Comments (0) Best Gratuitous Use of a Political Scandal in a French Restaurant - 2004

Le Central

Remember all that Freedom Toast crap last year? All that screeching on AM radio about how patriotic Americans ought to pitch out their French cheese, pour their French wine into the gutter and abstain from all French kissing until the Frogs stopped thinking for themselves and, like Tony Blair, just blindly agreed with everything our president said? Yeah, that was some freaky, flag-waving shit that went down -- and leave it to Robert Tournier, owner of Le Central, to turn it all to his advantage. At the height of the mock crisis, Tournier decided to hold an essay contest, with prizes (most of them involving free dinners at Le Central) for the entries that best expressed a love of all things French, and more prizes (mostly consisting of French wine and chocolate and free dinners at Le Central) for those that best typified an American's loathing for the French. Well, big surprise: Tournier's business increased by more than 10 percent during the controversy.