Hungry: San Francisco | Kaelin Burns & Nick Walsh | Talks at Google

Hungry started when a group of friends in 1999 sat down and wanted to write a dining guide. The way that they wanted to be able to find restaurants by neighborhood. The places that our mom and pop owned, that our family owned, that are one of a kind, you know, hole in the walls or not. But they wanted places that were good value, not cheap, but good for your money. So they wrote Hungry Los Angeles. The next year, in 2000, they branched out to New York with Hungry New York and also branched out to thirsty drinking guides that feature coffee houses, tea houses, bars, any kind of drinkeries, Boba, you know, all that good stuff. We're now in 10 different cities. Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, New Orleans, and very soon to come, Orange County. And one of our newest products that I brought with us with me is the Hungry Deck. It's a deck of 52 cards. Each card has a different restaurant on it and when you take the card to the restaurant, you'll get $10 off your meal. So this is a brand new product, really cool. Unfortunately, right now it is only in Los Angeles, but you know, hopefully we'll catch on the second year and we'll try to bring it to other cities. We also have a Thirsty deck for this coming year which has coffee houses, tea houses, wine shops and bars. So that was also really great. So Hungary is an ever expanding project company. It's really great. We are always adding new cities. If you feel that there's a city, your hometown, that's not already a hungry city, email us, let us know. Like I said, we're always adding new cities and they're not all announced right now, but they're always in the works.

So if you are involved in the publishing world at all, you always hear kind of doom and gloom stories about how publishing is going by the wayside and it's being replaced by, of course, a lot of online content and well, here's something that's actually taking off. So why do you guys think that this is doing so well?

Well, one of the things we think is really unique about our guide is that it's neighborhood by neighborhood. So no matter where you are, you're going to be able to find where you should be eating. It's organized very logically, geographically. We update them once a year. So, you know, while restaurant turnover is high and it's possible that the information might not be as current as if it were online, it is something handy that you can always have with you in your car when you're walking around. They're great if you're not from the area because it helps you orient yourself geographically. So they really have a lot of benefits that if you're not from an area, online content can provide for you.

You guys have this in front of you, but you can see that it covers 51 different neighborhoods. And you can get a quick overview up front about with the map and then it drills down into the specific neighborhoods. And so how I came to be involved in this is. I've done freelancing writing over time. As well as writing, it's been kind of a key component. I've written some fiction as well as worked on cookbooks. And this was an add in that went up on Craigslist looking for freelance writers who had a certain amount of background that lived in San Francisco or the Bay Area and could contribute. But it was free freelance writers. So you weren't going to be paid, but you get your name in here. Now. I earned money for my writing for the most part. And so the idea of just being included in something wasn't what I was looking for. But it seemed the structure of the book was really interesting and that they really wanted to push the locale. It wasn't just like, hey, anybody who's a freelance writer in the area, step up and we'll send you around and write something. It was. We really want people who know the restaurants who are local. So that. That was really appealing. And I lived in Potrero Hill at the time. I just moved over to North Berkeley and Potrero Hill has got this. If you guys know or been up there on 18th and Connecticut has got this little zone of just concentrated restaurants that I've gotten to know really well. And I've also been always interested in food. I actually have a cookbook presentation proposal at the moment with different publishing houses that I've been co writing with a friend of mine who's a chef in the area at Medjool Restaurant, which I wrote for in here. And so it seemed like a really neat opportunity. It wasn't. The outline was fairly specific about what they wanted. It wasn't a huge amount of information, but to be able to participate in something that would then represent the barrier was pretty cool, I thought. So this was all managed basically for email and Craigslist. So there was an editor who handled the area and he took in. I mean, I think there are like four, 40 or so contributors. I mean, it's a huge kind of editorial job. And you've edited the.

I'm currently editing the Orange county.

The Orange county one. Is that kind of a similar scope, like 40?

Yeah. No. I'm kind of in the middle of the process right now. So I'm posting on Craigslist. I'm hearing back from people who are interested. I'm constantly having entries turned in, so I'm formatting those, reading those. I'm also getting information for the sidebars. The sidebars are some of the last days we have in the books. Explain maybe a topic that's really close to San Francisco's heart or the city's heart and going into a little bit more depth about that. So that's kind of where I am right now in that process.

