A new dine team and a change of pace

You surely know Bob Townsend who, in addition to serving as our longtime beer columnist and frequent food writer, already has been writing and blogging for us about restaurant openings and dining news. Well, we've put a ring on it. Bob and Alexa are now on the team, in charge of dining news and information. Look for their frequent contributions on the Food & More blog as well as in Friday's Go Guide.

Jenny Turknett remains our restaurant critic, writing critical, starred assessments of restaurants. Her job is to make the call — to point her thumb up, down or somewhere in between based on multiple visits to the restaurant. Former dining team member Jon Watson will pinch hit with reviews occasionally.

As for me, I’m stepping away from formal reviewing and instead writing opinionated blog posts and print articles about dining experiences as they happen. This may sound like splitting hairs, but it isn’t. Let me explain.

When I started writing reviews for this paper (gulp) 16 years ago, there were very few outlets for published opinion on dining and none with the local impact of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I took the responsibility seriously, making sure the reviews were comprehensive and the criticism measured.

Part of this equation remains true today. No other outlet has quite the impact of a review in the daily paper. The review remains an important reader service.

But the number of opinion outlets has increased dramatically, including not just local bloggers, Yelp and Urbanspoon but also, frankly, Facebook and every other social media forum. People today form their opinions about restaurants through dialogue.

The “reviews” that populate online media are not reviews in the traditional sense but are most often descriptive downloads of single experiences. They can certainly be shallow, but they can also be funny, well written and insightful. These writings, which take the reader along for the ride, sometimes get to the truth of a restaurant that a more formal review misses.

Look for me to blog and write about interesting new discoveries and older restaurants that need a revisit. I won’t be assigning star ratings or making a comprehensive assessment of the restaurants I visit. Rather, I hope to take you along on the meals as I experience them. One thing I won’t be doing is holding back on my opinion. That’s what should make this fun.