There are a lot of happy restaurant PR clients out there. I am sure of it. Mostly because I don't hear from them. 

But there are a number of restaurant PR clients that aren't. I know because I do hear from them.

When I meet with these unhappy people, I do try and set one record straight:  Your publicist isn't bad at her job. She is likely doing a great job. The problem is, she has crappy tools. She is stuck, in kitchen analogy, cutting a ripe tomato with a butter knife. And since the chef has her in missle lock, she is taking her time, considering her options, trying this out and then that, sweating, calling her girlfriend to kvetch about her job, knowing she could do better, if only.

The problem is, restaurant PR is a broken business model. Always has been, always will be. We just didn't have any options before on how to make it better. We worked with what we had, like surgeons in the middle ages, trying desperately to keep the patient alive with some leeches, a sprinkling of a murky-smelling herb, and a lot of hope.

Back in the day, I used to sit in my parents' basement and stuff envelope after envelope to distribute releases. Seriously, I bought them in lots of 10,000. Insane and expensive, but there was no other way. I can remember, then, my joy when faxes became commonplace. Then email.

Now, we live in a world of websites, twitter, text, Facebook.  We live in a world of à la minute video-feed shot, cut and distributed from a cell phone, for the love of God.

And yet, there are still those publicists who buy envelopes in large lots, write arduous and convoluted releases no journalist can possibly read (while trying desperately to keep their job), dump the releases in the post and hope.

I don't hate publicists, I hate that they cling mightily to outdated tools they are still demanding they should use.