A few days after the article was published, I received an e-mail from Nikki Lewis, the co-coordinator for the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Washington, D.C., one of seven affiliates tied to a national group dedicated to helping hospitality workers in a number of ways. She wanted to get in touch with Rockwell about a potential collaboration.

"ROC-DC is also frustrated with the NRA and RAMW. We led the first counter-lobby day against them this past April. We also infiltrated their national convention to get a better understanding of their agenda," wrote Lewis, referring to the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington and the National Restaurant Association.

"ROC is a tiny nonprofit with small capacity compared to the organized wealth and power of the NRA," Lewis added. "They're the 10th most powerful lobbying group in the nation. They clearly have way more bargaining power with insurance companies than us. Yet we are able to do it already."

ROC's health plan just got off the ground a little more than a month ago and, as such, has only a handful of workers enrolled, Lewis told me over the phone last week. It's a limited plan, she admits; benefits max out at $5,000 annually. Members pay $140 a month for the plan, with a $100 deductible.

"It's by no means a comprehensive plan," Lewis tells me. "If you get hit by a bus, it's not for you."

But it's a start and, according to a recent study conducted by the national Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, it's much needed. In a September report drawn from more than 4,300 surveys of restaurant workers, ROC found:

• 87.7% [of restaurant workers] reported not receiving paid sick days. More than 63% of all restaurant workers reported cooking and serving food while sick, thus impacting consumers’ health.
• Almost 90% of all workers surveyed reported not receiving health insurance through their employer. Workers without health insurance were three times as likely to visit the emergency room without being able to pay as their counterparts with health insurance.

ROC-United certainly has a daunting task ahead. The organization represents about 6,000 workers out of the estimated 13 million restaurant employees nationwide. Locally the numbers are significantly smaller: about 240 restaurant workers are members of the D.C. chapter of ROC. But the meaningful news here is that ROC and its modest health plan are open to undocumented workers, who often toil behind the scenes at restaurants.

"We are also reaching out to Latino media outlets because our plan doesn't discriminate based on documentation status," Lewis wrote me."[O]ftentimes that is a huge barrier to many of the workers in our industry."

The local ROC chapter is also working with a handful of restaurants to try to expand D.C.'s Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act of 2008 to cover tipped employees, which it currently doesn't. Several restaurants have expressed an interest in expanding (or already have expanded) the benefits even without a change in law, Lewis says; they include Teaism, Busboys & Poets, and Sticky Rice.

In the meantime, Rockwell and ROC are now aware of each other. They will explore possible collaborations for the benefit of those workers who feed us and serve us daily at D.C. restaurants.

Readers learned that Sietsema's take down of the Mussel Bar paled in comparison to his trashing of Le Pigalle.

Don Rockwell's budding organization may not have any members yet, or even any services to give them, but  his Association of Independent Restaurants has plenty of reader attention. Presumably AIR has stirred up plenty of industry attention, too.

That's a start.

The Y&H column on Rockwell's embryonic organization beat all comers last week. Take a look at your top five:

1. Independents' Day: Foodie Website Founder Don Rockwell Starts a New Restaurant Association
2. Food News You Can Use: Why Fried Turkeys and Four Lokos Suck
3. Is Tom Sietsema's Review of the Mussel Bar His Harshest on Record?
4. David Guas' Bayou Bakery Set to Open This Month in Arlington
5. Meatless Sandwiches: They Should Be More Than Bread Stuffed with Veggies
   

In the course of putting together this week's Young & Hungry column, editor Michael Schaffer wanted to know how Don Rockwell, the man behind his budding restaurant association and his eponymous board and DCDining.com project, could maintain his critical objectivity while advocating and promoting eateries.

Good questions, I said. I'll find out.

