From blog to book to building

There are nearly 300 million blogs in circulation, according to Tumblr, and a great many of them are about food. The most successful food bloggers go on to secure book deals, like Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen, Heidi Swanson of 101 Recipes, and Joy Wilson of Joy the Baker, among others. According to Eater, a handful of high-profile bloggers are going in another direction, and are opening restaurants.

Eater reports that some ultra successful food bloggers – including Molly Wizenberg (Orangette) and Isa Chandra Moskowitz (Post Punk Kitchen), “have triumphantly made the massive jump from the internet to a brick-and-mortar space.” It isn’t easy to make the leap: “Aside from having a baby, opening a restaurant is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” says Wizenberg. But there is an upside of moving from blog to brick-and-mortar: a large starting cohort of potentially interested diners. “In the beginning, the blog was a tremendous help in getting people into Delancey,” Wizenberg says. Ella Woodward of Deliciously Ella fame, echoes that sentiment, saying that she’s grateful for having “a customer base from day one” for her health-food outpost, Mae Deli.

Most of the bloggers Eater interviewed said that despite the blog being a launching pad for the restaurant, most of them keep the two quite separate. Woodward explains why there is not a lot of crossover between blog recipes and restaurant offerings: “It’s a pretty different process because pulling a recipe from a cookbook or blog, they are meant for home cooks and are meant to be accessible. I wouldn’t necessarily use them in restaurant because there, I try to serve food you wouldn’t necessarily make for yourself, with ingredients you might not have. If I have a gravy recipe on the website, I might throw in truffles at the restaurant.”