HOME | ABOUT | SOURCES | CONTACT The American Public Needs to Know... SITE DEVELOPMENT NOTE: TALK Topics for this site require professionals in the food, restaurant and travel industries. Most have been confirmed to be available on-call to discuss their specialties or issues and, when convenient to their travel or research assignments, will be announced in advance on the companion website, www.grumpygourmetusa.com. The bronze banners in the left alley of this home page offer a sampling of topic-issues facing humankind. ========================================================= SUBJECT: A food show with an attitude... TITLE: Grumpy Gourmet 101 HOOK: Radio call-ins keyed to a teaching Website devoted to food and restaurants - the theory being everyone's a critic. Caller's starter kit: www.grumpygourmetusa.com UPDATED 21 January 2008: This format has been not been presented to agents or any industry entity for consideration. Once in some state of final assembly it will be passed to the publisher of Talkers Magazine for guidance. PRODUCTION ELEMENTS: There are three levels: The radio show, the website, and the Gonzo Menu information posting support for the website. THE SHOW: A food fight show minus recipes, cooking demos or Bam Bam chefs; subject matter devoted to the business-gossip-politics-trends-openings and shuttering of name restaurants across the nation. SHOW THRUST: Everyone patronizing a restaurant is a critic, usually a severe one. This gives call-ins a place to vent - actually two places. Callers asked to put their issues on the related Website. THE SET: Columbus, Ohio - base broadcast from cluttered office of Grumpy Gourmet working the board, backdrop of plasma screen showing companion Website - with Gonzo Menu. www.grumpygourmetusa.com Days prior to the call-in show the HOME page gives directions to the Gonzo Menu of topics scheduled for the next show. RADIO WITH PICTURES: The Website topics list includes - Safe At the Plate (sanitation), Your Culinary Beat, Rating Restaurants, History of Restaurant Reviewing. The 'Culinary Beat' showcases dozens of food topics. Once operating, the HOME page will be devoted daily to topics / issues to be covered should the home-based listener want around-the-clock access to what is coming up - the satellite mobile audience will be advised to check the Grump site before departing. FACULTY CAST:

FOOD TALKERS: Miriam Bowers Abbott, left, and Carter Foy, make annual appraisals of the more than 50 chef stations spread out open-air at Columbus State Community College's Taste the Future.

www.grumpygourmetusa.com Doral Chenoweth, table master with a mike, presides with a daily-changing panel of involved food, travel and food business personalities. All are opinionated. Co-hosts include food and restaurant writer Miriam Bowers Abbott who teaches college-level logic; and Carter Foy, an all-media marketing professional specializing in travel issues of the day. Foy co-produces Grumpy Gourmet 101.

TALKER: Picture proof that Miriam Bowers Abbott is qualified to handle food talk.

mommiedearest101@hotmail.com Miriam Bowers Abbott reviews restaurants and writes about the business of food and restaurants from her professional level. She received her bachelor of arts degree from Southern Methodist University; and her master of arts with emphasis on critical analysis from The Ohio State University. Her publishing repertoir includes subjects such as evaluating food product claims. Such a topic speciality is in keeping with her daily routine as mother of three sons, all four and under - thus her E-mail address as Mommie Dearest.

How's business? Hubert Seifert, chef-owner of Spagio, a long running, spa-type restaurant in Grandview Heights, Ohio, talks trade trends with Dr. H. Parsa, author of several books on foodservice. He is hospitality professor at the University of Central Florida.

Robert Welcher: www.restcon.net Dr. H. Parsa: www.hospitality.ucf.edu 101 Reasons why restaurant close: For the recent 20 years the primary causes of restaurant flops fit set categories (reasons)...lousy food, inexperienced management, wrong location, partnerships gone sour, failure to pay Uncle Sam his lawful share - for the full researched list, log into www.grumpygourmetusa.com. Under TOPICS, click into 101 Reasons Why Restaurants Close. This TALK faculty includes two nationally-known experts at both ends of the business: One, Dr. H. Parsa, author, lecturer, researcher, former hospitality professor at The Ohio State University and now at the University of Central Florida. In his classrooms, graduate hospitality students use his books for statistical Sinkhole..maybe 102 reasons to close... background covering all aspects of the foodservice business - the nation's largest cumulative employer in more than 900,000 restaurants. Dr.Parsa's textbooks, one reviewer wrote, "examine the heartbeat of restaurant business." And two: On the other end of the business is Robert Welcher, president of Restaurant Consultants, Inc. He advises on how to keep restaurants open, too often on call when a restaurant's heartbeat indicates trouble. Welcher's business fame came to the fore when The Wall Street Journal cited his firm for refining the Secret Shopper approach to find out about front-of-the house problems unknown to owners. Welcher consults with two clipboards - one on pre-opening plans of a restaurateur's location selection to traffic patterns, code guidelines, financing, rent structers, area competition, menu planning and his most important chapter, employee hiring and training. Clipboard No. 2 - marketing. Critical Date: 17 March 2008: Welcher called attention to two stories in Nation's Restaurant News, one noting restaurant closings in New England as "sign of the times," broadly using grim economic news out of Washington; and the NRN headline: Cost-wary restaurants lay off large numbers. The story played right into Welcher's teachings, an agreement with the story's subhead: "Most of the recent layoffs affected midlevel managers and corporate employees, who may leave the industry."

"Dear Mom and Dad, wish you were here, Love, Jerry and Diane"

Planning a cruise: Who Ya Gonna Sue? www.cruisebruise.com Janet Huggard, Editor Cruise Bruise Editor Janet Huggard will be taking calls. As the primary aggregator of cruise news, Huggard has immediate answers as to groundings, sinkings, crimes on board, pirates (yes, they strike cruise liners around the world), and those all-important sanitation failings. She verbalizes the "dismal kitchen conditions" found on most liners. Cruise Bruise has a mission: To turn up the heat on an industry that operates world wide with foggy, vague or zero international regulations. Liners fly the flag of questionable nations. Liberia comes to mind. Liberia? Cruise Bruise is associated with advocacy groups...they do exist in a void created by lack of government oversight. Who reads Janet Huggard? Millions of people. Her website is visited by lawmakers at local, state, provincial and federal levels, the tour industry, airlines, and concerned media. This website fits into the latter. Is the public concerned? As of 12 AUG 2007, Cruise Bruise had 3,014,783 hits. More protection: Know before you go.... Read More, Click Here

INTENT: As critical food issues mount, call with suggestions to provoke Washington. 614-538-1822 E-mail: doralchenoweth@usadiningnetwork.com