A Tire Company Started a Restaurant Guide to Sell Tires
In 1900 there were 3,000 cars in France. Michelin handed out free road guides to convince more people to drive — and wear out tires.
The Michelin brothers, Édouard and André, ran a tire factory in Clermont-Ferrand. In 1900 the entire French automobile market was about 3,000 vehicles. The brothers wanted that number to grow, so they printed a small red book listing fuel depots, mechanics, hotels, and restaurants for the new class of motoring tourists. It was free, and it came with a clear commercial logic: more drivers, more roadside meals, more tires worn out reaching them.
The guide became a paid product in 1920, after Édouard reportedly walked into a garage and saw a stack of his free guides being used to prop up a workbench. The first stars for restaurant cooking appeared in 1926. The full three-tier rating — one star for very good, two for excellent worth a detour, three for exceptional worth a journey — was set in 1931.
Michelin guards the inspection process tightly. Inspectors are full-time employees who eat anonymously, pay their own bills, and submit detailed reports. They visit a starred restaurant several times a year. The guide will not say how many inspectors it employs, in any country, and it will not name them.
A star is worth real money. Studies have estimated that a new Michelin star can lift a restaurant's revenue by something like 20 percent. The cost is real too. Several chefs have publicly asked the guide to remove their stars, citing the pressure of maintaining the standards inspectors expect. In 2017, Sébastien Bras of Le Suquet was the highest-profile request granted. The tire-selling brochure had become a system of judgment its own subjects sometimes wanted to escape.
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