Restaurant Rewind Winsight Podcast Network

With summer just a few heatwaves away, the restaurant business is within a Maraschino cherry toss of prime ice cream season. Is there any better time to retrace how a treat that began as honeyed snow has morphed into an all-American restaurant staple?

This week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind is betting “no.” The installment looks back at the origins of the frozen treat and its twisty evolution over the centuries that followed. In what other account might Nero, Thomas Jefferson and Howard Johnson all play memorable roles?  

So scoop yourself a bowl of rum raisin, bury it in whipped cream and press Play.

Even the name suggests a climb out of a rut: TGI Friday’s, as in it’s time to cut loose and have some wicked fun. The casual-dining trailblazer didn’t disappoint, aiming from Day One to offer a different sort of experience to children of the conformity-conscious '50s.

If you’ve been in the chain restaurant business for an appreciable stretch, chances are you’ve either attended or heard about the Restaurant Leadership Conference.

It’s the top-to-top event where you might see Magic Johnson jump off the stage to give someone a hug, two chain builders lay the groundwork for a merger (Cava and Zoes Kitchen, 2018) or a big-name CEO careening around a Go Kart track. Be mindful of who may be behind you in the coffee line, because it could be a best-selling author checking out the tech demonstrations in the tradeshow area.

Yet even longtime attendees are likely unaware of how the conference, now hosted by Restaurant Business parent Informa, came to be. In those roots are the reasons why the RLC continues to reign as an event where you’re likely to be surprised by what happens on the stage and the number of industry all-stars you’ll meet.

This week’s edition of our Restaurant Rewind retro-focused podcast revisits how the conference got started, why it zigged when other conferences zagged, and some of the brush-with-greatness presenters who left attendees a-buzz.

Check it out, whether you are there or want to be.

Popeyes is emerging as a tough bird to beat in the quick-service fried-chicken market, a distinction that would have delighted its late founder, the flamboyant and pugnacious nonconformist Al Copeland.

Had Copeland done nothing more than create Popeyes, he’d deserve a prime spot in a restaurant industry hall of fame. But his leadership of that chain is only one of the reasons he should be remembered today.

In an industry of cowboys and rebels, he was a standout in his brashness and insistence on marching to his own beat. Industry long-timers would have a tough time naming someone who came close to his uniqueness.

Consider, for instance, that he once not only ran Popeyes but its next closest rival, the chain now known as Church’s Texas Chicken. He fought openly with the author Anne Rice and other neighbors, never yielding an inch. And then there were his ghost stories.

But that’s just a sampling of what made Copeland so unusual. Press play on this week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind to learn more about his exploits in and outside of the restaurant business.

It’s probably a myth that tax-code writers refine their knack for inscrutability by taking a whack at state and local liquor regulations. The complexity and illogic of the rules governing alcohol sales are enough to make a restaurateur long for a seat on the other side of the bar, knocking back Jell-O shots with fellow scofflaws.

In New York and other areas, theirs would be an outlaw’s life, the result of gelatin made with vodka being prohibited for sale or giveaway by restaurants and bars. Yes, you read that correctly. You can buy a hefty blunt from a streetside establishment, but a wiggly 1-inch cube of spiked Island Pineapple Jell-O is pure contraband, even in a place as wild as New York City.

Join us for this week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind as we look at why so many regulations governing the sale of alcoholic beverages seem stuck in the age when revelers would hit their local dram shop for a flagon of mead.

We won’t say a word if you should happen to listen with a cube of cherry-red gelatin at your elbow.

America loves its pranks, as fast-food chains learned years ago in turning April Fool’s Day into a major marketing opportunity. Consumers have brought considerable gullibility to the day, while big brands like Taco Bell, Burger King and McDonald’s have gone to extreme lengths to hoodwink the public, with remarkable success.

The combination has turned several of the put-ons into major news stories because the deceptions were so successful, as stupid as they might appear in hindsight. In a surprising number of those instances, perpetrators had to ‘fess up afterward that they were pulling off a joke and not actually adding burgers for lefthanders or edible fashion accessories.

This week’s edition of Restaurant Rewind looks back at some of the outstanding con jobs and what they wrought. Join us as pranksters rev up their tricks for this year’s April Fool’s Day, which falls on Monday. No foolin’.