It;s interesting that in every big city I’ve lived in, the daily paper has food day on Wednesday–restaurant reviews, recipes, wine selections, etc; why Wednesday and not other days, like say Fridays, when people do cooking/shopping/eating out on weekend?
When I used to deliver the newspaper 40 odd years ago, Wednesday was the day that grocery store flyers were included with the paper so it would make sense to have the food section that day too.
When I was a kid, our hometown newspaper, The Berkshire Eagle, had their big newspaper on Thursdays. I remember because my big brother had a paper route, and he hated Thursdays because the newspapers were so thick and heavy.
Hump Day needs all the help it can get.
I would think Wednesday is a good time to make plans for Friday night.
Hereabouts, the weekly sales at the grocery stores start on Wednesday. Except for one chain that starts on Thursday. Seems to me, it was the same when we lived in Jacksonville. No clue why, but there ya go.
Yeah, this is really a question you should ask the supermarket chains: why do they start their sales (and run the ads to go with them) in the middle of the week instead of the weekend.
My guess is in ye olde days they got their weekly orders delivered on Monday/Tuesday and got the stuff on the shelves by Wednesday.
So doctors can read it when they go golfing?
Yes. I had a paper route 55 years ago. The Wednesday Pittsburgh Press (RIP) was big, second in size to the Sunday paper.
My WAG is that they want to draw people in on slow days. You don’t need all your coupon shoppers and bargain hunters mixed in with the crowd who just wants to get the shopping done in half an hour on Saturday.
In said ye old days, people often got paid on Friday and went shopping Friday night. They’d want to do their shopping list a day or two before.
Also in ye old days if you go back further, at least around here, and still being followeed by a few businesses in this area when I was in my 20’s or even 30’s: people often didn’t have Saturdays off. They had Sundays, which weren’t for shopping but for religion; and Wednesday afternoon. That theory of course somewhat contradicts my first one, as that would seem to call for grocery ads coming out on Monday or Tuesday; but as has been said above maybe the stores weren’t fully stocked till late on Tuesday, or even Wednesday morning.
The current situation may be force of habit. But actually my grocery flyers show up mostly in the weekend version of the daily paper, which comes out Saturday morning; though the weekly paper comes out on Wednesdays and has the same flyer the daily will send out on Saturday.
I haven’t had a paper newspaper delivered in decades. I can’t exactly remember which day was the ads/restaurants day, but I’m feeling confident it was Thursday. Los Angeles Times.
There’s actually an industry term for this: “Best Food Day” – most cities and newspapers traditionally did this on Wednesday, but in some markets, it was Thursday.
Indeed, it seems the Los Angeles Times runs its food section on Thursday. Cite.
Not exclusively a food section, but also covering fine dining: The Financial Times’ confidently named luxury lifestyle supplement “How To Spend It” is published on Saturdays (but not every week).
Thanks for doing the work I was too lazy to do!
I get the San Jose Mercury News delivered daily. The food section for that newspaper is on Sunday. It is combined with what’s left of the travel section.
(I’ve had a daily newspaper delivered to my house for basically my entire life. I find it a hard habit to break.)
That was my guess; Wednesday is when most people start thinking about what they want to do on Friday night.
Yup, I’m just about to pull something out of the freezer now to defrost so I can cook it Friday.
I’ve always wondered why doctors would be so into golf. After all, golfing isn’t good for one’s back.
Or on the weekends.
I also imagine most restaurant critics dine at the places they want to review at the weekend, and there’ll be a delay of at least a couple of days before their columns appear in print. Wednesday would seem to be the day of the week this traditionally happens