| Additional Unique Tales from the NRA Show |
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by Fred Minnick, May 22 2007 QSR Magazine At the NRA Show, roaming reporter Fred Minnick found a handful of people you’ve never heard of, the kind of people that make the show such a special place. By Fred Minnick During the 2007 National Restaurant Association Restaurant Hotel-Motel Show May 19-22, I floated the showroom floor with my Nikon D200 and red Mead notepad, searching for interesting sources to meet my two-story-a-day quota. I ran into a lot of people and took more than 250 photos. Here are just a few interesting anecdotes I found during my McCormick Center journeys. Bluetooth Addicts All throughout the showroom floor, men and women went from booth to booth appearing to be talking to themselves. They weren’t crazy. They were users of wireless earpieces like Bluetooth. At one point, I was pounding the Technology Pavilion walkways and saw a dozen people grouped together and walking toward me. Their earpieces seemed to be flashing like a Christmas tree in unison. For a brief moment, I could have sworn they were the Borg Collective characters in Star Trek preparing to assimilate me. Luckily, they turned out to be show attendees and had no intentions of injecting me with nanoprobes. But I was amazed how loud some people spoke into their devices and how much they revealed, as if earpiece conversations were muted to the rest of us. I overheard people bashing competitors, chewing out their teenaged daughters, negotiating deals, and talking about how much they can’t stand a certain person. Did they think nobody would eavesdrop? I mean, there were 73,000 people walking the floor. Somebody a lot more important than me had to hear a point-of-sale salesman call a quick-service brands’ technology director an “idiot.” The lesson here is you never know when somebody could overhear you, so don’t say too much. The Out of Towner Eduardo Salume—the owner of El Salvador’s largest quick-service hamburger chain—Biggest. When I stumbled upon Salume, I was searching for international sources. I overheard him speaking Spanish to a vendor. I tapped Salume on his broad shoulders and requested an interview. “No problem,” he says in perfect English diction, “but you’ll have to excuse my English.” “Are you kidding,” I say, “you speak better than most Americans.” During the interview, he tells me all about Biggest and how the burgers are so big you can’t finish your fries or slurp your Pepsi if you eat the whole thing; his challenges with labor; the fear of McDonald’s invading his area; and that he really loves this giant neon burger at a digital menuboard booth. “It looks just like one of my burgers,” he says with a smile from ear to ear. I took Salume to this hamburger sign booth and snapped a few pictures while the nearby sales reps kept telling onlookers, “that’s Eduardo, and he owns the largest hamburger chain in El Salvador.” A crowd gawked at Salume as if he were Kiefer Southerland. However, he didn’t notice the attention. Salume’s no celebrity; he’s a quick-service operator. He just kept looking at the neon burger with his big brown eyes and pointing at it. “I want that burger,” he said repeatedly. After my photo shoot was completed, the sales people gave him their cards and talked about the value-added benefits of a giant neon hamburger sign. My task was completed. It was time to find another source. “Take care, Eduardo.” “You will have to come to my country for a Biggest burger,” he says. Maybe I will someday. The Young Pup Colin Butts is rolling up a cord and stacking boxes at his booth when I show up. It was 5:31 p.m. on Monday, and the union workers were telling us to go. Butts, a baby-faced 25-year-old, is the marketing manager for Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Fabri-Kal. His company produces Greenware. I had hoped to talk to somebody at Butts’ booth for my Green Industry Practices story, and he was the only person who approached me. I must admit I brushed him off, thinking he was too young to really know anything about sustainable restaurant products. Then he spoke. Butts tells me how the cups burn cleanly and that they’re 100-percent compostable. These cups, he says, lead to reduced fossil fuel usage and decreased landfill contamination. But he doesn’t just say these things; he passionately describes each detail as if he believed he was changing the world with his words. Politicians who don’t believe in global warming should hear Butts speak. How could somebody so young know so much about something so new? I figure this kid to be an executive at a major restaurant-affiliated company someday. What am I saying? He’s already one position away from vice president. Look for him to be on the board of a major company in 15 years. I snapped Butts’ photos. One day those images might be worth something. The Passionate My favorite experiences at the NRA Show are the private dinners at Chicago’s great restaurants. QSR Magazine hosted one of those Monday night at the Parthenon Restaurant in the Greek Town District. I was the newbie to the group, but felt like I’d known everybody for years. The veterans ordered all sorts of epicurean appetizers, including Saganaki, Trigona, and a piece of fried “something” that I concluded was lamb shortbreads after QSR’s Greg Sanders and I each chewed on sections of the gooey organ. He didn’t like the brain; I thought it left a chalky aftertaste. When our entrees arrived, people cut up their pork chops, lamb chops, braised lambs, and Kotopita, among other things, and put them on saucers and passed the food around the table. Can you imagine bank presidents sharing bites of their Athenian Broiled Chicken with their mid-level managers? Restaurant people want you to taste the same pleasures they’re enjoying. And on this night, there were a lot of samples to test. The food and spirits were extraordinary at moderate price points. After dinner, a tanned black-haired man in a sports coat spoke about why he loves the food business, New Orleans—his home—and his mamma’s kitchen. He talked about the “storm,” and how the special New Orleans food and jazz music has kept the city together. “I can go anywhere in the country and have a bowl of gumbo—that’s my taste of home,” he said. “That’s what we do in this business—we serve a bite of home.” Indeed. |
