Sara Deseran wrote a public apology to every restaurant owner she'd ever covered.
Not because she'd been cruel or unfair. Because after spending seven years operating restaurants in San Francisco, she realized food critics, herself included, fundamentally don't understand what they're writing about. "I had no idea how hard it is," she said. The apology, published in Bon Appetit, came after her stint running marketing and branding for Tacolicious, where she learned about P&Ls, labor negotiations, and the relentless daily reality of keeping a restaurant alive.
