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Alexis Madrigal: Welcome to Forum. I’m Alexis Madrigal. If you haven’t seen Check, Please! Bay Area, the concept is simple: three locals each recommend a restaurant. Everyone tries the places out, then they meet for a spirited conversation about what they liked, what they loved, and what they could do without. The restaurants reviewed range from mom-and-pop shops to Michelin award–winning spots, but one thing they all have in common is at least one passionate fan. The show has been winning awards and fans for twenty years, and host Leslie Sbrocco and producer Lori Halloran join us to talk about the imprint the show has made on local dining. Welcome to Forum, Leslie.
Leslie Sbrocco: Thank you. Hi, Alexis.
Alexis Madrigal: How are you?
Leslie Sbrocco: Always good.
Alexis Madrigal: I’m good. Also, always delighted to have a producer on. Lori, thanks so much for joining us.
Lori Halloran: My pleasure. Thanks for having us.
Leslie Sbrocco: She’s the one that makes everything work.
Alexis Madrigal: Yeah, we know. The hosts know. So why don’t we talk a little about the origin of Check, Please! As I understand it, the concept first got going in Chicago, right?
Leslie Sbrocco: It did. It was created by David Manilow, who’s still involved with the other versions that are airing. I believe it started in 2001. And I’m a Chicago girl — I was raised there before I went to college and moved out here. So I’m a big Chicago lover.
Alexis Madrigal: Promoter.
Leslie Sbrocco: Yes, big one. It was very, very popular. My friend Alpana Singh, who’s also in the wine business, ended up as their long-term host. But the show ended due to COVID, pretty much.
Alexis Madrigal: Ours kept going.
Leslie Sbrocco: Ours kept going.
Alexis Madrigal: That show also had some famous guests. We’re just gonna listen to a cut-in — you’re gonna recognize his voice, I think.
(Clip plays)
Amanda Puck: What about you at Dixie Kitchen, Barack?
Barack Obama: You know, I ordered the Southern Sampler just because I couldn’t make up my mind. Since, as I said, I eat there quite a bit. I wasn’t sure what I was in the mood for, so I said, “Well, you just bring me a little something.” You know, it’s not gourmet cuisine, but that’s not why I go to Dixie Kitchen. I’m not looking for fancy presentation or extraordinarily subtle flavors.
Leslie Sbrocco: Baraaack! Woo!
Alexis Madrigal: That was then–Illinois State Senator Barack Obama, appearing on Check, Please! Chicago in 2001. That’s part of what makes this show so great — it kind of puts all these restaurants on equal footing.
Leslie Sbrocco: It does. And as you said, it’s everything from mom-and-pop to bigger spots. We don’t have chain restaurants on the show.
Alexis Madrigal: No TGI Fridays?
Leslie Sbrocco: No. I think once we had…’Becca di Buppo?’ Right?
Alexis Madrigal: Buca di Beppo?
Leslie Sbrocco: That’s it. Thank you. It’s just too early in the morning for me. But that was it, I think, over twenty years. We’ve really focused on smaller, family-owned restaurants.
Lori Halloran: And that really sets the tone — that’s exactly it. We had Sister Roma on talking about it, too. “I want a place that throws down. I want a hole in the wall.” You know what I mean?
Leslie Sbrocco: And that’s what our guests and our viewers want — that little discovery, that spot nearby or far away that they haven’t heard about. I haven’t heard of many of the restaurants our guests recommend.
Alexis Madrigal: Right, yeah. So how does it work? How many suggestions get filtered down? I mean, there have been 850 restaurants on the show.
Lori Halloran: By the end of this season, it’ll be 850.
Leslie Sbrocco: And that means how many guests?
Alexis Madrigal: 850, yeah.
Lori Halloran: About that. We do like to spread the love — people come on who absolutely love it and want to be on again.
Alexis Madrigal: Mhmm.
Lori Halloran: But our policy has always been, no, we’ve got to spread the love. We don’t go to the same restaurant twice, and we don’t have the same guest twice. Well — there was one who slipped through the cracks.
Leslie Sbrocco: Yes, we’ve kept this quiet for many years. This is an internal secret, right?
Alexis Madrigal: Who was it?
Lori Halloran: It was before my time as series producer, but somehow he snuck in.
Leslie Sbrocco: Yeah.
Lori Halloran: He came on twice. And you didn’t find out until he was sitting right next to you.
Leslie Sbrocco: And I’m like, “He looks familiar. Again.”
Alexis Madrigal: Is there a place you think gets overrepresented or underrepresented? Do you have, like, a big map where you make sure you’re covering everywhere from Healdsburg to Half Moon Bay?
Lori Halloran: That’s what we try for, absolutely. We’ve been expanding. The coolest thing we’ve done in the past couple of years — thanks to Leslie — happened when we were down in Monterey for an event. All these people were coming up saying, “How come you don’t come down here?”
Leslie Sbrocco: Yeah, because they’re part of the Bay.
Alexis Madrigal: Yeah, they think so.
Leslie Sbrocco: The show goes all the way down to Paso Robles. A few years ago, I was doing events there and was amazed at how many people came up to me and said, “We love the show! Why don’t you come down here?” So I said to Lori, “I think we’ve got a big fan base in the Monterey area.”
Lori Halloran: So we stretched our budget and went down there. Now we’ve done, like, five episodes in that area.
