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Summerville publisher cooks up 19 city dining guides
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
Across the nation, tourists, local diners, restaurant reviewers and food editors apparently have found a tasty information source in Summerville-based Food Frenzy.
For the past eight years, Food Frenzy has been quietly publishing city dining guides and hardcover cookbooks.
The dining guides are thick, glossy, magazine-like publications—Charleston’s is 176 pages—featuring full-page restaurant profiles including menus, photographs of the chefs, contact information, hours of operation, dress codes, physical features of the restaurant, payment options and other dining information; a section featuring favorite recipes from the featured restaurants; a catering section; a restaurant index; restaurant locator maps; a wine section; and dictionary of culinary terms.
“We reach all facets of the dining world,” said Food Frenzy publisher Thomas Stumph. Food editors and restaurant reviewers often request these guides before they venture to a city such as Charleston to sample the cuisine, he added.
On average, about 50 restaurants are included in each guide. Restaurants pay $4,000 to be included in the guide and supply their own information. Full-page color advertisements cost $2,000.
Food Frenzy publishes dining guides for 16 U.S. and three Canadian cities. The guides are published once a year, cost about $10 and are available in bookstores, hotel guest rooms and wine shops.
American Express, the dining guides’ corporate sponsor, distributes the guides to some of its card members.
The U.S. dining guides are: Charleston; Charlotte, N.C.; Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Denver; Jacksonville, Fla.; Los Angeles; Louisville, Ky.; Memphis, Tenn.; New Orleans; Orange County, Calif.; Philadelphia; Phoenix; San Antonio; Tampa Bay, Fla.; and Washington, D.C. A guide for San Diego will come out later this year.
The Canadian guides include Calgary, Alberta; Toronto; and Montreal. A guide for Vancouver, British Columbia, is in the works.
The guides are printed at regional printers across the country to save money on distribution costs, Stumpf said.
There is no editorial staff at Food Frenzy, as the restaurants provide their articles. A graphic designer, a pair of administrative assistants, a Web master, and a photographer and designer based in Arizona, comprise Stumpf’s staff.
The company also produces cookbooks including the $24.95 Cooking with America’s Championship Team, which contains recipes from the American Culinary Foundation’s team of chefs who competed in the 2004 Culinary Olympics in Germany, and the $42 Winning Styles Cookbook, recipes from the James Beard Foundation’s award-winning chefs.
Food Frenzy’s third business component is its Web site, www.americascuisine.com, through which its publications can be ordered. Visitors can click on each city in Food Frenzy’s repertoire of dining guides and get links to that city’s restaurants, view recipes from those eateries, book reservations, access a calendar of food events and read about local food and wine news.
The Charleston page offers a link to Charleston Foodie, a guide to cooking classes, special dinners and other food happenings about town. Trident Technical College’s Culinary Institute of America, wine and cheese merchant O’Hara & Flynn and Charleston Cooks! sponsor Charleston Foodie.
Stumpf, a 20-year veteran of the publishing industry, said Food Frenzy reflects Charleston’s rise as a dining destination. “Charleston’s dining community has grown since we started (Food Frenzy) eight years ago,” he said.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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