Posts

Showing posts from October 10, 2011

Not What You Would Expect

I ’ve watched some of these British cooking shows that look into the inner workings of restaurants and I kept hearing about Michelin stars. I thought, “that’s odd, in the UK Michelin is some rating organization for restaurants, but over here it is a tire company. Imagine my surprise when I looked up the Michelin Guide and discovered the tire man that is the Michelin tire company’s trademark. It made me wonder, how does a tire company become the symbol of excellence for restaurants. Michelin guides were started as a means to provide travelers with information about the area they were traveling through and I’m sure they were also meant to keep the Michelin name in front of the owners of automobiles. Michelin’s goal was to sell tires by placing an advertisement in every car. To keep that advertisement in cars, they had to turn their guide into a trusted resource. The only way to do that is to be very selective in which restaurants they recommended. It wasn’t enough to just list the rest...