The Strategy of *Experientiality —  Holistic Experience Design  for Restaurants

During the 1990-early 2000s, I spent time working with the Disney Imagineers and Park Strategists at Disney — designing experiences, brands and their integrated strategies in Orlando and Anaheim. During that time, we also worked with Steve and Elaine Wynn on Bellagio and their teams and properties. 

What that range of experience taught me is that a restaurant visionary will need to have a clear visioning about the offer — what...


Killer Koan

How to Spot Fake News

My friend Diane has always struggled with her weight. She’s tried pills, fad diets, incredible body-shrinking garments, all to no avail. She fluctuates from being 20 to 40 pounds overweight. She told me she had found this amazing doctor who was going to reset her metabolism.  Here’s the catch: she could only eat the foods he prescribed. Nothing else.  Also, she could not...


From Rochester, New York Food Waste | Let’s talk about it!

 

Callie Babbitt, an associate professor at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability (GIS), has received a nearly $1 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to research sustainable solutions for minimizing and managing the growing...


Freedom Train

I’m looking for a ride to take me where I need to go. I’m looking for the freedom train. I know it’s there. I’ve seen it before. I’m going to find it again. I’m going to take that ride. I’m going to get where I need to go.

Deep down inside I know the truth about America and so do you. Democracy is fundamentally stewardship in action. Being a good steward means that we take care of things. Money, cars, houses, jobs, careers, land...


From Orlando Helpings from the Heart

For the past 23 years, Florida businessman Eric Holm gives free Thanksgiving meals to more than 20,000 people at the Salvation Army gymnasium in Orlando.

Eric Holm began hosting this event because he remembers what it’s like to go hungry on the holidays as a child.  Holm grew up poor, and in high school bussed tables at a restaurant where his single mom worked as a waitress to support their family of six.  On...


A Toast to the Best French Toast-Maker in the World

 

     Chef Yihdego Giday was indeed the chief of his own private culinary country, an aesthetically sophisticated domain of tastes, aromas and earthen colors.

     As my gaze turned naturally from one elegantly penned image of stately Ethiopian women to another—all artfully placed throughout the restaurant, I could not help being drawn to their extraordinarily intricate weaves. The braid itself has always held special...


From Rhode Island: Wingerz

From Rhode Island

Wingerz Keeps Your Fingers Free From Being Finger-licking Good!

Rhode Island residents Michael and Michelle Lefrancois, founders of Wingerz, are changing the tailgating game for a good cause. Think of all of those ribs and buffalo chicken wings that you eat on the back of your car!

Along come Wingerz to...


BOOKS: Exploring plant-based cuisine

PR for People® Reviews:

Exploring plant-based cuisine

A Plant–Based Life – Micaela Cook Karlsen

AMACOM – 352 pp - $16.95

Eaternity – Jason Wrobel

Hay House – 384 pp - $24.99

   This month, a subject near and dear to many of us: food! Assuming you’re already aware of the links between the standard American diet and many of the leading health problems in our...