To be fair, I don't think Rockwell really wanted to answer these questions until he could put a statement of principles together. Rockwell and I have talked over the phone the past two days on this subject, and for the most part, he wanted his comments off the record as he worked out his thoughts.  But he did offer two ideas for the record:

• That he would include a section on DonRockwell.com that would list all his personal and professional affiliations, so readers would know immediately where he has financial or social ties.
• That members of the Association of Independent Restaurants would not influence his dining recommendations to potential customers at DCDining.com. "If I don't like the restaurant, I'm not going to recommend it," Rockwell told me. "It will only hurt me if I do."

Early this afternoon, Rockwell gave me a statement that he thought would suffice for now. It says:

"No. 1: DonRockwell.com is sacrosanct. No. 2: There will be full and unambiguous disclosure of all personal and professional relationships, and No. 3: There will be no breach of public trust."

I suspect this is not the last word on the subject.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

By his own estimate, Don Rockwell eats approximately 700 restaurant meals a year, spending nearly $30,000 of his modest computer consultant’s salary at high and low-end establishments alike. Rockwell reviews many of those meals in minute detail on his eponymous food board, which he founded in 2005 and which has become a prime local destination for chefs, sommeliers, restaurateurs, and diners, many of whom engage with DonRockwell.com on a weekly or daily basis.

Between his prodigious eating habits and his online gastronomic gathering place, Rockwell has accumulated a lot of knowledge about the local dining scene—and the people and organizations that comprise it. He knows, for example, that many of the folks who have waited on him and cooked for him lack health insurance. He knows the frustrations of restaurant owners who must battle the District’s bureaucracy to even open for business. And he especially knows about their frustrations with the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, the trade group established to promote and protect the hospitality industry’s interests.

One of those exasperated restaurateurs is Michael Landrum, the man behind Ray’s the Steaks, Ray’s the Classics, and Ray’s Hell Burger. His regular comments on Rockwell’s boards include this Oct. 28 salvo, fired the day after RAMW split with its parent organization, the National Restaurant Association: “They are a self-serving, parasitical organization where often-times the parasite has grown larger than its hosts. They are openly hostile to employee’s rights,” Landrum wrote. “One thing to be clear, they do not, do not, represent or work on behalf of independent restaurants, restaurant workers, farmers or chefs.”

In an interview, Landrum levels a few other charges. “RAMW is an organization that uses its substantial financial clout to enrich itself,” he tells me. What’s more, he adds, the organization’s “political agenda is hostile to what most people would consider the interests of the restaurant community as a whole.”

By that, Landrum means that RAMW’s lobbying hasn’t always represented the best interests of either restaurant workers or restaurant eaters. Fighting against a higher minimum wage, for instance, may please owners, but it undercuts the line cooks, bussers, and others employees who rely on those meager salaries. Likewise, RAMW’s efforts to exempt bartenders and wait staff from the District’s Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act of 2008 took away basic rights from hundreds of workers. And RAMW efforts directed at battling food trucks, smoking bans, and menu labels have also tended to favor traditional brick-and-mortar owners over everyone from street vendors to diners who’d prefer clean restaurant air.

Rockwell doesn’t have answers for all of these issues, or even most of them, but does have a vision for the future of the local hospitality industry. He has tentatively started an organization, the Association of Independent Restaurants, which will attempt to harness the collective power of the area’s independent restaurants to assist both management and workers. Rockwell wants to offer discount group health insurance for line cooks, wait staff, bar backs, and everyone else who needs it. He wants to put quality ingredients in the hands of smaller restaurants by pooling their purchases and negotiating lower prices. He wants to help employees get work visas, and he wants to help restaurateurs negotiate the cumbersome process of establishing an eatery in the District and elsewhere.

Rockwell is still a long way from accomplishing these goals. At present, he doesn’t have an office, employees, a budget, or even a solid business plan. He just has a domain name (air-dc.com) and a desire. “I see a need that needs to be filled, and I want to fill it,” Rockwell says over lunch at Circle Bistro last week. “I view [AIR] as more a complementary thing than a takeover attempt” of RAMW.

What Rockwell does have, however, is the support from some influential people in the industry, like Landrum, chef Eric Ziebold of CityZen, and Cathal Armstrong at Restaurant Eve.

