Throughout the New York City Food & Wine Festival this weekend, Eater welcomes bloggers, journalists and food world stars to our lounge at the Standard Hotel. As the peeps pass through, we're going to chat them up and spit out the dialogue here in this business, From the Eater Lounge. Right now: Little Owl owner, the one and only Joey Campanaro.
What's new at The Little Owl? JC: Well, Zagat—we're really happy about that. The article in The Guardian about the 50 greatest things to eat in the world, and the hamburgers from The Little Owl were on there, so lunch just got kind of crazy. Lunch has just become what I really wanted it to become.
How's Market Table? JC: Market's great. And we got some great candidates from the Eater Jobs board. (Ed. this Eater Marketplace love was unprovoked but welcome news.) What's good about it, as opposed to Craigslist, is that it's focused—we have industry professionals asking for jobs, so we don't have to look at thousands of resumes.
In general, do you think the talent pool is better because of the economy? JC: It's sad when a restaurant closes, but there's a reason for everything. Is a restaurant closing because of the economy, or because it's not very good? Still, the first two businesses that ever existed were prostitution and the restaurant business—and they're both still around.
What are you doing for the Food & Wine Festival? JC: Mikey Price is doing two events, one is the Grand Tasting. And I'm participating in Meatball Madness. Strategy? My strategy is to make the meatballs I make at the Little Owl. Good strategy. How many meatballs did you make? We ended up with 665 meatballs. It's going to be difficult without flames. There was a moment of, "Wait a second, how are we going to do this?" The way I usually make them is that I reduce the sauce over the heat. What are you serving with it? I can't tell you. It's a secret.
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