Don Rockwell: Pro Reservations

Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

(Image: Sasan Saidi)

Those of you who don’t necessarily eat, sleep and breathe all things hospitality may not be as familiar with local food spy Don Rockwell or his eponymous dining forum as the more sybaritic amongst us.

But that may all change if his nascent concierge service, DCDining.com, succeeds in elevating the workhorse of a wandering diner to undisputed restaurant stud.

Though he shies away from deigning himself a bona fide critic–”I don’t rate restaurants so much as meals,” Rockwell insists–the Silver Spring native estimates he pounds the D.C. Metro-area pavement in search of interesting nibbles roughly 350 days a year, tackling at least a pair of establishments per day (averaging approximately 700 restaurant meals per year).

To date, he’s been sharing that hard earned reconnaissance free of charge on the always electric DR.com–a cyber-Thunderdome where local chefs, restaurateurs, gourmands and critics flock to debate the topics of the day (food trucks; disappearing landmarks), rail against perceived injustices (trade groups; unfavorable press), work to (re)build bridges or just gush about epicurean epiphanies.

And that’s just in the Restaurants and Dining-verse (the largest and arguably most active of the discussion groups in the DR.com community, accounting for approximately one-third of the nearly 7500+ conversations on the site).

Rockwell launched the freestyle food forum in April 2005 and said he’s been wrestling with tapping a non-invasive revenue stream to keep the largely unfiltered exchanges flowing ever since [*Rockwell chronicles the fiscal pressures he's been operating under in a letter distributed to dr.com confidants, reproduced in its entirety below*].

His penchant for investigative ingesting certainly hasn’t alleviated the burden.

“Me going out to every restaurant in town and trying to be superman is a major financial drain and it has been for years,” he said of the profligate spending that’s fueled his “hobby” up to this point.

But the one-time computer consultant has finally decided to go pro, setting himself up as a one-stop reservations shop for tourists looking to enjoy a quintessential D.C. dining experience.

The concept is simple enough: clients provide guidelines (geographic boundaries, preferred price points, favorite cuisines, etc.) for a potential outing and Rockwell fills in the requisite blanks.

But as any good facilitator knows, god lives in them thar details.

“I have no idea what to expect because there’s no business model that I’m following,” Rockwell concedes, adding that “a lot of this is going to have to be reactionary.”

Though he has both his own encyclopedic knowledge and the communal wisdom of the DR.com boards at his disposal, Rockwell anticipates that each custom tailored package will require case-specific research, exhaustive cross-referencing, carefully crafted write-ups and, ultimately, a personally conducted phone call to ensure that the stage is flawlessly set for each client.

Total outlay for this white-glove treatment: $18.95 for a single booking or $31.95 for a pair of engagements (alterna-scenarios to be billed on a case-by-case basis).

And that’s before you even step foot in the prescribed restaurant.

“There’s no denying it’s a lot of money,” Rockwell readily admits of his adjunct fee. But he believes the investment will be worth it to out-of-towners who would rather hit the ground running than spend their time researching.

One potential sweetener: all DCDining.com clients will be awarded instant access to the DR.com Dining Guide–a running commentary on the regional restaurant scene currently reserved for “active” commentators.

“I’ve thought about making the dining guide available only to people on DCDining.com, but I don’t have the heart to do that to DR.com members who use it regularly,” Rockwell noted. “That said, I may begin work on a beefed-up version for DCDining.com, the drawback being that there are only so many hours in the day, sigh.”

Meanwhile, Rockwell suggested that he’ll still make himself available to DR.com members seeking counsel in the Help Needed forum–”I do read every restaurant post,” he maintains–and fully intends to keep sharing new finds.

Who knows, he may eventually earn enough scratch from DCDining.com to eat out those last two weeks of the year.

“I’m not going to make any money on this stuff, I can tell you that right now,” Rockwell predicted. “[But] I’m good at this … and I think I can fill a niche.”

