The End of an Era

As many of you know I am no longer a soldier for Rupert Murdoch. After much internal and external debate I have decided it was time to move on. Now that I have stopped crying, I want to write a posting about the best chain memories at the NYPost. Yes, all of a sudden I became a girl and cried about leaving. There are so many it was hard to pick out the best ones. Almost as hard as trying to carry home 40 snow globes from your desk in a dirty pink Longchamp bag.

Here it goes. This posting is dedicated to you Ruppie. I never met you, but I saw you in the lobby a few times. Cheers!

7) This one is actually not a restaurant but instead an event. I was in Atlanta traveling for business trying to pitch the site to a small ad agency. Midway through the meeting the client said that they don't want to hear about the Post anymore, instead can we look at my blog. He was very persistent so finally we went to chainoffood and I talked about the blog. It was at that point that I knew this baby was gonna take off someday!

6) Going to Chili's with the Mediaedge team in LA for one of the girls birthdays. I was having lunch at a chain in LA (Katsuya) when I learned it was Ashlee's birthday. Not being from LA she wanted a little piece of home and that was Chili's. Long story short the girls invited me out for the birthday party. I blogged about the experience, you can see the posting below. I was just so touched that they invited me out as their friend and to a chain, can't get better than that.

5) Learning about Yogurtland. I was at a meeting and my love of Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf came up. Somehow from that my client told me about Yogurtland and all the wonders of it. That same day I was driving and had some time in between meetings. I spotted a Yogurtland and decided to check it out. OMFG, I found my heaven. I later learned that they actually had one location in NY, in the heart of Greenwich Village. I quickly taught all my NY friends about the wonders of this place and would often be found with some of the account coordinators eating frozen yogurt after a meeting downtown.

4) The opening of Fresh & Co. in my building. When this place first opened it was called Flavors, now it is Fresh & Co. Anyway, doesn't matter, I fell in LOVE. The salads were a lunchtime staple as of late for me. I would pretty much get the same one everyday - Organic Mixed Greens, Carrots, Edamame, Grapes, Tofu, Raisins, Walnuts and either the Caribbean Mango or Thai Basil dressing. It was always delicious and chopped with care! I usually grabbed one and ate it at my desk but sometimes my buddy Brookie would meet me there and get the Turkey Chili or Roadie and I would get lunch and catch up. She was a Steak Salad fan.

3) Going to Del Frisco's with the VP of Advertising. When I first started at the Post the VP wanted to take me out to lunch just to get to know me. He took most people to Langan's the neighborhood watering hole, but I was special so I got Del Friscos! I was going to Greece the next day so he said he wanted me to have a good meal before I left. It was then that I discovered their stellar lunch menu. For $30.00 you could get a great soup or salad, a nice steak and excellent dessert. A meal fit for a queen or king if you ask me. A few years later I took little Chrissy here for that same meal to celebrate Jesus' birthday.

2) A Tasti D'Lite Birthday! Our office is pretty big so there is a birthday almost every week. Most people get cookie cakes or cupcakes. I like them, but frozen yogurt is really my sweet of choice. On my birthday this year the girls decided to get me Tasti D'Lite flying saucers! I loved it and so did everyone else!

1) This choice was the easiest and most obvious. The best chain memory I have at the NYPost is of course dining, yes dining, at Red Lobster with the entire online team and Rohit! For a while I was talking about how great Red Lobster is and how much I loved their cheese biscuits and shrimp choices. Finally I talked the entire team to have lunch there so they could see what all the fuss was about. Rohit found out about this and decided to come too. Most of the team was not a fan, haters, I guess they are too fancy (Jordan) but it was there that the blog was born. My bosses said, you are just so passionate about Red Lobster why don't you write a blog about chain restaurants. The rest is history my friends.

So, thank you NYPost for giving me the opportunity to eat a lot of meals at a lot of chains. Now I am off to continue my 2 weeks of doing nothing but sleeping, watching the Wire, a little GTL and of course some drinking and celebrating!