Economics of Restaurants (Second Prize,Two Nights in Fresno Dept.)

We spent two nights in a Radisson in downtown Fresno this week (don’t ask). Downtown Fresno is—well, think downtown St. Louis, Downtown Phoenix, Downtown Baluchistan, where they shoot anything moving at night because nobody would be out there but a drug runner. No, don’t think Baluchistan, but think of any American city where you can fire a cannon after 5 p.m. and wait for the echo.

Bear with me, there’s a point here. I mean: we like to eat, but ten years ago, faced with a challenge of this sort, the chances are we would have hunkered down over the mini-bar or accepted the humiliating ministrations of the drab-looking restaurant in the lobby. If there was a good restaurant in Fresno, how would we know? And if we knew, how would we find it?

Think what we do now. No, there is not a Zagat Fresno, but just five minutes of Googling and we had found—well, maybe not Aureole, but still, half a dozen choices that looked at least passably promising.

Next spot—how to find them? They weren’t downtown, and Fresno seems to sprawl out over about half the San Joaquin Valley. The hassle of charting the course would have been enough, if not to defeat me, then at best to generate an unpleasant half hour of wrong turns, missed exits, and squinting under a flashlight at a wrinkled map.

Today, not a problem. We have a GPS, so we fire up the computer and let the mystery voice tell us where to go. And not to make a long a story of it, things worked just as they should—not once, but twice, or actually three times: one of our choices was closed and we were able to bop on to Plan B without missing a beat.

In short, satisfying, painless, and a thousand times better than the mini bar. For the record: Campagnia is a bit overdone, but passable with a nice wine list. Chef’s Table is way more pretentious than it needs to be: the food was fine, and the wine topnotch (try the Pillar Box Shiraz). Oh, and Echo is closed.

There is a point around here: somehow how things aren’t what they used to be. I’m wondering in particular what this sort of thing does to the lobby restaurant business. Or, come to think of it, to the seemingly fancier places out in the edge of town. Is it truly harder for the one to keep, and easier for the other to get, the customers they want?

[Afterthought-- reservations: in the end, it seems they aren’t a big deal in Fresno. But of course I did have my cell phone—no, strike that, we both had cell phones. Here’s one guy I wouldn’t want to be: the chap in the hotel org whose compensation is a function of those irritating hotel telephone charges.]

Update: I was too hard on Fresno restaurants. Tonight in San Francisco, we dined at a Zagat 23 where the food was no better, and the wine a good deal worse.