And I've actually never contributed. Maybe once I contributed to a review on Yelp. I'm wondering, actually, show of hands, how many people have written a review, a restaurant review, on Yelp? So it looks like about five people. And I think there's something about Yelp where you. You know, Todd, we actually just did a Google video that we're working on on a restaurant, and we talked to some people who have written on Yelp, and there are people who are addicted to writing on Yelp. Like, they just get so into it, you know, when can I go visit my next restaurant and get it up online? As soon as possible? And I think Yelp is very much a unique location, and it's a great way to do a quick spot check. But there is something convenient and appealing about a glove box guide about. You know, for some reason, heaven forbid that you shouldn't be connected to the Internet. You actually have something that you can turn to, and it has a fair amount of really useful knowledge. I think the way they break down this book is cool because they have the icons that you can get comfortable with. So when you do start to use it, you can really quickly flip and just look to see if it's everything from expensive to if it's an icon in the neighborhood and different types of food, if it's open late or not. And you also notice that the voice, as much as they edited it, there's a fair amount of different voices depending on the writers who contributed. So, you know, some are more humorous, some are more focused on just providing you with kind of just the facts. But I think that keeps it a bit interesting. Some might, you know, are you unevenly edited? But at the same time, Yelp is just. You've got more free for all anyway, so. But this kind of guide and the breakouts has a huge amount of information and really covers a massive area being the entire Bay Area, essentially up into Napa Valley. And the idea that people are actually living right around the corner from these spots is really helpful, as opposed to somebody who just kind of decided they visit a restaurant, are addicted to writing on Yelp, and threw something up. So when you guys look to restaurant reviews, you know, usually primarily it's a recommendation from a friend. How many of you actually go use books anymore and how many just use online? So how many people actually would read, say, God's Guide or something like that? Okay, so a fair amount of trust in that. And how many people go to Yelp regularly or some other or city search? Okay, so it's a broad mix. Are you guys. Do you have online plans as far as combining all this content?

We do, definitely. We're relaunching our website very soon, which will have searchable content, which will be really great. Kind of just a way for us to keep crossing over. And then we're also going to be having a city blog for each one for each of our cities that we have a book in which will feature five contributors from each city writing regularly about new restaurants, new things that are happening. So we definitely want to keep up to date with all the new stuff that's going on.

And it's an interesting, I think, turn of events in the publishing world, where oftentimes the challenge is now to be competitive in an online environment. But you have contributors who are essentially doing free work, although they're qualified because they do background checks about how much freelance ready to be done. So it's not a total free for all in a sense, but it also enables them to cut down on costs and make sure that you're providing good content, but also involve locals and not have a lot of overhead by paying these guys.

Definitely. I've gotten a lot of angry emails from writers being like, you know, I shouldn't have to write for free. You know, why are you doing this? And one of the things that we say in our ad is that you write for free. So you can get the byline, you can get your bio in the book. If you're a new writer, this is a really great way to get some coverage. You have clips if you're trying to, you know, get writing jobs other places. One of the other things we say is that you have the opportunity to write for pay in the future. And one example of this is our new city blog. All of those people will not be paid for the writing they're doing for our city blog. So we really do mean it when we say that you might have that opportunity later on to get paid. So I think I like that we support, you know, we follow up with what we actually say, which, I mean.

Coming from a writer's perspective, is to break in and to just automatically get paid right off the bat is, you know, it's a bit of a pipe dream. Definitely. Having something like this is a great opportunity, I think, to be able to start getting going in the whole writing. Either you put together a proposal, hopefully get an agent, pitch publishing houses, or else you start to write for a local paper. And then over the course of two years, you finally get to the level where they publish consistently. But I was going to take a quick sec to exercise my ego here and read a little bit one of the reviews that I put in just to give you guys kind of a sense of both Potrero Hill and the writing stylistically and the information that they asked us to present. So just I'll read the popular dish and then the ambiance clientele. So how many of you guys have actually been up to Potrero Hill or been to Chez Papa? Oh, so you know it pretty well. It's a cool little French bistro out of the corner there that has a great view. And it was actually owned by a Frenchman, which helps to have a French restaurant. The classic southern France dish of moule is very popular, and they have two options. Mussels provencal with garlic charlotte cherry tomatoes, nicoise olives and pastis and mussels nicoise with aioli, saffron, shallots and white wine. Use bread to soak up the savory juices or order the frites. Alternate between dipping in the aioli and the juices for the indulgent. Everyone raves about the roasted filet mignon with potato parsnip croissant and the truffle foie gras and the ambiance clientele. The overarching theme here is honest joy de vivre. Most anything goes with the clientele probably tending toward tending to put more thought into their choice of personal fragrance and shoes than the average diner. The vibe is international, with most of the waitstaff hailing from France. The owner's purported goal was to replicate the friendly local bistro where he grew up in the south of France. And he succeeded admirably. Scents of garlic, fennel and saffron pour out of the kitchen. The service is very professional, but not intimidating. You won't find the snooty attitude of some Parisian waiters here, so don't hold back on asking the staff for recommendations. And that was very much in the guidelines for what they wanted, as far as trying to go and get a sense of the place and not just, okay, you know, these dishes are good and it's cool, or something. So I actually went and talked to the owner, and right down the block, as opposed to just writing kind of a general restaurant review after you visited it, they wanted you to go and try to investigate a bit and get more of a sense of what's the unique nature about this, beyond the fact that, oh, it's in my neighborhood and the food is really good. So I thought that was a pretty cool approach that they actually just didn't say, hey, send us what we can get. We'll put it in there. They came back, asked more questions. It was pretty interactive.

