May 17

Food Gems in Phoenix

Arizona, Reviews 11 Comments »

Rob Brooks-Bilson just posted on a topic we’ve been discussing in the office lately: the sterility of 99% of the food options in AZ, the idiocy of the food reviewers and how to find the true gems that are out there (because there are some gems). I know Rob from back in the day having run the local CFUG. Rob is an accomplished chef, a bright technical mind and he authors the “Foo(d) Bar Blog,” a great food-focused blog. I respect his food opinions immensely and couldn’t agree more with his post.

<begin AZ food rant> The Ahwatukee Food Review that Rob mentioned seems to be either “advertorial” or just ignorant. The fact that Oregano’s won 11/33 awards is asinine. I don’t know enough about the Ahwatukee publication to speculate but I’ve seen other reviews by New Times and AZ Republic that seemed to blur the lines between legitimate editorial and advertising. The peoples’ choice “Best of Phoenix” always seems pretty shady as well too- that or we Arizonans are just clueless when it comes to picking good food. I spent the month of November living up in SF and coming back to AZ was like returning to culinary sensory deprivation after being on a food furlough program. Don’t get me wrong- I like AZ. I grew up here and I’m still living here. But our food in general is completely pasteurized and lame. It’s like what you’d eat if Walmart, Clear Channel and Microsoft got together and threw a dinner party.

What Rob made me consider though is “how much of this lameness is perpetuated by reviewers promoting crappy places and then people recommending them because they don’t know any better?” Food is one of those things like music where the best discovery vehicle is usually a recommendation from a friend who has good taste. But when you don’t have exposure to good stuff, you recommend what you know. You turn to reviews and eat the blah crap that chains can afford to promote and then tell your friends how good the Olive Garden is. In the interest of averting the extinction of the few undiscovered restaurant gems that are hiding around Phx Metro, we should figure out a better way to promote them. One of my favorite Chinese restaurants just closed down presumably for lack of business- everytime I went there it had one or two other people eating there. They weren’t good marketers at that place but they were outstanding cooks and it seems this is a tricky problem because we can expect the people who are right off the boat with the best food skills will also be the same people who have no idea how to market their restaurant.
<end AZ food rant>

So I hate to complain about something and not offer any solutions. The way I see it there are three parts to this problem and a few things that can be done in each realm:

PART I – DISCOVERY

We need a better mechanism to share food recommendations with trusted sources. Does anyone know of such a service? If so leave it as a comment. I know Yelp.com does food reviews among other local things but is there a de facto one that everyone uses? I’m not real keen on joining another social network. Traits of my ideal system here would be that it is: neutral, open, has a trust component, RSS feeds, is searchable by cuisine and geographic proximity, has maps integration, etc. Unfortunately I have zero time to devote towards making anything like this and I imagine something decent has to already exist. Microformats and Structured Blogging would be ideal for this but we’re not pushing that forward because we couldn’t make a business out of it and are focusing on JumpBox instead. For now I’ve setup an open Facebook group here and seeded it with my local Phx restaurant suggestions. I would love to see someone do the equivalent to the Starbucks Delocator for local neighborhood restaurants.

PART II – PATRONAGE

It seems to me the 2nd part of this problem lies in the need for people to consciously patronize new “mom & pop” food places and divert away from chain restaurants. I’m not suggesting everyone boycott chain restaurants altogether – sometimes fastfood is just too convenient, but if folks were to commit to finding one new small-business-owned eating establishment each week and bubble up their feedback either via their blog or one of the above systems, it would help foster a better restaurant scene. And more importantly, it would ensure that little places like Sesame Inn get a constant flow of new customers, get awareness inspite of their lack of marketing abilities and stay in business.

PART III – MEDIA REPRESENTATION

This one is a tougher nut to crack. Moving mainstream media is like trying to parallel park an aircraft carrier with all the intertia involved. I have no extra personal bandwidth to engage in a campaign to bring mainstream awareness to the under-promoted food gems in AZ, nor to do I believe that’s even the best thing to do. But hopefully someone in a position will work to fix the legitimacy of these food reviews or at least disclose when there’s a bias towards advertisers. There may be enough web-savvy people at this point where mainstream media can be ignored entirely and a web-based system provide just enough awareness of the good places amongst the right people where the gems will be sustained. This system doesn’t have to be centralized on something like Facebook or Yelp either. Maybe we Phoenecian social media people can agree on a standard tag that’s not used anywhere yet like “PhxFoodRec” or something so this decentralized info can be searched conveniently?

