Image via WikipediaThe Route 17 restaurant, which replaced South City Grill, is several notches above the usual places for such farewells.
Newsroom employees at The Record have staged their send-offs at Tracy's Nine Mile House, General Poor's Tavern, Harley's Irish Pub and Olive Garden. About 15 years into my employment at the former Hackensack daily, I got sick of attending going-away parties, likely because I was stuck in a dead-end, night job on the news copy desk.
Kevin O'Neil
I do recall vividly a party at Tracy's Nine Mile House in Little Ferry. I can't remember who the departing employee was. I do remember watching Kevin O'Neil, husband of Deirdre Sykes, drink more liquor than I had ever seen one person consume. Together, they looked like Laurel and Hardy.
Sykes went on to become head assignment editor and Mother Hen in the Hackensack newsroom, and O'Neil was put in charge of graphics for northjersey.com.
For years, with no improvement in how the paper's Web site looked or how easy it was to use, many wondered just what O'Neil did -- beside being the husband of one of the most powerful newsroom editors, who could stifle the career aspirations of a news copy editor like me.
Then, O'Neil's job was eliminated without explanation, which is the way things are done at North Jersey Media Group, and he was gone. But Sykes remained, to the relief of all the local reporters she had pampered, including those involved in the failed, outrageously expensive investigation of former lawman Michael Mordaga that dragged on for nearly three years.
Pitcher and Bistro 55
I don't know who chose Bistro 55 for Pitcher's farewell tonight. Did the restaurant give him a special deal, in return for his two-and-a-half star review? And maybe it's only coincidence Bistro 55 is owned by South City Group, which has received a great deal of favorable publicity in the food pages during his tenure as editor.
On Jan. 22, 2008, Pitcher wrote an article about the ambitious plans of South City Group's owner. But in a March 2008 review of South City Prime, Staff Writer Elisa Ung panned the steakhouse for a "series of too rare steaks and rotten sushi" (one and a half stars, Fair to Good).
Despite the poor review -- or because of it -- South City began buying big ads in The Record's Friday entertainment tabloid.
Then, the paper seemed to reverse course. Pitcher's highly flattering profile of Gregory Webb, the new South City executive chef, ran on Nov. 5, 2008. It started on the front of the Better Living features section with a large, color photo of the chef holding two enormous fish. The moody lighting seemed to say, This chef knows his stuff, and will turn the company around.
On June 1, 2009, Pitcher used the Second Helpings blog to provide readers with a long "chronology" of South City Group. In the blog on June 15, 2009, Pitcher announced the closing of South City Grill and the hiring of Chef Ken Trickilo. Trickilo would replace Webb as corporate executive chef.
Ung as in tongue
In July 2009, Ung gave two stars (Good) to Fire & Oak in Montvale, a new South City concept, despite "hard, cold rice" in a sushi roll, ribs "without a trace of warmth," overcooked lobster and undercooked peas, soggy romaine in a salad, "outrageously salty crust" in a $30.95 steak and an entree with tuna that wasn't freshly seared. As Ung's supervisor, Pitcher would have edited and approved all of her copy.
At one point, inspired by fireplaces in a South City restaurant, Ung even wrote a ground-breaking Sunday column on such restaurants, appealing to all the serial foot-warmers among her readers.
Then, when South City Group launched a new restaurant or replaced its executive chef, the paper or the blog carried all the breathless details. The blog announced the opening of Bistro 55 on Sept. 10, 2009, and on Sept. 25, 2009, Pitcher ran photos of the bar and food.
On Oct. 2, 2009, the Starters column gave readers a first look at Bistro 55, with Trickilo in the kitchen. Pitcher's highly favorable review appeared on Jan. 1, 2010, in Better Living, and a capsule of that review ran on April 16, 2010.
More ad dollars
The hiring of Ung by Pitcher and Features Director Barbara Jaeger allowed The Record to expand restaurant coverage and turn it into a tool for attracting more advertising.
The restaurant reviews, which once ran without a photo and took up less than a full tabloid page, were now splashed across two pages of the centerfold in the entertainment tabloid published every Friday, with large color photos on the cover or inside or both, including mouth-watering shots of the food.
There were two problems, however. The expanded coverage coincided with the start of the recession, which would see restaurant patronage plummet. And the reviews clearly had crossed the line from being informative to blatant promotion -- as if designed to attract more advertising, not serve readers.
Photos lie
Even a poorly prepared dish of questionable quality looked great in a close-up photo, and whether a restaurant was a one-star disaster or a heavenly four-star affair, all got equal editorial billing.
Pitcher's bias toward fine dining also was apparent when the Dining Out on $50 column lost all value to readers looking for ethnic or family restaurants where four people could eat for that amount, including tax and tip.
As restaurant meals got more expensive, Jaeger apparently was unwilling to reimburse the budget-restaurant reviewer more than $50, so the number of people to be fed for that amount was cut to two. In the past six months or so, columns such as Marketplace and Starters have become less frequent.
When Pitcher was hired in June 2006, he was about 30 years old, and had no food-editing experience, but he fit Jaeger's profile of a young subordinate she could push around. Later, with no opposition from Pitcher, Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded the Food section. In more than four years as food editor, Pitcher never wrote about the obesity epidemic.
Pitcher was paid $70,000 to start -- more than the veteran food editor he replaced, Patricia Mack, who Jaeger forced to retire, in the same way she got rid of other older workers in her department.
The young food editor also became an unwitting pawn in an age-discrimination suit filed against The Record after I was denied the job.
You are the first person I ever heard say a bad thing about Kevin O’Neil. Writing about him “drinking” at a party was a low blow.
ReplyDeleteYou are entitled to your opinion.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Kevin was part of a long line of people who were laid off because this despicable management team never takes responsibility for its own mistakes. Somebody has to take the blame so they randomly point and bang, you and your family are destroyed. Better you than me.
ReplyDelete