Ed Kohler over at The Deets loves to hate on the Yellow Pages and after I received the latest copy of the book that normally goes straight to the recycling bin, I figured I’d join in on the fun with a South Metro twist.
The Burnsville, Lakeville, Apple Valley Verizon Yellow Pages is small and thin and that probably saves them money in print and save space in the landfills due to those that don’t know (or care) that they should be recycling these worthless books. I was wondering what purpose the Yellow Pages serve in this day and age with Google and whitepages.com filling whatever niche they used to, I flipped open to the famed Yellow Pages at the back of the book and checked out the restaurant listings for the South Metro.
The restaurant listings for the South Metro span eight narrow pages several of which are full page or partial page ads, many of which aren’t even restaurants. I’m not quite sure why a restaurant would be checking the other listings for restaurants in their area but perhaps several of the recent restaurants in the South Metro should have because they were centered around high interest loans to help float your business for another few weeks before you crash and burn worse than you were before. Aside from the ads, the information itself was more or less useless as well as many of the businesses listed have been closed for quite some time!
Let’s look on the first half page and we see the following restaurants that are no longer in existence:
1. Andrew’s Tavern
Now, I don’t remember how long Andrew’s has been closed but I do know that Nina’s Grill which is now operating out of the same location (and apparently utilizing the same phone number) has been there at least since 2004 when I moved out of Burnsville. Simply amazing.
2. Barbara Jean’s Embers America in Burnsville.
Based on the address it appears to be a Hooters. I don’t ever remember an Embers there and I’ve lived here for just under 6 years but I might have just not been paying attention.
If Verizon’s Yellow Pages people had been intelligent they would have cross referenced the address for the later listing of Hooters and said, hmm, there’s another restaurant at this exact same address, maybe we should fucking verify if it’s actually there or not — unfortunately for Verizon, they didn’t.
3. Benchwarmer Bob’s
Benchwarmer Bob’s has been closed since at least February 2007 but yet, they are still listed right there on the first page of listings of the Verizon Yellow Pages. How odd.
4. Blimpie Subs & Salads
I’m not quite sure how long Blimpie’s Subs has been closed in Apple Valley but it has been at least a year and while we are still waiting for Johnny’s Chicago Style Beef and Hotdogs to open in its place, it’s a little strange that the Verizon Yellow Pages would list this establishment as being open.
So, out of the first 20 listings (I am including multiple listings for Arby’s and Baker’s Square as well as the odd inclusion of Chanhassen and Eden Prairie listings for Applebee’s and Subway [why Subway is listed in the A's I'll never know] just to make a nice even and round number) four are wrong. Hmm. Let’s dig a little deeper shall we?
They are including a listing for a Burger King located at 1801 W Highway 13 that has been closed at least since 2004 and was replaced by a Maytag store which I haven’t paid any attention to as I don’t go by the location anymore. They still list two phone numbers for Copper Bleu which was erased from Lakeville’s map (leaving behind a very expensive structure which no one will ever find a use for) back in October of 2007. A listing for Fuddrucker’s in Burnsville which is printed right there in the Yellow Pages I don’t ever remember and is now currently filled by Chateau Lamothe.
Now, I didn’t go through every single listing and verify them all but they are including several other closed restaurants which I am very familiar with including Two Guys from Italy in Apple Valley (June 2008), Jan’s Brown Bag Deli (July 2007) which used to be right across the street and is now taken up by La Luz Cafe, and Joey’s Seafood (March or April 2008).
While I guess the White Pages section of the Verizon Yellow Pages might be more useful, the entire reason for the phone book’s existence is to sell advertisements and let people know what’s in the area. Unfortunately Verizon’s Yellow Pages don’t seem to be doing that very well here in the South Metro.
Have you used the Yellow Pages recently and if so why and what were the results? Did you call the numbers listed only to get an error message as I did several times today or did you find everything you wanted to find in a useless book that was long ago replaced by the Internet?
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October 12th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I use the Yellow Pages all the time. Just yesterday our friend, Rachel, was over with her daughter (Hannah – 3.5 years old). I stacked a couple of Dex Plus/Frontier yellow pages together and used them as a booster seat. Hannah seemed to find the books useful, however she was not a fan of the hard cover Frontier book as it was slightly uncomfortable. In the “under 5″ category the Dex Plus yellow pages was a big hit.
October 12th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
That’s hilarious, Bill. I figured they would be somewhat out of date since they’re print spam, but it’s surprisingly sad to hear that it’s more than a year out of date in many cases.
October 12th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Like you, I recycle those bastards as soon as they show up on the front porch. The only reason they are still published is they use the most heinous tactics to collect advertising funds. They send out “bills” that are printed on yellow paper, in yellow envelopes to every business in the area and use language that hints at accelerated collection activity. It’s deceptive and completely unethical.
October 12th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Well is must be because they are so accustomed to sending out invoices to businesses which will never respond because they no longer exist!
October 12th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
[...] Bill from Lazy Lightening decided to NOT throw his newly arrived yellow pages at the company that delivered it (it was a Burnsville, Lakeville, Apple Valley Verizon Yellow Pages so that would be my “friends” at Idearc Media in Eagan). Instead, he took an even more radical step: He opened it! [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
That former Burger King on 13, then a Maytag store, is now an abandoned building.
October 12th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
“Maytag’s gone”, even better.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I still use it often, for some reason. I think I had bad luck with an online yellow pages site back in 1996 and never tried again. When I want to find vacuum tubes or typewriter repairmen, it’s invaluable!
October 14th, 2008 at 10:43 am
The Verizon Pages are garbage.. We had an office in Edina that continued to be listed in the Verizon pages 3-4 years after we had moved.. We took the number to our new office, so if anyone called they still got someone but we had no luck in trying to get Verizon to remove the number or at least change the address..
October 15th, 2008 at 5:16 am
The Verizon white pages are no better. I’m listed with both my old and new phone numbers (same address) and have been for 13 years (changed numbers after 9 months due to constant collection agency calls for the former user of the number). It gets even better–a guy I used to work with is listed at an old address he hasn’t lived at in close to 20 years. My old next door neighbor (who died 5 years ago) is still listed at that address, and for the apartment he had in Burnsivlle before buying that house. I recycle everything but the Frontier hard copy…
October 15th, 2008 at 7:06 am
I never even bring the phone books upstairs from the lobby.
I do remember before the Hooters was Hooters though. Before it opened, but it was just an abandoned building for a couple years if I recall correctly. I don’t remember it being an Embers.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I looked up my name in the South Metro Verizon pages-they had me listed living at the Burnsville apartment I lived at over 5 years ago.
October 17th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I know, I know…I’m such a Debbie Downer. (And yes, this is a solid argument for sunsetting paper phone books). It’s fun to see how obsolete the listings are, but it makes sense in terms of why they are that way.
If you think about how these things work, when you cancel your phone service, the person processing the transaction (and I was one of those people for a short time), submits the change to the directories. However, at the rate phone companies change, merge, divide, sell off directory operations, these things naturally fall by the wayside. If you published to a small phone directory and the thing got sold a dozen times, your listing will probably have a permanent legacy. The person doing your disconnect order has no idea where the number and address was published all along the way.
On a side note, don’t piss off the person who is processing your phone connections and assigning your phone numbers. The people that were pissy with me got assigned phone numbers that included things like 2-4653 (A-HOLE) or other numbers that translated into unflattering things. And don’t let anyone tell you they can’t assign you easy-to-remember numbers or things like that.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:34 am
There was, in fact, an embers at that location… way back… WAY WAY back.