So here are my food recommendations for good restaurants in Phoenix. Join the Facebook group I just setup and share yours, or post them in a comment here. And if you know a good site for discovering and sharing good local restaurants, please let me know.
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My Phoenix Restaurant Recommendations

Fate – Asian Fusion – 3rd st. & Roosavelt – Johnny Chew is an amazing chef. cool atmosphere
Portlands – Bistro – Portland & Central – pricey but good
Takamatsu – Korean – 42nd Ave & Dunlap – incredible beef bulgogi
Atlas Bistro – Bistro – Scottsdale & Oak – tiny place adjoining a wine bar, great date place
Grazie – Italian – Main & Goldwater in Scttsdale – best italian in Phx, cool patio, huge wine list, Marcello rules
Postinos – wine bar – 40th & Campbell – converted post office, great bruschetta and huge wine selection
Merc Bar – Bar – 24th st. & Camelback – lounge with great cheese plates, best martini in AZ
Los Dos Molinos – Mexican – Central & Baseline – extremely spicy salsa, great margaritas, unique atmosphere
Thai Basil – Thai – University & Mill – best Thai in Tempe
Duck ‘n Decanter – Deli – 16th st. & Camelback – a fixture in AZ since 70′s, best sandwiches in Phx and cool shady patio w/ eucalyptus trees
Sylvia’s la Canasta – Mexican – 7th Ave. & Missouri – one of the more legit mexican restaurants
Honey Bears – BBQ – 52nd & Van Buren – best pulled pork BBQ in Phx
Goldman’s Deli – Deli – Hayden & Indian Bend – solid jewish deli in Scottsdale
Arcadia Farms – Deli – Scottsdale & Indian School – tasty sandwiches, mostly women for some reason, good pastries, braided trees on patio are cool
Swaddee – Thai – Pima & Via Linda – #2 Thai place in Phx
Farms at South Mountain – 32nd st. & Southern – good for brunch, awesome ambience and fresh food
Hannah Zen – Sushi – 7th Ave. & Missouri – pricey but some of the best local sushi
Sabuddy – Israeli – Scottsdale & Shea – best Israeli food in Phx
Pita Jungle – Mediterranean – multiple locations – best mediterannean
Cafestesia – Greek – 20th & Camelback – best Greek
House of Trick’s – Bistro – Mill & 7th St. Tempe – best patio in AZ, great brunch, lunch and dinner
Royal Palms – ?? – Camelback and 52nd St. – best Lobster Bisque in AZ, cool to walk around grounds
Elements – contemporary – Camelback Mtn ~57th st. & McDonald – Incredible view of city, modern interior, amazing soup
Camelback Inn – ?? – 54th st. & Lincoln – Best gazpacho, can eat it poolside at their resort, great brunch
El Chorro – ?? – 52nd st & Lincoln – wood-fired stuff on a patio, always packed day before Thanksgiving
Lon’s Hermosa – ?? – 55th st. & Stanford – Fixture of phx with desert surroundings, great ambience and solid menut
Durant’s – Lounge/Steakhouse – Central & Thomas – best steaks in AZ, has original upholstery from 70′s i think

May 02

MarKamp: A Barcamp for Marketing

Arizona, Nerd 21 Comments »

Just a quick show of hands, how many people would find it useful to have an event like BarCamp only focused around tactics for promoting your stuff? We were kicking around the idea yesterday of an event called “MarCamp” (and actually Austin came up with “MarKamp” which is even better) that would take the same unstructured, self-organizing format of the other *Camp events. A quick search reveals this event back in 2006 in SF but it doesn’t like like anything came of it.

This is something I really want to see. We have all these different marketing initiatives we’re kicking around now and I just want to run a “Matrix training program” and instantly have all this experience now. It would be great to have a BarCamp style event where you could sponge up experience from folks that have learned this stuff the hard way and then contribute back what you know.

