Sourcing the Skinny on BC’s Restaurant Industry
August 14, 2007 at 10:20 am
· Filed under Openings & Closings, Restaurant News
So here’s the deal with Spanish. It’s not a real restaurant. I made it up. Read on:
Why the invention, you ask?
A while ago it was brought to my attention that a Toronto-based national website appeared to be “borrowing” information posted on Urban Diner and passing it off as original reporting without referencing us as the source.
Doubtful, I checked it out and saw that one writer in particular seemed to be particularly apt at this trick. I wasn’t absolutely positive if she was scanning our site for information on new openings, but it seemed like every time a new restaurant would pop onto our list of anticipated new restaurants, the same news would appear under her byline without the appropriate link-back attribution.
I’m not in the business of whining (unless you get me up at 6am), but this kind of thing has always chafed my ass. There is supposed to be honour among thieves online.
And so I came up with the idea of Spanish, created the concept and the owners out of my imagination, and enlisted the help of a few Gastown restaurant nabobs to help foster and push the fiction along.
I didn’t want to deceive any of our regular readers, and I’m sorry if you’re disappointed that Spanish isn’t real (God knows I’d want to eat there!). Really, I just wanted to see if the same writer would pounce.
I was surprised to see that the fake email address I put up on Spanish’s phony website got plenty of action from POS peddlers, coffee roasters, wine agents, breweries, ad execs, food writers, and the like. I had no idea that UD was a being used as a sales generator. Good for you savvy folks! But I wanted the fish I was after.
I didn’t have to wait long. Less than a week after I posted news of the fake restaurant, up it went under her byline:
¡Hablo español! Poquito…
If your skills in the Latin language are rather limited, you’ll be relieved to know that this Argentinean restaurant will employ servers fluent in English, but don’t go expecting bilingual dishes as well.
Chef Simon Ibanez, partner Javier Russo and Nora Russo (Javier’s wife) are taking on the tapas trend full throttle by hoping to add some authenticity to the Spanish dishes. Look for the 45 seat dining space to open mid-October 2007.
Sigh.
Permalink
fishguy wrote @ August 14, 2007 at 10:40 am
You had me going - jokes aside I share you point of view, let them do thier own work.
Graeme wrote @ August 14, 2007 at 10:43 am
Are you going to sue them?
No.
That’s classic!
mierda del toro! What a shame I need some real tapas in Gastown. Great trick Andrew and to all those that went along.
Great stuff!
Seriously, when does this place open?
You’re a sneaky F#$%er. Nice work!
r.tay wrote @ August 14, 2007 at 4:21 pm
oooh- shame on those m. boys :)
Arne wrote @ August 14, 2007 at 6:49 pm
What a waste of your time Andrew. Both the plagerizers and your prank.
Yes, I was able to fit even more wasted time into my weekly wasted time budget.
Mark wrote @ August 14, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Nicely done, but if you’re going to out them, why not identify them?
Juddc wrote @ August 14, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Well played. Hats off.
anon wrote @ August 14, 2007 at 10:15 pm
http://www.martiniboys.com/Vancouver/club-news-428.html
Here it is.
Click away, until they realize their mistake.
A little bit childish, I must say. All you’ve done is introduced me to a much better website.
[...] out of place - lots of spaces opening in Gastown with cool food and the like. Except this restaurant was invented by Urban Diner, a local writer/blogger of the food scene to out somebody copying his work. Here’s the [...]
Arne wrote @ August 15, 2007 at 8:32 am
anon? Really Andrew? All this cloak & dagger stuff is really off-putting! :-)
Seems martiniboys learn fast.
A.
That wasn’t me, Daddy-A. That was one of our favourite daytime movie stars… :-)
Arne wrote @ August 15, 2007 at 10:20 am
Ahhhh good. All is right in the world.
nwyles wrote @ August 15, 2007 at 10:21 am
sorry, Arne…that was me.
My new explorer version fills everything in.
Graeme wrote @ August 15, 2007 at 10:35 am
When I think of MBO, I think of Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan in A Night At The Roxbury.
Martini Boys…never read them ~ never will.
Arne wrote @ August 15, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Somehow I don’t think your their target audience Stephen (and that is a compliment btw)
Wyles. Quit messing with my head.
A.
I’ve seen this Spanish thing on a local blog and a few other city-guides. But if you’re saying that this is just a game, then you should ceremoniously booted out of blog-eria. Do as you like on your own site, but if you post aimlessly on other blogs, then you are a detriment to the entire online community.
M. Schwartz
http://www.viarail.ca
Graeme wrote @ August 15, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Thanks viarail.ca for looking out for the interests of the “entire online community”… LOL!
Give us links, M.Schwartz.
Your link, sir.
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=63740&st=1530
What the hell is a blog-eria? And since when have I not posted aimlessly? :-)
For the record, M, I never posted about this on other blogs. Egullet isn’t a blog, it’s a forum. You said you saw it on a “local blog and few other city guides”. Pray tell more, train man, or were you just aimlessly posting?
My intention wasn’t to mislead anyone, and though some are taking it lightly, it wasn’t a game to me. I needed to prove that someone was taking our reporting and publishing it without crediting us as their source. My suspicions were proved right, the offense admitted to, and life goes on.
That said, if you really are going to “ceremoniously” boot me out of the blog-eria, how exactly would that happen? Would I need to wear some special garment or head dress? Can I pick the music?
Please keep me abreast of your plans and thanks for reading.
nwyles wrote @ August 15, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Andrew, posting it on the Gullet is a bit off base.
If you were out to catch someone pinching info off of the UD then it shouhd have just stayed here.
You were perpetuating the lie by putting it out on the Gullet.
I think the train man has a point.
Linda wrote @ August 15, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Brilliant move Andrew - even though you may lose your lifetime Via Rail pass for pissing off the internet warden.
Arne wrote @ August 15, 2007 at 8:59 pm
I’m gonna play devil’s advocate (insert stunned silence here) and guess that “M”’s trouble with what you did Andrew could be akin to the “Waiting to Explode” story by Janet Cooke. While nobody is suggesting what you did was equally heinous, you gotta admit there are similarities.
You fabricated a story (reasons are irrelevant at this point) and presented it as fact. I’m not a lawyer, but I wonder what liability you would bare if someone took your story as fact, and suffered losses as a result. Urban Diner is not a satirical site, so there is no reasonable expectation that this was a joke … or a trap as the case may be. Most folk took it as fact … exactly as you intended.
You can say I’ve been “sucking at the eGullet teet too long” all you like, but I didn’t write the rules. But as I see it, a simple email to “sease & desist” may have been a more prudent resolution to your plagerism debacle.
Did I really say that? :-(
Thanks for your comments and concerns, everyone. For the sake of moving on, I am closing this thread. It’s hard to keep up with it and I am about to take a short little trip. Feel free to discuss this further in the forum.
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