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Meet the contributor

Cole Bennett

Restaurantor contributor

Cole Bennett is a Mid-Atlantic restaurant researcher of Restaurantor, responsible for Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia. The basis of Cole's work rests upon the following principle—a restaurant has to gain the right to receive recommendations based on consistency rather than popularity. Food quality, service, value, reputation among locals, and impressions of those returning customers are his main points of consideration.

1 Published guide
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Latest guides by Cole Bennett

Browse restaurant guides, dining recommendations, and local food stories researched and written by Cole Bennett.

1 guide

A Practical Approach to Restaurant Research

The previous educational experience of Cole is related to business administration and restaurant industry training. Cole finds it important to assess the performance of the restaurant in general, considering such aspects as menu, service, prices, portions, ambience, and other factors of customer experience.

Cole’s interest is associated primarily with steakhouses, American restaurants, family-owned restaurants, barbecue restaurants, and regional cuisine. Long-operating local restaurants are also of high interest due to the fact that they show what people really appreciate.

Covering the Mid-Atlantic

He investigates restaurants located in cities and small towns in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia. These include big cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Wilmington, Baltimore, and Morgantown, as well as small towns which do not get a lot of coverage in national restaurant magazines.

Instead of one grade, he analyses fresh reviews, praise that keeps coming up, complaints that arise time after time, changes in the menu, patterns in service, prices, and local opinion. If personal experience is possible to obtain, it becomes just another element in the overall picture.

What Makes a Restaurant Worth Recommending?

For Cole, the answer always is consistency.

It does not matter whether it is expensive or popular. The point is that it should do what it claims and provide guests with a good reason for returning. This approach forms the foundation of the work by Cole in Restaurantor’s city guides, cuisine roundups, and restaurant suggestions in the Mid-Atlantic region.