This is a really great example of what we look for, because everything in Hungary is recommended for a reason. Whether it's a really great dish, amazing service, like you said, a great view. We always want to highlight the things that would bring you there. We never publish negative reviews. There's really no point in reading about a restaurant you don't want to go to. So we only publish stuff that you would want to see. One of the things that's different about our guide is we don't do a numbers rating system. Unlike some other guys, just don't say the B words. And the reason we do this is because we're just very upfront about it. Here's why it's good. Here's why we think you should go here. Not everyone's gonna like it, but someone recommended it for a reason, and that's kind of how we stay true to our, you know, eat like the locals. Someone who lives here who goes there all the time likes this place and thinks that it's worth talking about. So that's what we like to stick to.

So when you guys go out to eat, how many? Well, it's a little tricky at this institution because sheer amount of calories are available to us. But how many of you guys go out to eat once a week? Raise your hands. Okay, so how many go twice a week? How many go three times? Wow. So that's about. For people on YouTube, that's about. Almost everybody goes out once a week. Half go out twice, and at least I'd say 15 go out three times. Now, when you go out, do you go out to the local joints that you know, or how many of those are kind of investigative trips? How many are investigative trips? Show of hands. Okay. So every week you try to go out and check out the new restaurant, but most of the time it sounds like you're going out to the local dub down the street, which in San Francisco, we're kind of swell because that's easy to do. And all the ways in which some things. The lay of the land is here. You have a lot of neighborhoods, and there's such a devotion to food and such an amazing amount of fresh ingredients that are getting better and better. Is that a foodie culture that you guys have? I mean, how many here are native San Franciscans? Okay, that would be zero. So did you have an expectation when you came here that this foodie scene would be here, or were you just kind of swept up or. I'll ask that on a yes. No. So how many people were kind of got into it once they arrived, and how many people expected that when they arrived here? So San Francisco definitely has a rep. I mean, seeing all these other guides, obviously we have a captive audience here, all of whom live in the city. But how would you say it compares to the other cities in culinary sophistication or enthusiasm?

I think that everyone loves their city for a reason. They love this food about their city. And then if you ask anyone from New York, they're going to tell you the reasons that they love their Chinese food or their pizza or whatever. In Los Angeles, I mean, people definitely. There's tons of foodie blogs in addition to, you know, that are in the same market as the books that we have. So I think that every city has their own culinary scene. I think sometimes it's more apparent. Like, I think you're right. I think San Francisco does kind of have now Sonoma being so close. I think that mix of food and wine in regular, everyday life is definitely a part of it. But I don't know if you can from Los Angeles. I'm kind of biased, too, I guess.

Okay, so another question. How many of you guys, because most of you are not from San Francisco, how many people think that the food they've encountered in San Francisco is better than their home, the food from where they're from? Okay, so it's about half a little more than. But you probably are also eating out a lot more than you did when you were back home eating mom's cooking? Well, I'm just going to take some time to open up the floor for some questions, and I can go into a bit more detail about the restaurants that I reviewed. I actually think I interviewed. I reviewed one where either wasn't in this or there were Two people who were reviewing it, but I reviewed Chie Papa Majul in the Mission Che Maima, which is right next to. And then there's Aperto, which is also up on Potrero Hill. It's an Italian place. Or if anybody wants has any questions about Potrero Hill restaurants or any questions for hungry guys and kind of future plans. We only have one mic, so I kind of go back and forth here. Any questions? I was just curious if you're going to bring the. The cards to the San Francisco.

Hopefully, yeah. I mean, this is our second year in Los Angeles, so we're definitely, you know, restaurants are catching on. They're seeing that it's a really great deal for them. It's a great product for us. People really like it. So we're hoping it's just a matter of, you know, laying the groundwork for that. So definitely. I mean, there seems to be a lot of demand already here for it.

So.

I had a question for you. Maybe I missed this because I came in a couple minutes late, so I apologize for asking a stupid question, but, I mean, the whole focus of this is kind of focused on local restaurants. How do you kind of manage between, you know, picking a local restaurant that local people like to go to, but getting enough reviews and having enough consistent information that you feel confident that you're giving a fair review of it? Is there a threshold that you meet for reviews or a certain restaurant or, you know, can someone write in with the same review for restaurant and you'll publish it?

