Lettuce reconsider the press release
A double M-Burger
I got a press release yesterday from Lettuce Entertain You, about M Burger, the new burger joint going into the back of Tru, just off of Michigan Avenue, which opens tomorrow. Here is an excerpt:
“M Burger is Michigan Avenue’s newest burger joint. If Midwestern beef burgers are what you crave, try them atop an oven fresh bun and your choice of crisp lettuce, griddled onions, Wisconsin cheddar cheese and savory bacon. The signature “M Burger” is slathered with “secret sauce” making each bite one to savor. Golden slim fries cooked in an olive oil blend and chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry milkshakes made from local cream are perfect accompaniments to the melt-in-your-mouth burger.”
Really sounds delicious, actually. But I was wondering about the “fries cooked in an olive oil blend” and where, exactly, the “local cream” was from. I was also curious about the “savory bacon.” When I emailed the press contact, I got some answers:
The potatoes they’re using for the fries, it turns out, are from the Pacific Northwest, and are “higher in iron and have an Earthy, olive oil flavor. They are not cooked in olive oil because we are committed to not cooking with transfat oils,” I was told. “We are getting our cream from Elgin Dairy. We’ve sourced a fresh, thick cut, light smoked American bacon.”
Sounds reasonable; a slight mistake on the olive oil claim then. I pressed on the bacon, only to learn that it is “fresh” and “lightly smoked.” By the end of the day (actually, just after midnight) Scott Barton, the President of the Fine Dining Division for Lettuce sent me an email, offering to answer any questions directly. I took him up on it this morning when I got to work.
“As of 11:30 p.m. last night, we found out that the Elgin Dairy has been bought,” Barton told me. Actually, the dairy was purchased by Dean Foods about a month ago. “So while we’re opening with Elgin Dairy cream for our milkshakes, we might not be in a month; we”ll probably have to start all over with another dairy at some point,” he told me. Barton says they’ll be looking at Fox Valley Dairy, but as of now he’s just not sure. Same thing goes for the bacon. “Nueske was just too heavily smoked for us,” he said. That means there is no contender for the permanent bacon job. Yet.
This morning, another press release was sent out. That previous paragraph I printed? Here’s the new one:
“M Burger is Michigan Avenue’s newest burger joint. If Midwestern beef burgers are what you crave, try them atop an oven fresh bun and your choice of crisp lettuce, onions, Wisconsin cheddar cheese and savory bacon. The signature “M Burger” is slathered with “secret sauce” making each bite one to savor. Golden slim fries and creamy chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry milkshakes are perfect accompaniments to the melt-in-your-mouth burger.”
That’s more like it.
All of this back-and-forth goes to the point of this posting: if you’re going to send out a press release – intended for distribution to the entire world, frankly, and not just your friends and family, wouldn’t you make sure the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed? Why not just say, “hey everyone, we’re announcing so-and-so restaurant is opening on this date. Here are the hours, and here’s the menu.” To go into more detail than that, and to make claims about local, seasonal, organic, sustainable, farm-fresh, cage-free, etc. is just putting a spin on an unfinished product.
blogs.vocalo.org
Excellent follow up!
Hear, hear! Though in defense of the PR team, they were probably working with the best available information from the management/dining side of things. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to tease the correct information from your clients–especially busy ones (as I expect the LEYE dining folks to be)–they forget to tell you key information like this. Kudos to them all on the re-release of a corrected version, and to you, too for gently pressing them on the details.
I totally agree that PR folks are often handed “the best available information,” regarding openings, and are at the mercy of the chefs to give them accurate info. I also think that means they should be asking these questions ahead of time, before going to press with it, because otherwise people like me have to be persistent and try to get to the bottom of things. If they’re not sure, if they’re not 100%, then let’s just announce/promote/spin what is absolutely certain.
If anyone is interested in local dairy, a Trip to Fair Oaks Farm for a tour is a must. It is 1 hour from chicago, in Indiana down hwy 65. They milk 32,000 cows a day, and have 75 births a day, use the poop to make electricity, and grow all the grain on their farm 25,000 acres. They have a birthing gallery to watch births. The cheese they make is awardwinning and very good. They say grass to glass at Fair oaks Farm
here is a video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJRy82i8e5Q&feature=related
Hello Steve,
(and to all who are reading this, please be aware that I work at Lettuce!)
All is can say is that this kind of investigating and follow up is what makes you the great food reporter that you are. And this is not a “suck up,” just a fact that all who know you will agree with I am sure.
Relating to your comments, as you know we do try to have everything right and ready for announcements but things from presentation to ingredients change fast and furious at pre-opening time, so fast that we do not always hear about them all. What is planned often gets modified or eliminated once is it out at “full test” in the field at planning parties and pre-opening test runs.
We really do appreciate your caring, attention to detail and helping us to be at our best for you and all our customers.
Your follow up was a good reminder to us to double check with the restaurant right after the first test runs to make sure nothing has changed in the last few hours before we send out the announcement!
The last time i checked there was no transfat in olive oil. Maybe it was too expensive?
OK, that all being said, how are the burgers?
There’s an old LTHForum thread about Big Bowl making extravagant claims about using local ingredients… which turned out to be Mick Klug asparagus. Period. End of list. (Remind me how many Chinese dishes have asparagus in them?) So I have a suspicion there’s been a tendency to say “good enough for a press release” there for a while.
http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=19781
Kudos to Sue for responding from Lettuce. I realize there are last-minute changes aplenty. Honestly, this happens more than you know, I just happened to see this press release cross my desk and decided to dig a little deeper; in this case, it was from Lettuce. I think it’s a good lesson for all in the PR field that since there are so many changes last-minute, let’s take a breath and talk up the stuff we know for sure, and if we’re not as certain, then let’s just not bring it up.
Wow nit-pick much? Get over it
Apparently elsewhere they’re touting the beef as “grain-fed Midwestern beef” as if grain fed beef is a good thing. it’s exactly the opposite!
How can they be taking the time to source such supposedly great ingredients, then fail on their selection of the main thing: beef? Where’s the beef, Mary?
Great catch, Steve.
Great Photo
We (Idaho) have to adhere to the same USDA standards for measurement of the nutrition and health claims as other potato growing states, so it is pretty hard come up with an advantage of having more “iron” than someplace else. Usually reference to NW fries means that they are frozen, not fresh and can be from Washington, Oregon or Idaho. If fresh, and from Idaho, the bags or cartons are required by law to have the certification mark indicating that they are in fact, “grown in Idaho”. Many of the premium burger chains do specify that their potatoes be from Idaho as the combination of soil, water application, potato varieties, storage, etc. produce a high solids low moisture fry that performs very well.