Random Life, Pitch

Saru Jayaraman laughs at the $25 hamburger and other restaurant myths

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:16:00 -0500

I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard, during the years I was a server, a customer gripe: "If your employer would pay you a decent wage, I wouldn't have to leave a tip."

My response: "But they don't, Blanche. And they're not going to as long as they can get customers to subsidize our salaries and the National Restaurant Association to aggressively fight a rise in the tipped minimum wage."

That shut them up pretty quickly.…

When restaurant customers become a pain in the ass

Charles Ferruzza — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:48:00 -0500

Like many former restaurant servers, I have a lot of memories of customers who were almost too impossibly difficult to deal with. I try not to think of them.…

What is that hard, pingpong-ball-size thing in my bag of potato chips?

Justin Kendall — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 06:00:00 -0500

A couple of weeks ago, I was getting lunch at a local deli. I ordered what I always do - half a meatball sub and a salad - and I grabbed a bag of cracked-pepper-and-sea-salt potato chips.…

Central Standard Friday takes a bite out of local bakeries

Charles Ferruzza — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 07:33:21 -0500

It's no secret that we have a serious sweet tooth here in Fat City. And we love bakeries.…

Buffets: Are you for them or against them?

Charles Ferruzza — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 07:00:39 -0600

The words "All You Can Eat" are magical to some diners, anathema to others. Restaurant veterans often look down on them, unmercifully.…

Lard, Rye, Grit and what's really good for you

Charles Ferruzza — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:37:00 -0600

When Colby and Megan Garrelts opened their newest restaurant, Rye, in Leawood this past December, they made a shocking admission: The flaky crusts for the house-baked lemon-meringue pie and molasses-rich MoKan nut pie were made with lard. Yes, lard, that legendary ingredient which creates the lightest, flakiest pie crusts - and renders such a dessert verboten to vegetarians.…

Pig & Finch claims to have 'The Best Fried Chicken EVER!' It isn't.

Charles Ferruzza — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:54:00 -0600

Although fried chicken has always taken a back seat to steaks and barbecue as one of Kansas City's signature dishes, the dish has had its moments of past glory (The Wishbone, Mrs. Peters Fried Chicken). And the pan-fried bird at Stroud's is still firmly perched on its iconic status.…

Olathe's Tastee Treat turns 50 years old

Charles Ferruzza — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 07:00:51 -0600

Two American entrepreneurs claimed to have invented soft-serve ice cream: in 1936, Tom Carvel of the franchise brand bearing his name, and in 1938, inventors John Fremont "Grandpa" McCullough and his son, Bradley, co-founders of the Dairy Queen franchise. No matter who actually invented the product - a lighter, airier frozen confection dispensed from a machine - soft-serve caught on in America in a big way.…

Accurso's Italian Restaurant has a new owner...named Accurso

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 07:00:00 -0600

For nearly three decades, restaurateur Joe Accurso was the man to see for Southern Italian cuisine just south of the Plaza. Generous, jovial, good-natured Joe opened a little delicatessen at 5044 Main in 1984 when he was 24 years old.…

Eating alone in Kansas City - it's not so lonely

Charles Ferruzza — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 09:12:05 -0600

This is a question we've asked frequently here in Fat City: Do you ever go out to eat alone, and if so, where do you go? There are some people who will stand in the middle of their kitchen and eat a miserable peanut butter sandwich rather than go to a restaurant solo.…

Is delivering food our latest unsafe job?

Charles Ferruzza — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:46:50 -0600

Last Friday, a 51-year-old Asian-American food-delivery driver, working for the Mandarin House Chinese restaurant, delivered an order to an apartment in Independence. Instead of getting a tip, he got a beating.…

Rich people find a new reason to stiff servers?

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:01:00 -0600

I'm not sure if this alleged "tip" left for a server, somewhere, is a hoax or the real thing, but it has stirred up a lot of controversy on the Web. If this story - most recently posted on the boing boing website - is to be believed, a presumably wealthy patron left, instead of cash, a slip of paper stating: "As a direct result of Proposition 30 and President Obama's insistance that I pay "MY FAIR SHARE IN TAXES," I find that I must cut back on discretionary spending and gratuities.…

Kansas City's restaurant history, a la carte

Charles Ferruzza — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 16:52:27 -0600

The year 2013 will kick off with a new restaurant in a historic location: Sosa's 39th Street Diner will take over the building at 3906 Waddell that served as the home for Nichols Lunch - for several generations, it was Kansas City's favorite 24-hour diner - for over eight decades. Many Kansas Citians have their own "late night at Nichols Lunch" tales or memories of other iconic local restaurants that have vanished over the years.…

When is noisy too noisy?