He also has his own frustrations with the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington to motivate him. Like the annual RAMMY awards, where it remains a mystery as to how or why a restaurant earns a win or gets nominated. Or the association’s bi-annual Restaurant Week, in which participating RAMW members offer three-course lunch and dinner menus for around $20 and $35 respectively. Rockwell, for one, thinks this is not a deal for anyone, unless they’re dining at one of the area’s few fine-dining palaces.

“I think the dining public is being absolutely duped by this,” he says. He’d like his organization to work with restaurants to offer discount menus year-around, perhaps at off hours or on slow week days.

Restaurant Week is sore spot for some restaurateurs, too. Not only do owners have to pay a fee to participate in Restaurant Week (typically $500) and offer meal discounts, but ever since RAMW started steering people to OpenTable to book reservations, restaurateurs must pay a $1 fee for each person who goes through the online service. The money adds up quickly, biting into whatever profit may be available during the week. Bob Kinkead, the Beard Award-winning chef and owner of Kinkead’s in Foggy Bottom, says his payments to OpenTable will usually double or triple to nearly $3,000 a month during the promotion, which often runs longer than a week.

Kinkead, like other restaurateurs I spoke with, has mixed feelings about RAMW. He’s a past board member who understands what RAMW does well and what it doesn’t. He believes the association does a good job of preventing governments from raiding the pocketbooks of local restaurateurs when budgets fall short. At the same time, Kinkead thinks RAMW didn’t fight hard enough to stop the city from raising parking meter fees and extending their hours into the evening, thereby hammering downtown eateries.

The interesting thing about Kinkead is that he’s no sideline critic. In the late 1990s, he and some fellow restaurateurs created the Council of Independent Restaurants of America, a nationwide organization designed to battle the major chains. At one point, CIRA had chapters in 17 cities, including the District, where its membership peaked at about 50 establishments.

CIRA’s ambitions were similar to those of Don Rockwell and his budding association. CIRA tried to establish health care coverage for the employees of its 100-plus restaurant members (it proved almost impossible to find a policy to cover workers in the various states, Kinkead says); it tried to create a central ordering system for restaurants so members could take advantage of group purchasing rates (some cities already had companies performing this function, Kinkead says; chefs in other cities sometimes couldn’t agree on what ingredients to purchase); and it even tried its hand at expediting to help owners negotiate the Byzantine bureaucracy necessary to get restaurants open (lawyers already have this market well covered).

In the end, Kinkead says, the local chapter of CIRA was undone by the kind of things that bring down most such organizations: a lack of funds and a chronic inability to reach consensus. CIRA remains alive in other areas, Kinkead says, mostly smaller towns where members are willing to put aside their own needs for the greater good of the chapter. The veteran restaurateur believes one factor will determine whether Rockwell succeeds with AIR: “If he’s extremely well funded, there’s not a reason why it shouldn’t work,” Kinkead says. “If not, don’t bother, buddy.”

But another industry insider expresses a separate worry about Rockwell’s budding venture: Should AIR get traction, assemble a healthy number of dues-paying members, and start offering insurance and group purchasing, it could step on the toes of some powerful interests. The hotel and restaurant workers union, not to mention the companies that already offer group buying, would not sit idly and watch AIR take over their markets. “In the beginning,” says the source, “I don’t think anybody’s going to pay very much attention because [AIR] is so small.” But should AIR grow, Rockwell needs to be prepared for battle.

At the same time, the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington will not be standing still, either. The group no doubt has heard about the situation in New York City, where a number of high-profile restaurateurs including Stephen Hanson and Keith McNally recently started the NYC Hospitality Coalition to serve as a complement to the local chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association. The question here, of course, is this: How long will it take before this “complementary” organization becomes an actual competitor, fighting for the limited number of dues-paying members and donors.

