Restaurant Business

Giving thanks, celebrating family and seeing friends all are part of Thanksgiving, but the main point, even the Pilgrims would agree, is eating. And more people across the Baltimore region are getting right to that point -- shunning hours of kitchen preparation and party small talk for quiet restaurants where the wine is already uncorked, the bird is waiting on the table and somebody else washes the dishes.Restaurant reservation lists are almost 10 times longer in some restaurants than they were 10 years ago, and dozens of other restaurants are opening their kitchens for the first time this year, trying to cash in on Thanksgiving.

IF MONDAYS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE quietest restaurant night of the week, Baltimore's stylish Pazo eatery certainly wasn't following convention. The place popped with pizazz -- thanks to a couple hundred foodies. Welcome to Fiesta on the Terraza -- an evening of food and wine, with the night's proceeds going to Share Our Strength, a national nonprofit dedicated to fighting childhood hunger. This was the final stop on a 12-city tour of similar dinners staged at restaurants across the country in an SOS program called "A Tasteful Pursuit."

It was six months ago that Kamini and Suhail Bhatti found a brand-new gold Cadillac sitting in the dining room in their Pikesville restaurant, arriving just ahead of the lunch-time crowd. The car smashed through the front wall and destroyed about $20,000 in fixtures and equipment in the Indian-Pakistani restaurant, which had opened two weeks earlier in the 200 block of Reisterstown Road. Unwilling to see their dreams dashed, the Bhattis picked up the pieces and reopened earlier this month, but in a different location.

You've gotta be tough to play football, and it's a good quality for football players in the restaurant business, too - as when the roof of Joe Theismann's Restaurant in Elkridge collapsed last year, closing the place for six months. Tucked next to a Best Western hotel near the site of the old Dorsey Speedway off U.S. 1, the business reopened last summer after nearly $800,000 in repairs, partner Vernon H. Grandgeorge said. "We wondered how business would be," Grandgeorge said, adding that customers came back, and everything worked out well.

No, it's not a rumor. It's Rumor Mill (8069 Tiber Alley, 410-461-0041), a new restaurant that's opened in Ellicott City where Sidestreets used to be. The space has been redesigned and spruced up, says Matthew Milani, who with his two partners also owns Cacao Lane across the street. (The bartender, he says, painted the Japanese-inspired murals.) Milani describes Rumor Mill's food as "American-Japanese fusion" and "seafood forward." That means entrees like the signature wasabi-crusted snapper with plum sauce served with haricots verts ($25)

CHICAGO -- Even the first case of mad cow disease in the United States has been unable to put a damper on what promises to be a good year for most restaurant and food manufacturing businesses. Sales and menus remain solid, with consumers still buying millions of burgers and steaks, even after the confirmation of a single Holstein cow in Washington state with the brain-wasting malady. "We remain positive about 2004," said Robert Ebbin, director of project research at the National Restaurant Association, adding that it is difficult to judge the impact of mad cow disease on the industry.

After an unfortunate streak of bad luck, the magic is back in the life of Dr. Hamid Towhidian.A short time ago, the owner of the new Magic Dish, a family-style steak and seafood restaurant in River Reach on Ritchie Highway, would hardly have described his life as magical.Just one month before the seventh anniversary of his first Magic Dish, in Pasadena, Towhidian had watched fire destroy it. Set by burglars to cover their tracks, the March 5 inferno caused an estimated $400,000 in damage.

OAKLAND -- When Rita Liller-Dodd's husband died suddenly in early January, she inherited the job of running a restaurant, a task she knew little about. Ever since the couple bought the Towne Restaurant in the heart of Oakland eight years ago, he was the one who had been in charge of the business. She had helped in small ways, changing the seasonal decorations in the restaurant's plate-glass window that looks out on Alder Street and chatting with customers, including some of the regulars who walk over from the nearby Garrett County courthouse for the restaurant's family-style fare.

It seems to be a pattern almost as old as the games themselves: An athlete becomes a sports star and his name goes up on a restaurant. For in a business nearly as competitive as the sports business, restaurant investors need an advantage. Who better than sports stars to draw legions of patrons? The list of those who have been willing to lend their name to such ventures crosses the sports spectrum - including the late boxers Jack Dempsey and Sugar Ray Robinson, golfer Greg Norman, the late sports announcer Harry Caray, basketball players Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Dennis Rodman, hockey player Wayne Gretzky, football coaches Mike Ditka and Barry Switzer and football players Brett Favre, Jim McMahon, Mike Alstott, Joe Theismann, the late Walter Payton and Johnny Unitas and, most recently, Ray Lewis, who opened a barbecue restaurant in Baltimore on Sunday.

This year, for my annual review, I'm going to focus on service. A smile and a little attention go a long way in the restaurant business, making even the most casual meal out seem like a treat. While reviewing inexpensive restaurants in 2007, I've been privileged to dine at many establishments that made me feel welcomed, even pampered. Sometimes the most casual restaurants -- the ones where the owners are also the chefs and the wait staff -- shine at delivering excellent service where fancier restaurants falter.