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Monday, May 5, 2008
Can You Get Anything You Want at Alice’s Restaurant?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ARLO GUTHRIE: Folksinger, menu-maker
Photo: Brian Kersey/AP
Why doesn’t someone ring me up at work and ask me to endorse a restaurant? The latest frozen yogurt? The pretzel stand at Turner Field?
I’ll tell you why. I’m not a celebrity. It’s the saddest case of the rich getting richer there ever was, but the folks with the most are always the ones asked to make more. I mean, for crying out loud — I sound as good as that chick that used to be on West Wing, you know, Allison Janney? How come she gets all the voiceovers?
Right here in Atlanta we’ve got newly opened Straits from rapper-cum-restaurateur Chris Bridges, aka Ludacris. And That 70s Show alums are all part of the money behind Dolce (if I were them I’d disassociate myself from that one…). Heck, Usher backed the Grape in Inman Park. Dog (or is that dawg?). Mega music man Jermaine Dupri backs Cafe Dupri and Gladys Knight’s name is all over Chicken and Waffles.
The latest? Arlo Guthrie has actually stamped his approval on a restaurant called — here’s a stretch — Alice’s Restaurant. No, it’s not in Stockbridge, Mass., where the real restaurant (which has had several names over the years, none of which were ever “Alice’s Restaurant”) is. It’s a dining venue inside Hard Rock Park (a 55-acre theme park) in Myrtle Beach, S.C., scheduled to open May 9.
Well dang, kid. Apparently Guthrie even had a hand in designing the menu, which offers up Italian specialties, vegetarian and vegan dishes as well as New England clam chowder. There’s even a “Group W Bench” as part of the Colonial-style structure’s interior.
Whether you can get anything you want remains to be seen. My how times have changed. Would you be more apt to visit a restaurant if it was endorsed in some way by a celebrity? If so, why? Or why not?
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