Charles Ferruzza — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 06:00:11 -0600

Last week, we reported that the noise level of the new Louie's Wine Dive was, perhaps, too excessively loud to even have a conversation with your dinner companions. But what the hell, no one ever said a dive was supposed to be a genteel place to enjoy a burger and a Burgundy.…

Got a fish story? Share it on Central Standard Friday today

Charles Ferruzza — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 06:18:18 -0600

There's an old proverb about cooking fish: "For fish to taste right, it must swim three times - in water, in butter and in wine."

Everyone has his or her favorite preparation for both seafood and the local finned creatures (in these parts, mostly catfish), and butter and wine sound like excellent components, although there's something for almost every taste, from fish sticks to lobster bisque and grilled trout to seared scallops. This morning at 10 a.m. on KCUR's Central Standard Friday program, Fat City's Charles Ferruzza will join panelists Emily Farris, Gloria Gale and Mary Bloch to discuss the best places to find fabulous fish dishes.…

Extra Virgin raises funds, and memories, tonight for Tyler Fracassa

Charles Ferruzza — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 10:44:51 -0500

Tyler Fracassa, at age 27, was already a renaissance man. The young waiter built his own small home for his wife and three children on a small farm in Urich, Missouri, where he grew vegetables and planned a life of self-sufficiency for his family.

"He was so well-versed in everything," says Nancy Smith, co-owner of the Michael Smith and Extra Virgin restaurants where Fracassa worked for nearly five years.…

And just what do you want the restaurant manager to do?

Charles Ferruzza — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:14:00 -0500

Robin Abrahams, who writes the "Miss Conduct" column for The Boston Globe, had an interesting dilemma to solve recently. In her September 16 column, she took on the following letter:

My husband and I recently ate at a well-known restaurant in Waltham.…

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Colin Hanks in a Fritz's conductor hat? Yeah, it happened.

Jonathan Bender — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:00:00 -0500

Joy comes in all forms, and today we bring you Fat City's first ever edition of Celebrities Eating at Fritz's Railroad. Yeah, that is Colin Hanks and, yes, he did partake of the speak-into-the-crackly-black-plastic-phone-and-receive-food-via-mechanized-toy-train that we Kansas Citians know as Fritz's.…
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Mocktails and other tipsy tales

Charles Ferruzza — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:26:24 -0500

It's no secret to longtime Fat City readers and listeners to Central Standard Friday (tomorrow's show, by the way, is all about the restaurant scene in Lawrence, Kansas — tune in!) that I stopped drinking a long time ago.…
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Aixois Brasserie stops serving breakfast, but it's classy at the Reserve

Charles Ferruzza — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 07:21:36 -0500

The owners of the two-month-old Aixois Brasserie — chef Emmanuel Langlade and his wife, Megan — learned quickly, and sadly, that downtown diners don't really want a sophisticated French breakfast in the morning. No croissant, no grapefruit brulee, no cafe au lait, no omelet aux jambon et gruyere.…
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When the bottom line is top priority

Charles Ferruzza — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:05:00 -0500

"Mediocre food, it turns out, pays."
That's a line from Forbes magazine writer Caleb Melby's upcoming Forbes profile on uber-successful corporate restaurant owner Tillman Fertitta (his empire includes the Joe's Crab Shack, Rainforest Cafe and T-Rex Cafe chains, among others). The headline says it all: "The World's Richest Restaurateur Has a Secret: It's Not About the Food."

Not about the food?…
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Quay Coffee now serving lunch

Charles Ferruzza — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 13:47:41 -0500

A month ago, Fat City's Jonathan Bender wrote about a new coffeehouse, Quay Coffee, taking over the sunny space at 412 Delaware in the River Market; the location had previously been occupied by K City Coffee House and Wine Bar and, before that, Eljay's. A Fat City reader wrote in to say the venue was now serving lunch.…
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What is the well-dressed wine drinker carrying this fall?

Charles Ferruzza — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 13:53:00 -0500

It's never unfashionable for a well-appointed woman (or male, for that matter) to pull out a small silver flask — artfully concealed, of course — at a black-tie affair or business-casual social function for a quick snort of booze. It's been a Kansas City tradition since the Pendergast era.…
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Pandolfi's Deli is taking a break from dinner service

Charles Ferruzza — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 12:44:27 -0500

When Fat City last spoke with Pandolfi's Deli owner Jake Hendershot and chef Grant Cansler last December, it was to announce the restaurant's newly launched weekend dinner service. Seven months later, Cansler is 35 pounds lighter than in the photo, above, and newly divorced.…
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You Say Tomato stops serving Friday-night dinners...for a while

Charles Ferruzza — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 07:57:00 -0500

Randy Parks needs a rest. Since opening the combination neighborhood grocery store and bruncheonette, You Say Tomato, inside the old Weneck Brothers market at 2801 Holmes in 2006, Parks and his partner, Mark Wingard, have put in some long, long hours: cooking, baking, cleaning and all the millions of details involved with running a popular restaurant.…
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