Lynne Breaux, a former restaurateur herself, is the president of the non-profit RAMW. As the leader of the association with more than 650 members in the District and Northern Virginia, Breaux oversees an organization that took in $1.26 million during fiscal 2009. Far from being a group that cares only for owners and management, Breaux says, RAMW also looks out for workers. The association has a lawyer available for members to help them secure work visas for employees. Earlier in its history, Breaux notes, RAMW also offered group health insurance for restaurant workers and is looking into the proposition again. “It’s down the road,” she says. (A RAMW board member who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed that the association had a “substantial conversation” last week about a group health plan for workers.)

But Breaux is clearly aware that RAMW has its detractors, whether Landrum and his belief that RAMW lives to enrich itself (Breaux, incidentally, earned about $161,000 last year as president) or restaurateurs who are frustrated by the economics of Restaurant Week (Breaux says the group is talking to OpenTable about lowering its rates). “Maybe you can’t please everybody all the time,” she says.

That may be a lesson Don Rockwell will learn when the Association of Independent Restaurants finally gets off the ground. Or will it get off the ground? Or will local restaurateurs and their employees be forced to live with the imperfect work of the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington? Michael Landrum has an opinion on this.

“I think there’s nothing that Don can’t accomplish once he sets his mind to it,” Landrum says.

Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com. Or call (202) 650-6925.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Last week, Rockwell officially started asking for money for his knowledge of the local restaurant scene. He launched DCDining.com, a no-frills site that sells customized dining packages for people willing to pay, for example, $18.95 for "The Perfect Meal." Customers fill out an online form, and Rockwell reviews the specific request before scouting out the right location; he will also make the reservation for the client.

In announcing his new service, Rockwell sent out this release in which he noted:

As you read this letter, you should no longer consider me an “amateur” in the restaurant business; I am going to take my great passion – and perhaps my greatest area of expertise – and make it my career.

DCDining.com will have its soft opening next week, and will be the first of its type in the United States, if not the world – a concierge service where I will lead tourists, visitors, businesses, and anyone passionate about dining to the right restaurant. Publicity, hype, and marketing? They’ll have no effect on my decision making, and if I have any say in the matter, those superficial lures are going to have less and less importance as time goes by.

So why the new direction for Rockwell? As with a lot of things in life, it boils down to money, timing, and a need for more balance in life. For years now, Rockwell has had essentially two jobs: He's been working as a computer consultant for the Environmental Protection Agency since 1986. In his off hours, he's also been monitoring and managing his self-named board, which has grown from, as he noted in the announcement, "a tiny, close-knit band of marauding food pirates to a large, diverse community, with statistics measured in the thousands and millions."

Something had to give.  He needed to find a way to monetize the site, shut it down, or come up with another solution.

"There's nothing in it financially for me at all," Rockwell, 49, acknowledged about his foodie board. "What am I going to do when I'm 60? What am I going to do when I'm 70?"

DCDining was his answer. Rockwell has decided, for the time-being, to drop his EPA consulting gig and focus his energies almost exclusively on DonRockwell.com, which will remain unchanged and mostly advertising-free, as well as DCDining.com. He says he has enough money saved to sustain him for awhile until he can generate more income from his new project.

"I had to start somewhere, or I wouldn't have started at all," Rockwell wrote to me via e-mail. "I'm the kind of person who comes up with an idea, then just sticks my head down and plows forward. It's probably my biggest strength, and it's also probably my biggest weakness. One thing I know is that, in my mind, this is going to benefit both restaurants and diners, and that is my goal."

If Rockwell claims he won't be swayed by publicity, hype, or marketing, then what about chefs? His site features quotes from a number of them, including Eric Ziebold at CityZen, Frank Ruta from Palena, James Alefantis from Buck's Fishing and Camping, Edan MacQuaid from Pizzeria Orso, R.J. Cooper from the forthcoming Rogue 24, and a number of others.

Won't Rockwell feel compelled to send customers to the restaurants whose chefs have helped promote his new venture?

