting very long under that model.
A “try to get to this restaurant sometime this week” model is much more flexible and, hopefully, more likely to get more people to participate. Trying to be somewhere at a specific time on a specific day can be tricky; getting there at any time over the course of seven days is much, much easier. Plus, it diversifies our experiences, which provides a more accurate description of what the average Lincolnite will see when he or she tries that restaurant.
We can build from your idea, though.
How about we keep a collection of restaurant suggestions in a hat (or bowl, or whatever). Anybody can throw a name into the hat. Each week we’ll draw a name from the hat, and that’ll be our restaurant. We can draw the name on Sunday, and that restaurant will be our pick for Monday through the following Sunday. I’ll be in charge of the hat (or “hat”, since there’s a good chance it will be a virtual hat, not an actual hat).
I’ll give the details a think, but the basic idea should get us to a variety of restaurants over time.
Share your thoughts with the community.
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