I will help make this event happen if there’s enough interest. Topics that I would most like to see:

  • referral programs
  • affiliate programs
  • reseller programs
  • loyalty programs
  • adwords campaigns
  • building effective landing pages
  • web analytics
  • split testing (GWO, adwords, email)
  • writing effective copy
  • focus groups: how to conduct an effective one and analyze/apply the results
  • experience running call-in “fireside chats” on something like gabcast
  • lessons in establishing user community for your product
  • social media services, the right way to use them for biz: twitter, facebook, linkedin, stumble upon
  • conducting publicity stunts that work
  • pulling off the effective tradeshow

    • If you can think of others of interest, add them in a comment and let me know if this is an event you would attend. If we get even ten talented marketing folks interested, I’m doing this. We’d most likely be able to get a free venue like we did for BarCamp Phoenix. Of course the inherent paradox here is we’ll need good marketing skills to promote awareness of the event to all the marketing people we’d like to attract ;-) All thoughts on this idea are welcome in the comments field.

    Jan 14

    Snowboarding video from Snowbowl

    Arizona, Sport & Health 3 Comments »

    Ever wonder what snowboarding is like? I took inspiration from our friend Matt Asay and shot a video this weekend coming down from the top of Snowbowl in Flagstaff, AZ (beware, it’s shaky):



    I threw the song I just recorded on there as a sound track. Conditions are perfect right now, unfortunately the lift lines indicate that the rest of AZ knows this. More pics from our trip here.

    Jan 06

    Rent my house for the Super Bowl and the Phoenix FBR Open

    Arizona, Entrepreneur No Comments »

    Newly-remodeled, fully-furnished 3BR 1700sqft rental home in the heart of the action in Phx available for the entire week of the Super Bowl and the FBR Open. Located in north Tempe on the border of Scottsdale this house is perfect for entertaining and in the ideal location:

    • 2min access to the 202 and 101 freeways
    • 5min from famous Mill Ave in Tempe (shops and restaurants)
    • 10min from Old Town Scottsdale (Superbowl festivities and commentary on the water front)
    • 25min from the stadium in Glendale

    House sleeps 7 (TV room has a pull-out couch and one room has bunk beds). Ammenities include:

    • hot tub
    • barbecue
    • 17′ HDTV projection screen and 24" flatscreen both with cable
    • wireless internet
    • all new furniture including leather couches and recliners
    • new stainless appliances and granite counters
    • covered 2-car garage
    • washer & dryer
    • yard with horse shoes

    $10k for 7 days rental

    $5k due by Jan 11th, $5k due upon arrival plus $2k refundable damage deposit. Will accept paypal, wire or money order. No smoking inside. Pets okay. The game is only one day- proximity to the real action in Scottsdale and Tempe the rest of the week is where it’s at! Check comparables on Craigs List- this will not last long. Call or email Sean with inquiries: 480.221.5500 sean -at- jumpbox.com

    front of house
     
    Nov 21

    Innovation Panel from the AZ Ent Conf

    Arizona, Entrepreneur, Events, Speaking 4 Comments »

    Chance Carpenter of Essential Event Technologies just posted the videos from a bunch of the sessions at the Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference that was held on Nov 8th. Here’s the video from the panel I moderated on Innovation as a Process. Chance does this for many local events in AZ and it’s a great way extend the reach of the discussion beyond the walls of the actual event. Contact him through his web site if you want him to do this same type of video archival for your event.

    Sep 13

    An open letter to anti-immigration fanatics

    Activism, Arizona 20 Comments »

    Get back to work.

    I’ll say it again: some of you have literally made a job out of preventing other people from doing theirs. Stop, go back to work and do something useful. You busy yourself with the task of harassing people who are coming to this country and busting their ass with insanely hard work in order to make a better life for their families. Granted, they don’t have the appropriate papers to be here but instead of wasting your time trying to keep them out, why not embrace the reality of this situation and find a workable solution to cope with what is happening? Somehow along the way you have confused citizenship with what it means to be American. What these people are doing is in fact the very essence of what it means to be American. Remember that we came uninvited to this country to escape a crappy situation at home and build a better life. We certainly didn’t get our papers from the Indians when we arrived. And yet because the illegals that come over now lack official documents stamped with official symbols, you decide to waste ungodly sums of money raised through the efforts of those of us who are working in a futile attempt to prevent them from being here. And the worst is that they’re doing jobs that nobody wants to do anyways. Frankly, those people are way more American than the ones that are born here who choose to sit on a couch and collect welfare.