"The people I solicited quotes from are the people whose work I believe in," said Rockwell during a phone interview, noting perhaps one or two exceptions.

But what if one of these chefs started slipping, would you still direct your clients to their restaurants?

"No," Rockwell said, "I would stop sending people there."

Rockwell said he counts only four industry people among his friends, people with whom he socializes outside the context of their restaurants. Those folks are Ziebold, sommelier Mark Slater at Ray's the Steaks, Kavita Singh from New Heights, and Koji Terano from Sushi-Ko. Rockwell says he's always up front with people about these relationships, right down to listing them on his site. (Registration required.)

DCDining is only in its soft-launch phase and the requests are just trickling in. Ultimately, Rockwell said, he doesn't believe the brunt of his customers will be D.C. residents, who will continue to do what they always do: check reviews on the Washington Post, Washingtonian, Yelp, and, yes, DonRockwell.com. Instead, he hopes to tap into the hotel and convention networks, with the idea of providing tourists with information on where and what to eat.

If Rockwell seems to have perspective about who will use DCDining.com, he also has perspective about its name. DonRockwell.com takes the founder's name, but is focused on the larger dining community and its many opinions. DCDining, on the other hand, "doesn't have my name on it," Rockwell said, "and it's all about me."

Michael Landrum gobbles up more kitchen talent

It didn't take Frank Morales long to land on his feet. Just weeks after parting ways with Jackie Greenbaum and her industrial go-go/modern American eatery, Jackie's in Silver Spring, Morales found a new gig. It's our lead item in this edition of Food News You Can Use:

• Michael Landrum hires Morales to be director of culinary operations over all his Ray's themed restaurants. (GoG)  
• The Columbia Heights farmers market — excuse me, Columbia Heights Community Marketplace — will launch on June 5. (PoP)
• Egads! More cupcake competitions. (Washingtonian)

• A two-floor restaurant (with lofts above) is planned for Dupont Circle. (DCmud)
• Spike Mendelsohn will square off against Michael Symon on Iron Chef America on March 7. (Top Shelf)
• FOOD magazine editor is in hot water with her contributors. (All We Can Eat)
• Calvin Trillin's New Yorker piece on the mysterious Peter Chang has Team Rockwell scrambling to find copies of the magazine — or a photocopy of the story or, hell, even a cut-and-paste job. (Self-promotion alert: Y&H is mentioned in the story, too.) (DonRockwell)
• Kushi is set to mix it up (sushi with grilled meats, that is) next week in Mount Vernon Square. (Zagat) 
• Mount Vernon Square will also see the soft opening of Bar 7,which wants to cover all your nightlife needs. (Urban Daddy)
• Jump on the pisco party bus. (Thrillist)
• Posh and Polly's push up daisies. (GoG)
• Create a new Dunkin' Donut, win $12,000. (Endless Simmer)
• Restaurant Vero absorbs the last juices at Tap & Vine (Gut Check)
• Sushi Rock to launch your stage career next month in former Yaku space. (Y&H)

OK, if Zagat's time is over, as Y&H argues in tomorrow's cover story, where do you turn for reliable commentary and ratings on restaurants? Yelp? Chowhound? Urban Spoon? DonRockwell? Or some other outlet?

I don't think we've reached any sort of consensus yet, but the early response to my question this week is leaning hard on the standard media over the online newbies.  That's right, the Toms, Todds, and Tims have it (even Tyler, who's online but hardly new media).

The first person to respond to the question was Richard, who wrote in quickly and succinctly, if sloppily: "Hands Down, it's Tom Sietsma [sic] at Brand X." I asked Richard to elaborate on his choice, and here's what he wrote back:

Sure. Four things come to mind. First, his reviews are comprehensive–dishes to order and to avoid, ambience, service, decibel level (yes, I know!). Second, his writing is unusually articulate and expressive–lots of strong verbs and adjectives. Third, if he likes a place, and I try it, I have not been disappointed. And fourth, he visits a restaurant at least three times–and with a group to facilitate nibbling–before offering a review. The online reviews that I have read very rarely combine all four of Sietsma's strengths. BTW, I really enjoy reading you and do so every day.