Like I said, it's one person's recommendation for a restaurant. So not everybody might like it. Not everyone might agree with that review, but we take that one person's review. We don't try and compile them or come up with, like I said, a number system to rate them. We want to stay true to the person who recommended it. That's why there are a lot of different voices in these books. Some people are very straightforward. These people are very human. You can tell who the writers are. You can tell who really loves their presentation of food, you know, so we really just want to stay true to the person who wrote it and that restaurant. Any other questions?

I don't really have a question, but as you thing I'm really excited about this before is the pricing model of it, just how it's, you know, real people eating.

When I got.

I grew up in la and then I moved up here, and I, you know, keep hearing San Francisco is one of the best places to eat. There's so Many fantastic restaurants. And anytime I look online, they're all, you know, $80 and above for two.

People to go eat.

And you don't want to go do that every night of the week?

Yeah, definitely.

So I think that's one of the.

Like I said, we're looking for a stuff that's good quality. We're not cheap. We're just looking for good food at a good price. We all want to be able to eat out a lot of times a week because there are so many great places. But it needs to be reasonable. Glad you like it.

How many of you guys had heard about this series before? Had anybody heard about Hungry sf? And when you go out, there are a lot of establishments. We won't name them again, established guides. And when you go into a bookstore, because of the availability of Yelp and other sources online for reviews like this, to actually make this purchase, would you normally just go out and look at restaurant review books or look at cooking or is that something you'd happen upon, usually from a recommendation for a brand? How many folks would actually go and seek out and buy a restaurant review book these days? Just a couple. Okay.

I find that they're really useful traveling. I mean, they are really great for your own city because there's so many places in here that, you know, I know in the LA guy that I was like, really? That they're like, I can't believe that I missed that. You know, so they are great for your own city if you want to, you know, find out more. But they're really great for traveling, too, because, like, I'm here for the weekend. I'm really excited to try all these really great restaurants. So I think they have a vegan heel and the travel guide, too.

And what's the Yaris on? Yaris?

Okay. So this is one of our partnerships that we did with Toyota. This is the Los Angeles guide in here. Yaris bought it from us and wanted to have it in all their cars that they sold in 2007. So this is one of our really big partnerships. We're really excited about it. We're constantly working with hotels, airlines. We're, you know, always trying to get our books out there. They are in all major bookstores, so that's kind of cool. You know, anytime you go to order Barnes and Noble, you can go and be like, that's my book. I'm in there. You know, and they are available online. So, you know, they're out there. They're everywhere. And one of the things I did forget to mention in 2007, we launched our family guides. This is actually one of our newer projects and we're really excited about it. Really. Sorry, I forgot it. This is a book of family friendly establishments, places that welcome your kids whether they're screaming or whether they're really well behaved. So. So this tells you when the best times to go are, whether it's earlier or later, what kind of treatment you're going to get from the staff, what kind of options they have as far as kids, menus, high chairs, all that great stuff. So we now have three family guides. Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle. And we'll definitely be expanding that as well. And one of the other projects we're working on for next year is Healthy Hungry Healthy. It'll be a bright blue guide and it's going to be all of the really like strict, like vegan, vegetarian, really healthy, kosher, all of those restaurants that focus on those things. So we're really excited about that as well.

And how are you finding writers for these groups? Is it always Craigslist? Is that kind of a start? Is it word of mouth?

As long as I've been doing it, it's Craigslist. But it's also like, I mean, obviously being in Los Angeles, there's a lot of people who are from Orange county. So they'll be like, hey, I'm the editor for the Orange County. I'd be like, oh, I'm from orchestrating. Like, I want to write up this restaurant. I'm like, great. And then somebody like, oh, my mom's a food eater, she wants to write up this restaurant. I'm like, cool. Have her email me. So, you know, it is word of mouth, but crisis is a really great way to reach a lot of people.

So when you do the family or the healthy guide, I mean, ideally they are in that position, have family. Or are you also taking just folks who've written in the past about in Seattle and kind of connect first?

Well, when we sent out the Craigslist, as we were obviously that it's for a family guy. So we're looking for restaurants that are family friendly. So hopefully only writers who feel that everywhere are contacting us.

Having two kids right now, all of a sudden your priorities change drastically between really good tasting food to really good food that you can actually have time put in your mouth when you're sitting at a restaurant. Well, I don't have anything else. I could a couple more excerpts. Although they usually deal with food and we're about to have lunch, so people might be too hungry to be able to sit in their chairs. Do you have any other questions? Any questions for Mountain View? All set. We'll get some books down to you guys, too. Okay. Well, thanks very much for coming out and picking up a book.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thanks, Caitlin.