The Lion's Share

(Continued from "The Critic at Large")

Saturday night was packed. By seven-thirty we’d already done better than any of the previous three weekends. As I roamed the tables glad-handing, I heard the same thing again and again.

“Do you know Tom Whalen talked about you on the radio today?”

I did know that. He talked about us for less than a minute, and while it was positive it was hardly a rave. “Real nice little place,” is how he put it, as I recall. “Lot of room for improvement, but boy! Do they have potential.”

Yet here we were in a full restaurant, and the only thing that could account for the boom was Tom Whalen’s lukewarm endorsement. At the end of the night, I ran the report and found our sales were nearly half again as much as the previous Saturday’s. That was from one brief mention, a glancing reference as he moved from one topic to another. Talk about sway. Whatever it was he wanted to discuss at our meeting on Monday, Whalen had firmly established that he would be setting the agenda.

He looked yellower in the daylight. It wasn’t just his teeth this time but his skin and eyes and even his beard, which had that corn-silk tint some white beards get. I used to think it was from cigar smoke or tobacco spittle but now I’m not so sure. At any rate, Tom Whalen’s paint card ran from Morning Daffodil to Final Stage Jaundice. We sat across from each other at a table for four and made small talk about the weather and the traffic before he started the long process of getting to the point.

“Charlie, in my regular life, I own a public relations firm,” he said. “I help companies to identify their place in the market, and I show them how they can improve their position.”

“Huh,” I said, and meant it.

“But my real passion has always been good food and wine. I was a foodie before the word even existed. I’ve loved food my whole life, since I was the same age my grandchildren are now. And I’ve been blessed to turn that passion into a second career, where I get to write and talk about food to a very big audience.”

He stopped himself mid-spiel and addressed what had so far gone unaddressed. “You’re familiar with my column?”

“Of course.”

“And you’ve probably seen my TV appearances on KCRP.” He gave me a second to nod. “Everyone’s seen those. Have you heard my radio show yet?”

“I heard it this weekend,” I said. “Great show.”

“Now as you know, Charlie (and thank you for that) as you know there are a bunch of websites out there – Yelp and the like – that exist for people to get on and say negative things about restaurants. Just complain and complain. Well, I think there’s enough negativity out there. I like to give people the good news. What I like to do is I like to find places like yours, places I’ve enjoyed, places I believe in, and try to bring them to a wider audience.”

“You certainly did that this weekend.”

“Business was good?”

“It was great.”

“I’d like to think my mention maybe helped a little bit?”

“There’s no maybe about it. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Charlie, you’re welcome. It was my pleasure. As I said, I think you’re doing a great job here, and I want to share that information with my people. And when I say ‘my people’ I mean the community I’ve created – and we really are a community. Sometimes I’ll organize a dinner party and we all meet at one of my favorite restaurants. We fill up the place!”

He leaned back with an excited smile as if recalling extravaganzas past. The server brought him an iced tea and Whalen started shoveling sugar into it.

“It’s remarkable just how many people respond to my recommendations. I have a very loyal audience.” He took a sip of his iced tea, considered it, and put down the sugar spoon. “Now as I said, I like to bring people good news. And the good news for you, Charlie, is I’ve figured out a way for select restaurants to enjoy the benefits of that loyalty.”

It worked like this. At the start of every quarter, I would write Whalen a check for eleven hundred dollars. That would make the restaurant one of “Whalen’s Picks” on his website and open the door to a host of other benefits. There would be a full review on the radio, a featured spot on the KCRP midday news, and down the line we’d be a venue for one of the dinners he hosted for the Tomcats, which is how Whalen, without a whiff of irony or condescension, referred to his fanbase.

“Now of course, all those things won’t happen in the same quarter. I find it’s best, both for you and for me, to spread the targeting out over the course of a year.”

“Sure.”

 “Oh, and one last thing. In addition to the fee, I ask Whalen’s Picks to provide Mrs. Whalen and myself with two meals per month, either dine-in or take-out, whichever we’re up for that night. That’s so I can make sure the quality of the food and experience remains top-notch and I can go on recommending it to my people.”

I told him I’d need a day or two think it over. 

The whole thing stank. I was supposed to pay Whalen to shill the restaurant to people who regarded him as either a legitimate critic or a trusted friend. He was neither, and to sponsor him would make me complicit in the deceit, and then I’d have to keep my face from sinking every time an excited new guest told me, “I heard about you on Tom Whalen!”

He called me three days later. That itself was unusual. The follow-up for such a marketing opportunity usually comes via email.

“I avoid email whenever I can,” Whalen told me. “I prefer face to face, or telephone when that’s not possible. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. I avoid email all the time.”

“Hey listen, I was wondering if you had a chance to think about what we discussed the other day.”

“I did,” I said. But for all the thinking I’d done, I still hadn’t come up with an answer. It wouldn’t help to put it off any longer, so after another second’s thought I said, “Let’s give it a try.”

If my conscience hadn’t been able to win its case in forty-eight hours, I figured it didn’t have much of a case.

(Continued in "ROI")