Cynthia, on the other hand, prefers your own Y&H (and a Y&H predecessor), which is either a great endorsement for City Paper's style of food writing or a just great sucking-up. I, of course, prefer to believe the latter:

This is a very personal response and from one who is not young, but often hungry. You are right — Zagat is just a convenient directory and not necessarily up to date. I am not a fan of Tom at the Washington Post. One of my favorite critics was Brett Anderson who missed out on the competition at the Post (their and DC's loss) and went to New Orleans which must be a great gig (don't know if he is still there).

For DC I prefer Tim Carman (the recent heartfelt swoon about the Calvert Woodley rose was palpable)!!! and I go to the NYTimes and am sad that Bruni is leaving...but they cover local scenes well.

I feel somewhat qualified to judge having lived in Malaysia, Paris and Rome during glorious culinary eras, and been a fresh market hound (a la Julia Child) in those cities and translated for my own use one French cookbook and local recipes — in other words a devotee.

Do you see Carol Joynt's blog? (She being the owner of the now closed Nathan's in Georgetown). She whips up nice menus at home with good photos, and credits the sources of her bread, wine,etc. from local purveyors in addition to describing her meals at upscale and less restaurants where she seems to dine often in the region. I am not plugging her, but admire her sophisticated palate.

Raman prefers to turn to the major media, with an emphasis on the Washingtonian's coverage, for restaurant news and opinion:

I hate to say it, but at least in the DC area I was always pull out copies of my Washingtonian Top 100 restaurants or Cheap Eats or search Washington Post (Sietsma [sic] reviews only) when I need to figure out what restaurant that I haven't been to goto next. Sometimes I check out donrockwell.com. I do use yelp for random carryouts/delivery type places. For traveling I used to use guides like frommers and lonely planet to mixed success.

Gabe put a plug in for D.C.'s ethnic mouthpiece:

Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide. Cowen is a fascinating Economics prof at GMU. I have no connection with him or the school, I just love his dining guide. I've heard him speak a couple times, he's interesting dude...

There was one strong endorsement for the non-traditional media, and it came from Elizabeth, who wrote:

I would say above all – Chowhound. My perception is that Chowhound is populated by people who are serious about food and committed to finding good stuff and not wasting money on a bad meal. When I'm going to a new city, I spend a long time on it making tick marks for each time a place is recommended. If 3 or more people comment favorably about a place, it's probably good – 5 or 6 or more means it's definitely good. On the first day of my first trip to Philadelphia, I had dinner in a restaurant I'd discovered on Chowhound – I'd made a reservation a month in advance. I struck up a conversation with the Philadelphians at the next table who were shocked to learn it was my first day in town. "I lived here 2 years before I learned about this place!" Thanks, Chowhound!

Now here's the interesting thing about this informal question. The response that I received via my Twitter account leaned toward new media. Check it out:

• jarsenault @timcarman chowhound has very thoughtful commentary, but interface is too clunky to be my "neo-Zagat." Usually wind up w yelp & fav DC blogs
• sixfive @timcarman I trust Yelp, it's usually pretty spot-on.

Finally, two commentators on my original blog post say they still stick with Zagat.

Like I said, we have no consensus here. So don't stand on the sidelines! E-mail me with your favorite sources for restaurant commentary.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

What started as a simple request on the DonRockwell.com board has blossomed into a full-fledged Indian crab dinner/book signing/general-foodie-wonkiness dinner at Spice Xing in Rockville on Sunday, July 12.

Sudhir Seth, chef and owner of both Passage to India and Spice Xing, will team up with cookbook author Monica Bhide to offer a three-course dinner completely focused on blue crabs. The feast starts at 6 p.m. with crab tikkis, which are essentially Bhide's take on Maryland crab cakes, and moves on to pollachi crab masala (crab sauteed in fennel, cinnamon, pepper, and poppy seeds) and crab gassi mangalorean (crab in a curry gravy).

