Tyler Florence's San Francisco restaurant, Wayfare Tavern, is not for the faint of heart.

If your doctor has recently increased your cholesterol medication; if he has extolled the virtues of raw corn bran and advised you to seek out sprouted wheat; if he's prescribed more real exercise and less armchair quarterbacking – this restaurant may not be for you.

Wayfare Tavern* is a bold restaurant with big flavors, good-sized portions, and enough butter to permanently clog a vegan's arteries. Restaurant owner Tyler Florence is better known for his presence on Food Network. He's also published multiple cook books and he owns a small ...

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Good news for wineries.

NPR's Planet Money reports that the relative amount of money Americans spend on alcohol hasn't changed much over the past 30 years. However, "Of the money we spend drinking at home, more goes to wine and less goes to hard alcohol. The percentage of our booze dollar that goes to beer hasn't changed much."

Despite that report, it does seem to me that consumption of hard alcohol has been on the rise lately. Certainly there's a lot of buzz these days around signature cocktails. Mad Men  probably helps stoke the popularity.

Regardless, wine purchases have increased significantly, according to the ...

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MarketingProfs recently published an article by Guy Kawasaki, a well-known author and social media expert, on the advantages of Google+. It's an informative piece, and I've quoted the entire article below for its information value. Nevertheless, I don't agree with the basic premise of the article.

Here's why:

I don't buy his argument at the end that Google+ = passion. Do you use Google+ on a regular basis? Do you know anyone who does? Is passion the driving force for using it? That seems like a weak argument to me.
Whatever amazing technical capabilities or potential the social media app may have, if ...

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I love this time of year. Cherries are the harbinger of fruit season here in California. They herald the coming bounty of great stone fruit – nectarines, peaches, and apricots. They presage the wide range of berries, from blueberries to raspberries, blackberries, and my favorite: olallieberries. Later in the season, apples ripen, and eventually into September and October the wine grapes are ready. But for me it all starts with cherries – sweet, dark, crisp cherries.

This photo was taken by Julianne Nola, shortly after she and her daughters picked these cherries at her parents' orchard in Stockton, Calif.

2012 is looking to be ...

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Anyone in the wine business will be familiar with the term "brix," and many restaurant people will as well. But it's not in the common vernacular for most people.

Wikipedia provides a thorough definition. Here's the takeaway: In the wine industry, degrees Brix (or °Bx) is roughly speaking a measure of the amount of sugar in the juice of wine grapes. 26º Brix equals 26%, or 26 grams of sugar dissolved in 100 grams of water. Yeast ferments sugar at a rate of approximately 1% alcohol for every 1.8º Brix, so grapes with 26º Brix would yield dry wine with 14.5% alcohol, which ...

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In 1966, Alfred Peet opened his first coffee shop at the corner of Vine & Walnut in Berkeley, Calif. It’s still there, 46 years later. A lovely store with dark wood, a distinctly neighborhood feel, and an unpretentious atmosphere, the original Peet’s Coffee has arguably had the single most important impact in coffee drinking in the US in the last 50 years, and possibly around the world.

Why? Because it inspired Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker (all friends of Alfred Peet) to open a small coffee shop of their own up in Seattle. You may have heard of it.

Founded ...

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With homage to the Jerry Lee Lewis Anthology, 26 Brix will deliver killer services to our clients in the restaurant and wine business. No artificial ingredients – and absolutely no filler.