Today the leading foodservice industry publication, Nation’s Restaurant News, has named the Angus Barn to its list of 50 All-American Icon restaurants. The Barn has “become synonymous with hospitality and service excellence” according to Nation’s Restaurant News. That’s one of the primary reasons why the establishment made the NRN 50. The Angus Barn is the only North Carolina restaurant on the list, and joins such noted dining institutions as Commander’s Palace in New Orleans, St. Elmo Steak House in Indianapolis and The Four Seasons in New York City.

This comes as no surprise. The Angus Barn is known for going out of their way to present an outstanding experience. The restaurant has a rigorous training program for its waitstaff, and only hires people who make it their profession. Owner/manager Van will not accept customers waiting unnecessarily. Case in point: I recently stopped by at 5:30pm one day to buy some blue cheese dressing from the gift shop. The refrigerators were out of stock, but the nice, helpful lady who was running the shop went to the kitchen to make a couple for me. When Van found out that I had been waiting 10 minutes for the dressing, she went to the back, got things rolling, and comped my purchase.

If one is paying attention, they will notice some of the many details that go into the experience at the Angus Barn. The restaurant’s Christmas Tree every year is the finest in any restaurant around. The relish station, an unnecessary perk that was put in place decades ago to placate those waiting for a table, is always fresh. Much of the wood from the restaurant was salvaged from barns in the area. Inset in the brick floor of the gift shop is a 6” thick disc of wood from the state’s largest loblolly pine tree. In the last couple of years, The Angus Barn opened The Pavilions, a rustic lakeside special events facility. A trip to the men’s room of the facility is another example of the fine detail that (along with the excellent, consistent food) has earned this restaurant’s status among the nation’s top restaurants.

The Angus Barn was already one of the early inductees to the publication’s prestigious “Hall of Fame” list. Magnolia Grill is the only other North Carolina restaurant to receive that honor.

TBJ is reporting that a new ranking of America’s 20 most literate cities, conducted by Central Connecticut State University is out. Raleigh ranks #19. This is a 5-spot slip since the 2008 survey. At least we ranked higher than Charlotte, which was #27!

The survey is based on six categories: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources. Raleigh took its biggest blow in the library resources category, which raises some questions, because it is a big source of error.

While “number of bookstores” is a nice factor to include, it doesn’t actually account for the number of books consumed or the number of books available in the market; more accurate numbers. Furthermore, sales of online digital books are likely to be higher in this area than others, too, and those figures would not be included in the survey.

There was a survey a few months ago which credited the Raleigh area for its high consumption of non-fiction book sales. With our high internet usage and high book sales, is a top-notch library system actually needed? Certainly a good system is needed, but does every book published really need to be available for a population that is already consuming these books through other means? Would we be more literate if our local governments forced the population to buy every book ever published, so that most can sit on the shelf unread?

Should we be penalized for low newspaper circulation when we are getting our news already from the internet from great sites like this one? Seriously, the N&O content is available online for free. Does my use of a free access point make the area less literate?

We ranked third in the most important of the factors: educational attainment. If we are doing well with that parameter, then the rest will take care of itself in most cases.

This survey is conducted with good intentions, however its criteria are not indicative enough of the tested parameter to be taken seriously.

Yesterday Forbes published their list of American cities where people are “getting richer”. Raleigh-Cary placed 16th on the list. Factors such as median income and unemployment were considered. The survey lists Raleigh-Cary’s median household income at $60,500, and unemployment at 8.6%.

The January 2010 issue (p. 72) of Car & Driver magazine has named Raleigh to its “10 Best Drivers’ Cities in America” list. Factors such as frequency of sunny days, car ownership costs, and annual road salt use factored into the ratings.

I take issue, though, with the article’s commentary about the area. The two points made are that we are in the “heart of NASCAR country”. Wile WIR, Rockingham, and Level Cross are within 100 miles, the number of NASCAR fans per capita here is likely much lower than author Andrew Smart surmises. (are those tracks even on the NASCAR circuit?)

He also notes the drive-in theater in Henderson, an hour away. Just how many Raleigh people have actually driven an hour to get to the Raleigh Road theatre??

Congratulations are in order for Jimmy Goodmon and the crew over at WRAL.com. The website received the Edward R. Murrow national award for Best Website from the Radio-Television News Directors Association tonight.

The site is fantastic, and WRAL is going the extra mile in order to deliver their content. For instance, the full site’s video is encoded using Flash, which cannot be viewed natively on the iPhone. In order to correct the problem the station struck a deal with a third party company to transcode all of the video into a format that can be streamed using the station’s iPhone app, the first of its kind in the nation.

Keep up the good work, y’all!

The Daily Beast compiled some numbers to determine which metro is America’s brainiest, and Raleigh-Durham came out on top. The criteria for the rankings of cities (of population 1,000,000 or more) was based in college degrees (and beyond), non-fiction book sales, presence of colleges, and voter turnout.

The top 10 included many usual suspects such as San Francisco, Denver, D.C., etc.. Charlotte ranks #16, Richmond is #29, Greensboro is #37, and Norfolk is #41. Congratulations, us!

It’s good to see Ashley Christensen getting more love. This time it comes from Gourmet magazine which includes Christensen’s Poole’s Diner in their “Restaurants Worth the Money: Southeast” list. The feature appears in the October issue of Gourmet.

TBJ is reporting that Nielsen Media Research has listed the Raleigh-Durham television market as the country’s 26th largest, up one spot from last year’s rank. The move puts this market, which includes Fayetteville, ahead of Baltimore and two spots behind Charlotte.

Yesterday Forbes.com published their ranking of “America’s Best Public Colleges”. The list ranks UNC at #7, as well as UNC-Asheville at #45, UNC-Wilmington at #83, and Appalachian State at #93.