Sandwiched around these courses will be an aperitif called "pomegranate delight" — Bhide's rum cocktail with pomegranate juice, lime, and grenadine — and a dessert called shrikhand, which is a strained and flavored yogurt with fresh strawberries, kiwi, and mango. The opening course will be in audio form: Bhide will talk about her latest cookbook, Modern Spice, and sign copies.

The whole shebang will set you back $60, which includes a copy of the cookbook. So what's the catch? You have to go through DonRockwell.com to get your name added to the list. Sounds worth it to Y&H.

Alex Nicholson over at BrightestYoungThings got bored and decided to put together a Google map on where the Obama family has eaten since they moved into the White House. As Nicholson writes, "If you tell your boss you are making an 'Obama Ate Here' Google Map, and she says it's a good idea, it's okay to do it at work."

If you haven't read it yet, the Post's Reliable Source talked to Amanda McClements, Don Rockwell, and me about the Obamas' dining habits, which have already generated a major bump for Ray's Hell Burger and an unwanted bump at the Dairy Godmother.

Maverick meat man Michael Landrum — I just love saying those words together — informed his many Rockwellian followers yesterday that he's temporarily shelving his plans to open Ray's The Catch in favor of expanding his tiny Ray's Hell Burger shop. You can blame the president for dry-docking The Catch.

President Obama's visit last month to Hell Burger has been such a boon to the Arlington joint that Landrum has been forced to move the ground-beef operation just up the street to 1725 Wilson Blvd, the former location of Ray's The Steaks and the would-be spot for Ray's The Catch, the restaurateur's rebellious seafood outlet that will follow the RTS model of budget pricing.  As early as this week, the current Hell Burger location at 1713 Wilson will be transformed into The Hell Express, "for take-out, overflow and ice cream, floats and (maybe) shakes," Landrum wrote on DonRockwell.com.

The way Landrum explained it to Y&H this morning, the moves were necessary to save a ship in danger of sinking.

Hell Burger "was becoming so overcrowded that we needed a lifeboat to get people off," Landrum told Y&H. The only problem, the restaurateur noted, is that he didn't have a lifeboat. He just had a yacht, a recently refurbished one christened Ray's The Catch, which was ready to set sail right around the time of Obama's burger run.

There will be no long pleasure cruises now on Landrum's yacht— at least for the immediate future.  It's been commissioned into service for Ray's Hell Burger, doing the hard, thankless work of cranking out 10-ounce burgers for the masses who can't seem to get enough of them. Landrum is philosophical about turning his luxury yacht into a working boat. "What does it matter?" he says. "Use the goddamn yacht."

So how much has business increased since Obama's visit to Ray's? Landrum is coy. He doesn't want to give out hard numbers, but he will say this: Before Obama's stopover, Hell Burger was operating at full capacity on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, forcing staff to prep early and work late to serve everyone who walked through the door. Weekdays used to be a time when the Hell Burger team could sort of, kind of catch its breath.

Post-Obama, "our weekdays have become weekend numbers," Landrum says.  "It's been an all-hands-on-deck situation."

Landrum says he had an inkling this might happen once the media went mad over the president's visit to Hell. The story got play in media outlets half way across the globe, including Saudi Arabia, Landrum notes. The burger man was even re-interviewed when Obama visited Five Guys, for chrissakes.

"My first thought was, 'Oh my God, how great is this!'" Landrum says about the presidential drive-by. "But then my second thought was, 'What am I going to do to keep this from crushing us?'"

Just don't get used to the current situation. Landrum swears he will open Ray's The Catch eventually, hopefully in the very spot he intended. He says the restaurant is too important to him to just drop. "This is just a temporary solution," Landrum says. He expects to launch Ray's The Catch in late summer or early fall.

Assuming, of course, that demand for a Ray's Hell Burger has dropped off by then, which is a major goddamn assumption.

Photo by Apium