The San Francisco Chronicle has a good piece on the new Zagat, but one gets the feeling that Zagat’s a bit behind the times. Somehow, old standbys such as the French Laundry, Cyrus and Acquerello seem so…yesterday. Of course, I didn’t much care for my 1997 meal at the French Laundry, and that was after the NYT called it “the most exciting place to eat in the United States.”
What is true is that we eat well in the Bay Area, and compared to other places, we do it for less, Zagat says:
The average meal cost in San Francisco is $38.88, which is fifth highest in the country, behind only Las Vegas (tops at $47.53), New York City, Long Island, and Miami. But before you start grumbling and shaking fists, consider that that number is still only a fraction of London ($69.25) and Tokyo ($113.09).
But oddly, we’re also among the worst tippers, Zagat reports.
I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still here.
As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.
As founder and an editor at ML, I've been trying to figure out how to make my interest in local news sustainable. If Mission Local is a model, the answer might be that you - the readers - reward steady and smart content. As a thank you for that support we work every day to make our content even better.
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