Brilliant Anti-marketing: Guy Fieri and The New York Times

Guy Fieri: Still laughing?

Gosh, this NYT review of Guy Fieri’s restaurant in TimesSquare has been read, tweeted, emailed and blogged about to the four corners of the earth, so it’s hard to imagine you’ve missed it.

Pete Wells writes a harsh, hilarious critique framed as a long series of questions directed at Guy Fieri himself that just keep getting funnier.

There is so much great about this restaurant review: the humor and irreverence, the witty headline, the way it is framed as a (one-sided) conversation. But what we love about the piece  is that it criticizes everything about the restaurant, right down to the copy on the menu:

Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?

Yes, Pete Wells! Copy matters — even on a menu.