Interesting perspective on how influential he thinks Chowhound was at lifting local spots to fame and fortune:
He first told me about Sripraphai in 1996, when it was a tiny Thai bakery in Woodside, with a reach-in case of salads, noodles, and desserts and no seating. He talked the place up until it evolved into the sprawling restaurant complex it is today.
Di Fara Pizza was another find he raved about on Chowhound, a neighborhood pizzeria that would have been of no particular interest other than for its isolated locale in Midwood and quirky owner. The first time he took me in the late 90s, I told him, “Jim, I could point to 20 other neighborhood pizzerias within a three-mile radius that are just as good.”
Mainly I wanted to see if the Arepa Lady made an appearance. Back then I did not know what an arepa was, but I always wanted to drive out to Queens and get one.
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
4
I remember Leff’s Chowhound “manifesto”. A bigger load of pretentious tosh I cannot recall reading anywhere. Mercifully, in my experience, few users of the site took such an elitist view of eating.
At this point, years after the demise of Chowhound, and decades after the beginning of Chowhound, it seems like articles about Chowhound is just like old folks reminiscing about the past.
Of course, but the question is about the publicity factor. Sripraphai became its own special brand / badge of honor in food-interested/obsessed circles, and what I was questioning is how much of the publicity that drove that originated from chowhound(s) focusing on it.
The NYT publicity factor is well-documented (even more in the digital age than when the under-$25 column ran – even the NYT critics admit that they used to wait to report so as not to overwhelm a small outlet with attention they couldn’t handle).
It was interesting to read (again) about the inter-connectedness of food writers at different publications and regular / enthusiastic eaters / explorers of non-mainstream eateries, and what (positive?) impact all that might have had. DiFara and Sripraphai are two extreme successes, which he posits owe their success to chowhound “discovery”.
What was readership like in the early 2000s? I suppose Hounds themselves may have been influencers/multipliers of a kind.
Chowhounds brought under-the-radar locales to the attention of professional food writers, whose huge sway could make or break them? That I’d believe.
Ah, thank you for sharing your memories and how they align with the story. Helpful!
By the time I joined Chowhound in 2008ish(?), I’m not sure it played the same role, especially in Washington, DC. Our food reviewer at the Washington Post, Tom Sietsema, was a very adventurous eater, covered a lot of small places, and the City Paper Washingtonian Magazine there also put out an annual Cheap Eats issue that I very much enjoyed reading!
Additionally (hey, I have time on my hands this afternoon), the next 5+ years on CH did the same for many undiscovered or newer places &, in my opinion, also provided the impetus for the creation or increased readership of other food web sites like eGullet, OA (now defunct as an interactive food board), Mouthfulsfood (MF). And, of course, let’s not forget where I’m writing this (for the past 10 years) or FTC, or the TripAdvisor board or other cooking, eating, &/or drinking boards and blogs. True, by the late 2000s, CH’s role was much smaller.
ChristinaM: in D.C., donrockwell.com was an offshoot of eGullet, where Don was a moderator (as was John Talbott).
Yes. Working in Union Square at the time, I found Chowhound to be a far more proletariat source of information than Zagat’s and the Times. I was looking for interesting $10 and under eating opportunities for my lunch break and this was the place to find them. A few writers (like the late, great Mister Cutlets) wrote about off the beaten path places (the spots where Punjab cabbies liked to eat), but most did not… and for that reason, Chowhound was a gift.
Jim Leff is a brilliant writer (even if I disgree with him often) and his Manifesto hit a nerve, the zeitgeist of so many out there looking exactly for that, even if they had no idea there were others out there with the same feelings. You don’t have to agree or like it, but there is no doubt that it was a rallying cry that worked. it instantly separated Chowhound form the prevailing eGullets of the world. It was also designed to scare away the wannabe foodies and improved the signal to noise ratio. It worked, and he created something unique that had value. The Manifesto was an essential part of the experience.
It takes a lot of pretending to say it didn’t both appeal and repel people in exactly the way it was designed to do.
I think the internet in general helped a lot with that. We have a small market in Ottawa, heck our two daily newspapers are owned by the same company, so the food reviewer in the one I read tends to review restaurants run by the more established chefs/restaurant owners. I love the mom 'n pop type places and I tend to find out about a lot of them on social media - rarely in the newspaper.
By the way, I would seriously recommend buying a copy of Leff’s book (yes, it’s still available) https://www.amazon.com/Eclectic-Gourmet-Guide-Greater-York/dp/0897322797#
If you’re at all familiar with NYC dining, its a treasure trove of some still familiar names &, of course, a great memory resource for
Oh yeah, I forgot, read the Editorial Reviews on the Amazon page. A great indicator of Leff’s influence circa 1998-2000
I was contacted quite a bit by publications looking for Washington, DC intel, so I know Chowhound had a magnifying effect.
However, there was no way we could save a place from closing if it could not find its audience. Nor could we tamp down the enthusiasm for popular places that did.
We are talking about NYC in the late 90s / early 00s.
The reigning food review source at the time was arguably the Zagat guide, which came out annually, and was used as an encyclopedia thereafter. Then there were the weekly reviews in the Times and the Voice (other local papers too) – the NYT had an under-25 column (that probably inspired others elsewhere), which also gave profile to many later-favorites that might not have gotten equivalent publicity without.
The other aspect that is hard to reconcile in today’s environment is that professionals – food writers and chefs alike – were inhabiting the same space as “regular people”, which is not a situation we would encounter today. The New Yorker article talks about Jonathan Gold, for example. Some of the forums chowhound inspired (or that were spun off by people out of hate of moderation or being ejected from it lol) were later more concentrated with professionals (eGullet) than others, some became hyper-regional, and so on.
But back to the original point, there wasn’t a way back then for small places to break into broader consciousness in a way that catapulted them to fame, other than being noticed somewhere (like chowhound) and then making their way around through word of mouth, and hopefully from there to someone with a more public pulpit / publication.
Today we have the inverse problem of needing to filter through piles of junky information / questionable reviews courtesy social media and instant publicity. But there is no established baseline between the reader and the reviewer, which the “trusted palate” implication of the forum might have provided back then.
— at least according to RS.
