Celebrities, Restaurants & Sports... What else is there?

"Groove is in The Heart"....of Cincinnati

2008-02-07T14:42:00.000-05:00

So what does it take exactly to start up a celebrity restaurant? Well, you obviously have to have the celebrity and a little bit of dough... and not just for baking the bread. Then there's the right location, but if you're thinking about Cincinnati.... you might want to think again.

Bootsy Collins (seen here), one of the funk genre's most recognizable icons and musician from Parliament Funkadelic and Dee-Lite, is teaming up to open a restaurant with Jeff Ruby, a restauranteur and probably more famously known to everyone as the 'man who kicked OJ out of his restaurant'. They want to open a joint venture known as Bootsy Ruby's in the heart of downtown Cincinnati smack dab across from the Aronoff Center for the Arts.

The building that they've selected is the former Uno's Pizzeria building, that was originally where the recording studio, King Records (as seen here in 1991), stood. Included in the building would be the restaurant that would be housed on the second level, a museum of Cincinnati's music history on the first floor, a balcony on the second floor that would extend over the sidewalk, and a replica 1930's glass elevator so that people could look down to the city on their way up.

Sounds really great and something that would attract people out of the suburb's to come to it, right? Well, evidentally Cincinnati's City Council isn't pushing quite as hard as they could be. Despite saying that they were backing this attraction that Cincinnati's downtown is lacking.... the city's architectural boards and building department are dragging their feet. Apparently, they feel that doing something great and bringing an entertainment district to Cincinnati, where there's so little to do in the first place, would 'jeopardize' the beauty of the building.

If you are from Cincinnati or have visited the downtown area, then you will agree with me when I say that there are some, but not so many buildings that I can say are so beautiful that something like this wouldn't greatly increase the beauty of the city. Not to mention the fact that an entertainment district would bring people to downtown and not a $42,000,000 renovation of a fountain that people can view on a webcam at home.

If you don't exactly get excited thinking about a Cincinnati Music Museum well here's a little history on the museum that Bootsy Ruby's want to house.... When you think of Cincinnati's music history most people can't get past Bootsy Collins or Nick Lachey, but they don't have any idea that James Brown was originally signed in 1956 to King Records where he went on to have a 29 year recording career. King Records, which started off wanting to record "hillbilly music" adopted the logo (seen here), and then later changed to recording with artists, such as, The Platters, Fats Domino, Ralph Bass and Syd Nathan who are Rock-n-Roll HOF inductees.

So, with all of the history, and more to be made you would think that the city couldn't wait to get started on this project. We should have been able to expect it soon, because it was projected to be finished in early 2008. However, with approvals not being signed off on yet, the downtown Cincinnati area, and 'somewhat empty of entertainment' area, will need to wait for something great like this to do.

Maybe in the meantime the city will build another $400,000 "art" piece that consists of yellow poles and lightbulbs for everyone to look at... like the already empty riverfront area waiting on some "approvals" itself. So, come on Cincinnati..... what are you waiting for?

Shannon & Matt Bridgeford
http://www.headlinerdiners.com/ - The Largest List of Athlete & Celebrity Owned Restaurants.

Da Bud... Da Pepsi... Da Super Bowl Ads....

2008-02-04T01:06:00.001-05:00

Well, we can't talk about the Super Bowl without talking about the Super Bowl Ads. It's the buzz around the water cooler for even a few days after Super Bowl Sunday. So what makes these such a hot topic and why doesn't anyone care about commercials any other time of the year?

Well first of all... my favorite this year was the "Pepsi Max What Is Love" Ad.... hilarious seeing Chris Kattan at the end. Makes you wonder how many times people have come up to him bopping their heads & pointing going " you, me, me you, me, you"

Anyway, so what's the buzz all about? Well, if the downloads and views in the hundreds of thousands online in the past few hours is any indication then it's either the need to not be left out....because you didn't want to sit through a 4 hour game, OR... you are one of those people like me who get a little excited thinking about there FINALLY being something worth watching in between gametime. There's no muting the TV and no fast forwarding through the commercials with TiVO. No....we actually paused the TV just so we wouldn't miss them. This year with there being a lot of celebrities who decided to get in on the commercials from Justin Timberlake, to Shaq, to Carlos Mencia, and even Alice Cooper, it makes you wonder what the cost for a 30 second slot was. With these celebrities commanding top dollar for endorsements and the average 30 sec slot being $2.7 million....were they worth it in Pepsi bottles & tires that will be bought? By the way, in case you didn't catch it, Justin's commercial was at his restaurant in NYC 'Southern Hospitality' where he flew out of the front door....that can be seen on our website.

