I heard about this almost too late, but you can still get your nominations in.

Pick your favorite local restaurant that needs a little love.  Maybe they have the best breakfasts ever but that fading decor could use some sprucing up, or maybe its the kitchen items that need some expansion.  Doesn’t matter – just show some love and send the city’s “rock this restaurant” project to your favorite haunt for some TLC.

Nominate soon – they were supposed to stop accepting on 8/31, but have extended that temporarily!

http://rockthisrestaurant.com

Well, the Groupon “thing” is firmly in place, like it or not. If you’re a small business, you might like it quite a bit – getting butts in seats and all that. How does it work? Who makes money? TechCrunch did a fantastic analysis a few months ago.

But if you are a small business and/or restaurant with an upscale target market and a really polished image, it might not be the best thing for you, especially if you’ve opened recently. Google for “groupon sucks” and the #1 hit you will see is a blog post from a spa marketing company talking about how discounting is not always the best way to attract new customers. It is certainly food for thought and a great post, but targeted at “luxury” goods like hundred-dollar treatments and the like.

What if your per-check average is well under $20? Is it such a bad idea to discount, then?

A friend just told me that they were hesitant to try a local restaurant because it always looks empty. I know for a fact that the restaurant’s food is quite good and told him so. They have a dining room too big for their needs and that hurts them with walk-by traffic, as my friend’s perception shows. This place might benefit from a quick-and-dirty campaign to get more people in the door. Or perhaps you can skip giving half the money to Groupon and just go to the restaurant. Do we have a deal? Good. Also try out another local place experimenting with Groupon – but just go instead of buying the coupon. Their sandwiches are amazing.

Despite the acclaim from its fame as the best green chile cheeseburger in the state, a visit to Badlands Burgers in Grants today showed nothing but an empty dining room, piled up mail, and a disconnected phone number.

Badlands Crowned Green Chile King (Gallup Independent)

Badlands Urbanspoon Page

Bummer.

I am not typically a big fried-foods person, and that’s by choice.  I ate less and less of them over time, and now when I do indulge it can have some interesting GI effects, so I typically will avoid the crunchy deliciousness of a proper fry.

However, I do have some nominations for best specimens of the fryolater arts.  Send me yours!

1.  Buttermilk donut at Enchantment Chocolates.  Holy crap.  Crunchy, deep brown, tangy.

2.  Onion “loaf” at Owl Cafe.  This was my most recent little fried bender and it was worth every crunchy batter bite.  Their fries are good, too, but these onion tangles are darn tasty.

3.  (R.I.P.) Fried pickles at Independence Grill.

It was bound to happen, no?  I have spent a long time defending the Flying Star, comparing them to a kid with pajamas that are too small – they simply had an amazing run of growth and tried to keep as many people happy as possible.

This occurred during a time that ingredient costs were skyrocketing AND they were renewing their commitment to local producers, organic meats, and free-range anything-they-could-afford.

So, folks rebelled.  ”Eight bucks for coffee and a slice of PIE?!!!”  ”$10 for a vegetarian noodle bowl???  You gotta be f’ing with me.”  No longer the divey hipster hangout, Flying Star won new enemies where it used to have fans.  And I stuck up for them, knowing how hard it is to run a sustainable (read: profitable) restaurant.  And they are/were still packed – so obviously it hasn’t killed their entire patron base.

I also compared them to the Grove Cafe & Market, posing the pragmatic situation thusly:  If the Flying Star were to start BRAND NEW right now with its menu and prices as they currently exist, they would be just like the Grove.  And that leads me to my point – I had my moment at the Grove the other day, when I ordered a cappucino and a cookie.  A rather smallish cookie.  I paid SIX BUCKS, and had an immediate negative reaction, asking the cashier just how much that cookie was, anyway ($1.99).  It was the cappucino at $3.50, which came delivered as a latte, that sent the total up to the sky.

So…. now what?  The Grove’s coffee is still far better than Flying Star’s, but Cafe Giuseppe rules all plus they know that a single cappucino should be about 5 ounces total, not 12.  Oh, and they have gelato that is better than anything outside of Silver City in the whole state.