    I’m an Arizona native of thirty-two years. I’ve had the privilege of watching Phoenix evolve to become the fifth largest city in the US. It’s a place of incredible potential and yet we are home to some of the most right-wing, close-minded curmudgeons imaginable. We have a sheriff that makes his prisoners wear pink underwear because he can. We have wacko, sanctioned vigilantes at the Mexico border called “minute men” who are armed with rifles and pistols volunteering to pick off anyone who comes across. I love this State but we are famous for our “Rambo-style” idiocy and legislative blunders like the conversion natural gas debacle. About once a year we seem to fall on our face with a new piece of ill-conceived legislation from our government. And in keeping with that tradition this year we now have this latest disaster-of-a-law (House Bill 2779) that is supposedly the magic cure for stopping illegal immigrants. Let me explain why this is not going to work.

    I am not a lawyer but from what I can understand from reading this bill, this law which becomes effective 1/1/08 proposes to attack the problem of illegal immigration by giving the State government teeth to go after businesses that hire an illegal. Sounds great on paper, right? Consider though that one infraction from a company doing business in AZ made unknowingly can result in suspension of their business license. A second infraction discovered (not committed) during the probationary period results in the permanent revocation of their business license. Companies headquartered in AZ that have employees in other states? All employees layed off. Companies with thousands of employees where two somehow slipped past HR’s eligibility screening? Goodnight. Critical infrastructure companies like hospitals, public transportation, utility companies? Not exempt. The obvious flaws with this legislation that somehow escaped those signing it into law:

  • How does the State propose to process the influx of complaints? The government staffing necessary to receive and enforce the complaints – where does that money come from?
  • How about the fun new burden on HR in every company in Arizona? They’re required to maintain compliance by periodically re-verifying each employee’s I-9? How many person-hours per year across every company in AZ will be required to perform this task and from where will these hours come?
  • Provided that resources magically manifest on both the government and business sides of the equation, do you really believe this top-down approach is going to stop some guy from hiking across the desert or piling into a van to come to America when his family is starving and there’s no way to provide for them at home?

    • So what we end up with is the same number of illegal immigrants entering the country now with zero chance of doing anything productive for society once they’re here. They’ll still have the same starving family at home so either they’ll turn to crime to raise the money necessary to feed them or you’ll see them begging on the median at the highway on-ramp. All this law does is guarantee extra headaches for employers, added taxes to fund more beaucracy and paper-pushing in government, and the displacement of illegals from constructive jobs to crime and destitution.

    I love Arizona but I’m afraid this is shaping up to be another faceplant in our tradition of ill-conceived legislative moves. This bill is not the product of trying to come to a realistic solution, it’s clearly the re-election tactic of a few politicians wanting to win votes by pinning the hard-ass immigration star on their lapel. Were they to be responsible for actually implementing this (beyond signing the parchment) there is no way in hell this would fly. We need to take a Freakonomics perspective here and ensure incentives are at work at every juncture of solving this problem. We need to establish a scorecard for how effectively the bills passed by each Senator actually performed at accomplishing their objectives- basically a fantasy league for Senators that tracks what they did. Campaigning becomes dramatically less important at that point- just look at their scorecard for how well they did last term.

    So to summarize: yes I realize we need some kind of mechanism to deal with illegal immigration but this law is not the way. Piling up sandbags to prevent a flood works in situations where there are acute and infrequent downpours. But when it’s the ocean that’s steadily encroaching, sandbags aren’t going to help- you need to rethink the problem and figure out how to work within the reality of the new terrain. As cheesy as the acting in this movie is, it has an interesting premise: what would happen if all the illegal immigrants suddenly vaporized? Think about it: agricultural industry would grind to a halt, restaurants would be left with nobody in the kitchen, good luck finding a gardener, the construction industry would collapse… These people perform jobs that nobody else wants to do. Who is going to tar a roof in a 120deg Arizona summer? Certainly not the guy sitting on his couch collecting a welfare check, he’s busy watching Jerry Springer. Rather than wasting immense resources to “vaporize” these immigrants, we need to figure out how to utilize them. Think amnesty programs. Think multi-lingual centers for processing new entrants and having probationary “parole office” arrangements whereby these people check in, contribute taxes on their earnings and are accounted for. Contrary to belief, reduction in the supply of menial labor jobs does not take away gainful employment from American citizens, it frees them up to do more interesting, fulfilling and skilled work.

    I’ve already wasted too much time in writing this letter. And you as well in reading it.
    Get back to work.

    sean

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