Appell Pie
January 2021 It’s Our 25th Anniversary This Year – How to Win a Cash Prize
25 years and counting
Happy New Year to you all. The year 2021 will be a big one as the world prepares to bounce back from the siege of COVID-19 that has affected our personal and business lives.
2021 marks a milestone for Today’s Restaurant News. (TRN) At the end of 1995 I decided to bring a restaurant trade newspaper to life for Florida and the southeast. I had no clue how to do it but I recognized the need to create it for the industry.
I contacted my friend in New York, Joe Ciardullo, the founder and publisher of a similar newspaper in the New York Metropolitan area and asked him to teach me what I needed to know to get started.
Joe was already scheduled to be in Florida to see his dad so we arranged to meet over a weekend to begin my lessons. My dining room table served as my school room where the basics of cut and paste, editorial, advertising and sales were learned in two days.
On Monday we located a printer. On Tuesday we hired a graphic artist. On Wednesday I drove Joe to his father’s house in Daytona and on Thursday I was making sales calls to vendors who provided a service or a product to the restaurant industry. My first sale was to Marty Schwartzberg of Hollywood Restaurant Equipment for our premier issue in July of 1996. (See Photo)
It’s been a wild ride so far, surviving our first year and building our readership database, then struggling through the economic effects of 911 and the recession of 2008 and learning how to continue when your printer calls to tell you that he has closed his business at deadline. I learned quickly how to pivot.
Today the crushing of the industry due to shut downs and new restrictions brought on by COVID-19 has strained resources, energy and altered all of our lives but it will pass. We will return to a new “normal” and those who learned how to pivot the direction of their businesses will return and those who fall by the wayside will eventually re-invent themselves and re-build in a newer better form.
In July of 2021 we will celebrate our 25th Anniversary of bringing you the news of the industry. I want to make it a year-long party to celebrate us all and have some fun as we go about our daily lives trying to navigate this plague and building stronger and smarter.
As you all know, we use emails to communicate with you, our readers and our advertisers. We send out lots of emails during the year. Just how many did we send in 2020? That’s the subject of our first Anniversary event. If you have a guess send me an email [email protected] with your guess and contact information by the deadline of January 31st. The person closest to the correct number will win a $100.00 gift card to the business of their choice or use it as a credit with TRN for advertising.
Here’s a clue to next month’s event. Don’t throw out those old copies of TRN, they could be worth money.
Let’s try to make 2021 a year to celebrate with prosperity, health and happiness. I want to thank our readers and advertisers for their loyalty and trust. I have worked hard to grow Today’s Restaurant News and I hope to continue celebrating more milestones with you. I celebrate our industry and your efforts every day. www.trnusa.com Stay safe.
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