City
Morning Brew: June 20th, 2008
Photo: "TO Toy Factory" by tomms, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
Your Toronto morning news roundup for Friday June 20th, 2008:
A Whitby man faces fraud charges after allegedly selling plastic covers for license plates that allow vehicles to enter and exit camera-based pay toll highways without being recorded and charged. A friend of mine tells me that going faster than 150km/hr when passing the camera also prevents being billed, but I don't see myself trying that and don't suggest anyone else do either.
A major police raid in the GTA has netted a significant number of illegal guns and massive amounts of narcotics, including fake Viagara. This weekend may be a little flaccid for some people but also safer for others.
--
Annex neighbourhood mainstay Dooney's Cafe was sold and will be changing hands. A changing demographic and a (failed?) restaurant makeover leave the current owner unable/unwilling to veer from his vision of what the place means and who it serves.
Pro soccer in Toronto has become so wildly popular so quickly, that there's talk of expanding the BMO Field seating capacity by 50%. Toronto FC has been selling out the 20,000-seat stadium while the Toronto Blue Jays barely maintain those kinds of numbers.
Toronto City Councillor spending is under the spotlight, and a tightening of the rules may soon follow. Questionable spending has seemingly always been an issue, and caps appear to be needed. Some things just don't seem appropriate - like "bunny suits for an Easter Parade in the Beach, an espresso machine, a limo rental, and a late-night taxi ride to Bolton".
Discussion
18 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
This was kind of surprising considering where she lives: An upscale high-rise condo on Lakeshore.
She didn't know the person arrested, so I can't really offer any insight as to his crime.
maybe the viagra was a free gift with purchase of nacotics!
Appearing on that show appears to be "the kiss of death" for most restaurants who participate. Granted, most of these places were likely having trouble to begin with, but it still doesn't explain RM's ridiculously high failure rate.
A Maclean's article about the show earlier written this year concluded itself with:
"Now the show is looking beyond its long-standing Toronto-area base to Montreal and especially Vancouver, where pre-Olympic restaurant openings are burgeoning. So don't be jealous: some day soon, a Restaurant Makeover restaurant may flop in your neighbourhood, too."
They simply just fail to stop the demise already in progress...which is supposed to be the point of the show.
An already struggling restaurant has to wait months and months after the show was filmed for it to air. That is a long time to wait for the increased publicity.
Additionally, they only focus on two areas, decor and to a lesser extent, the food. How often would decor make or break a restaurant? Not very often, I imagine.
There are many, many reasons for a restaurant failing and the big one is never even addressed: Poor management, specifically when it comes to money.
They need to do one of two things:
1) Rework their show to address the other reasons why the restaurant is failing. This would involve having an actual qualified host in addition to the chef and designer. An actual restaurant owner would be a start (But that might conflict with the chef since often the owner is the resident chef). "Jamie Kennedy's Restaurant Makeover" anyone?
2) Only makeover restaurants that -aren't- failing, such as when they did Phil's BBQ, or Montana. If their show does nothing to improve a restaurant's situation, why not just do any old restaurant? It'd also make it easier to find restaurants for the show.
- Lakeshore is only "Lakeshore" outside of Toronto. In Toronto it is "Lake Shore"
- BMO field is fantastic, but i do think they can add more seats without ruining the experience (maybe 5K, not 10K). Maybe i will finally be able to get tickets again!
- The bills would require at least a 50K+ seat stadium. Only Skydome (i will always call it that) has enough, but its not designed for football and thus will never be a permanent home.
Dump the voiceover guy and hire Adjay on full time, even if he's not the chef on the show. Get him to investigate other failings of the restaurant. Only downside is that it would start looking much more like Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares.
How do you speak for 2.5 million people's vocabulary habits anyway?
:P