Leslie Sbrocco: Restaurants from Santa Cruz to Paso Robles — pretty cool.
Lori Halloran: Definitely. Early on, the show was very San Francisco–centric. That’s how it started, and then gradually we kept pushing those boundaries. Like, “Oh my gosh, we’re going to Livermore!”
Alexis Madrigal: That’s how everyone always says it: “Oh my gosh, I’m going to Livermore.”
Leslie Sbrocco: Livermore is great — wonderful wineries and restaurants.
Alexis Madrigal: Let’s hear a little bit about what guests sound like on the show. We’ve got Bay Area musical artist Ruby Ibarra talking about Pancitas Pupusas, which were recommended by a fellow guest. Let’s listen.
(Clip plays)
Ruby Ibarra: Hands down, the mushroom and garlic one I had at Pancitas has to be, in my opinion, the best pupusa I’ve ever had. It was creamy, cheesy — the mushrooms were seasoned very well. There was a nice char on the outside, and some excess cheese that gave it a crisp edge. When you bit into it, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is so good.”
Leslie Sbrocco: Is there really such a thing as excess cheese, though?
Ruby Ibarra: You can never have too much cheese.
Alexis Madrigal: That was great — Ruby Ibarra on Check, Please! Bay Area, talking with Leslie Sbrocco. One thing I love is the show’s loose vibe, which makes sense now that there’s so much video out there. But when the show started in the 2000s, did other restaurant shows sound like that? It feels like things were a lot more buttoned up.
Leslie Sbrocco: In the beginning?
Alexis Madrigal: Not your show, but in general — restaurant or critic shows.
Leslie Sbrocco: Oh, absolutely. It was primarily print — critics writing about restaurants in newspapers. We really came on the scene strong because there was nothing like our show. It was before Yelp, and we were listening to real people.
Alexis Madrigal: Real people talking about what they love about food — not what critics love.
Leslie Sbrocco: Exactly. And that’s one of the connections that’s made us so popular. Viewers can relate to those people or those restaurants and think, “Oh, I want to try that.”
Alexis Madrigal: Yeah. We’re talking about KQED’s Check, Please! Bay Area, which just turned twenty years old. We’re with the show’s host, Leslie Sbrocco, and producer, Lori Halloran. We want to hear from you — if you were on Check, Please!, which restaurant would you recommend? What restaurant trend do you love or could do without? What cuisine do you think is missing from the Bay Area scene? Give us a call at 866-733-6786. You can also email us at forum@kqed.org or find us on social media — BlueSky, Instagram, Discord — we’re @KQEDForum.
Do you have a mission statement for the show, as a producer?
Lori Halloran: We’ve sort of talked about it, but it’s really that we’re not an ad for restaurants. It’s a fine line — we want to show them at their best, absolutely, and uplift the people who work hard to bring you your food. We want it to look appealing and mouthwatering, but we also set the table like it would be when you get there. If a burger comes in a basket, it’ll be in the basket. We’re not going to put it on a fancy plate. It’s always a balance — letting the restaurant owner or chef tell their story, and showing their food honestly. But yes, we do nice lighting.
Leslie Sbrocco: It’s a little food porn.
Alexis Madrigal: It is a little food porn.
Leslie Sbrocco: It is — that’s what draws people in.
Lori Halloran: We’re trying to uplift all the time, absolutely.
Alexis Madrigal: I get it. It’s not like Chef’s Table, where they show the chef outdoors with an open fire for three minutes in slow motion.
Leslie Sbrocco: We don’t romanticize it that way. We really encourage honest opinions — tell us what you liked and what you didn’t. Sometimes guests get a little nervous at first, especially since they just met the person who recommended the restaurant. But I try to draw out their honesty.
Alexis Madrigal: What do you really hate about it, though? Do you have any techniques to nudge them into honesty?
Leslie Sbrocco: They’re required to write about their experience in their application. I don’t meet them until before we shoot, but I’ve read what they think. So sometimes, if I know someone didn’t like something, I’ll gently ask, “Was there anything else?” I’m not pushing negativity or positivity — just honesty, so people watching get a real sense of the experience.
Alexis Madrigal: An honest experience. We’ve got some comments coming in — this one’s from Daniel Aderaw Yeshiwas, owner of Café Colucci. Daniel says: “I loved being part of Check, Please!. It came at such a meaningful time for us. We had just moved from our original location, where we’d been since 1991, and we were nervous about how the community would respond. About three months after our move, Check, Please! reached out. Once our episode aired, things took off. It brought so many new guests through our doors and was a real turning point for us. We’ve always loved participating in the Check, Please! Sip and Taste events every year — such a great way to connect with other chefs and restaurant folks.”
Must feel good to hear that, right?
Leslie Sbrocco: It does. That’s really what warms our hearts — when we give a great experience to the viewer and to the restaurant. We call it the Check, Please! effect. We’ve heard from so many restaurateurs and owners that as soon as their episode airs, there are lines out the door. We’ve even had restaurants turn us down because they were afraid they couldn’t handle the rush afterward.
Alexis Madrigal: We’re talking about the twentieth anniversary of KQED’s Check, Please! Bay Area with host Leslie Sbrocco and producer Lori Halloran. Of course, we’ll get to your calls and comments when we come back from the break. The number again is 866-733-6786. Maybe you can shout out your favorite Check, Please! episode. The email is forum@kqed.org.
I’m Alexis Madrigal — stay tuned.