We have friends who email us with 'did you see this one' and 'didn't that one suck' and 'did you find out where we can see them online?' Well, the answer is yes, definitely, and absolutely. If you are like me and want to see them again or pass them along and have a good laugh with your buddies or co-workers.... watch them all here http://MySpace.com/superbowlads

This year FOX teamed up with MySpace and downloaded all of the commercials. After each quarter you could go online and watch them again.....or in case you missed them because your TiVo wasn't working, or you had to look down to clean the beer off of your belly.

This year I thought there were really quite a few funny commercials like the "FedEx Bird", "Richard Simmons almost run over", "The guy AMPed up with jumper cables", "Will Ferrell's Bud Light", and surprisingly "Naomi Campbell's SoBe Thriller". These all had me laughing. Let's also not forget the FOX Rejected commercial with Danica Patric. It was funny but something tells me that GoDaddy.com will be laughing all the way to the bank with all of the hits they got with the teaser on TV. Unfortunately, I thought that the abundance of new TV show commercials and Movie Trailers were just toooo much.... made me mad that I wasted my time waiting for the funny part in them and it never came. On that note, some that were supposed to be funny just weren't.....although, I'm sure our dog thanks them because I filled up the water bowl after watching the horrendous Gatorade Dog commercial....that one really lost me. There really were too many that left you thinking that someone said "let's just put a celebrity in it and then we won't have to be creative"....aaand....Of course, let's not forget the ones that I didn't even know what I was supposed to be buying.... Straws at Timberlake's Restaurant? Spandex shorts from Ray Lewis? .... It just wasn't clear enough for all of the money that they paid, in my opinion.

Over all though, this year was a pretty good year for Super Bowl Ads and the Super Bowl itself wasn't too shabby either......

Shannon & Matt Bridgeford
www.HeadlinerDiners.com - The Largest List of Pro Athlete & Celebrity Restaurants

Oh where, Oh where did my Celebrity Restaurant go?

2008-02-01T21:42:00.000-05:00

So why do most Celebrity Restaurants & Athlete Restaurants close? If the recent closing of George Brett's Restaurant which is in the 'upscale' shopping district of the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, MO is any indication, then you can only deduct that it's the lack of celebrity.

George Brett recently told the Kansas City Star that he had eaten lunch in the restaurant many times, but had only eaten dinner there couple of handfuls of times...soooo... there you go. The dinner crowd which would have gained the most monetarily was always lacking the celebrity that the restaurants name promised, in a sense.

When we had eaten there a couple of years ago the restaurant was a mid-priced very contemporary eatery. Pictures and a few memorabilia items on the walls told you whose restaurant it was, although it was lacking a real sports presence. We travel alot and run http://www.HeadlinerDiners.com/ the Largest List of Athlete and Celebrity Restaurants. If people are like us, then they want to hear the media buzz about the celebrity and their celebrity buddies showing up. Not that I can blame Brett.... he has a family that he's enjoying and good for him. HOWEVER, if you want to have a restaurant and base the success on your name, then you have to do a little work and be out in the limelight from time to time.

We wish George Brett and his family a lot of luck in the future, and hopefully they are enjoying those backyard bbq's and won't miss the restaurant biz.

So, do YOU think George Brett's restaurant was guaranteed to fail without the celebrity appearances that are usually expected by Joe Schmoe when he goes into a celebrity owned restaurant....OR... was it doomed to fail by the huge success of a restaurant right across the street?

Shannon & Matt Bridgeford
www.HeadlinerDiners.com - The Largest List of Celebrity & Athlete Restaurants