–Warren

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* Rockwell’s explanation/announcement to the DR.com faithful about the dcdining launch:

Hi, I’m sending this note exclusively to long-time participants of donrockwell.com, so if you’re getting it, let me start off by saying THANK YOU for all you’ve done for the community.

Over five years ago, I founded donrockwell.com.  I never wanted to name it that, but all the good names were taken, and a Famous Restaurant Critic advised me that if I didn’t put my own stamp on it, nobody would take it seriously, so I listened to what he said.

During the past five years, dr.com has grown from being a tiny, close-knit band of marauding food pirates to a large, diverse community, with statistics measured in the thousands and millions.

The whole time, I’ve been running this rapidly growing monster in my “spare time” with the help of a tireless troupe of volunteers who’ve never asked for anything in return.

For the past couple of years, I’ve known that donrockwell.com – in its current form, and with its current rate of growth – is unsustainable in the long-term.  I’ve spent many hours thinking, stressing out about it, and every time I’d arrive at the same conclusion:  At some point, something was going to have to give … but what?

What am I supposed to do when so many people have so much vested in this community?  Do I flip a switch and turn it off?  Do I start charging everyone?  Do I start throwing advertisements in your face?  Or maybe I should just let the whole thing decay, and die a long, slow, death, hoping that nobody will notice how bad it’s gotten.

I kept blindly thinking some Martian would appear at my front door holding a sack of money.  Or maybe Ed McMahon from Publishers Clearing House would show up, or maybe I’d get a phone call from the MacArthur Foundation.

Slowly, very slowly, it became more and more clear, painfully clear, that none of this was ever going to happen.  So here I was, all alone at sea, an amateur, part-time fisherman doing battle with a giant, fighting marlin relentlessly pulling at my line, my resources being sapped, and me starting to lose the fight, in danger of either letting go or being dragged into the water.  What was I supposed to do?

Early this summer I was driving through rural Ireland with my son.  We’d just had lunch, and he’d fallen asleep in the car, leaving me nothing but green countryside and not a care in the world.  I wasn’t really thinking about any of this, but all of a sudden, things came pouring into my mind, and within twenty minutes, my entire future was mapped out for me.

Above all else, one thing became clear:  donrockwell.com needs to stay the way it is, and compromising it would be a huge mistake.

Beginning next week, the first prong of a multi-pronged approach to serve both diners and restaurants to the best of my ability will be launched, with the second prong coming later this year.  In tandem, the two may eventually change the landscape of DC dining, all the while preserving the integrity of donrockwell.com – which is going to remain a separate entity, untarnished and unchanged.

As you read this letter, you should no longer consider me an “amateur” in the restaurant business; I am going to take my great passion – and perhaps my greatest area of expertise – and make it my career.

DCDining.com will have its soft opening next week, and will be the first of its type in the United States, if not the world – a concierge service where I will lead tourists, visitors, businesses, and anyone passionate about dining to the right restaurant.  Publicity, hype, and marketing?  They’ll have no effect on my decision making, and if I have any say in the matter, those superficial lures are going to have less and less importance as time goes by.

At this point, I want to thank Leigh Maltese, without whom none of this would be happening.  To say Leigh has been “instrumental” in bringing this to fruition would be an understatement – she has been the engine driving this project, and dcdining.com would all just be an unrealized daydream if it weren’t for her endless work.  She will continue on, not only as the “librarian” for donrockwell.com, but also as an integral part of the continued growth of dcdining.com, having my full support and authorization.  I know that I’m given to superlatives, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with a faster, sharper mind than Leigh Maltese.

It’s too soon to begin discussing the second, complementary prong that will be launched later this year, so I’m going to close this letter by thanking everyone for our first five years, and assuring you all that the time, effort, and commitment that you’ve invested in donrockwell.com will remain in force, with my full dedication and respect to the document and community that YOU are responsible for building.

Kind regards,
Don

Tags: concierge service, D.C., dcdining.com, Don Rockwell, donrockwell.com, Gut Check, hospitality industry, Leigh Maltese, Maryland, Northern Virginia Magazine, restaurants, Virginia, Warren Rojas