A longtime North Dakota newspaper columnist who became famous for an earnest review of her local Olive Garden – getting her a book deal and praise from Anthony Bourdain – died Tuesday at 99.
Marilyn Hagerty, a reporter for the Grand Forks Herald for nearly 70 years whose restaurant reviews launched her to Internet stardom in 2012, died from complications related to a stroke, her daughter, Gail Hagerty, said.
Starting out in the 1960s as the paper’s features editor, Hagerty wrote regular columns and eventually started “Eatbeat” to review local restaurants. While there wasn’t much to Grand Forks’ food scene, the column launched to a “hail” of community response, Hagerty once told the Grand Forks Herald.
“I thought, this is just something I do on Wednesday,” she told the paper. “Just kind of something I throw in there to try and embellish the food section. And yet it’s getting the most attention, while all these things I thought were gems were just going by the wayside.”
While she had long been admired in Grand Forks, Hagerty’s review of an Olive Garden that opened in 2012 went viral, famously praising its chicken Alfredo as being “warm and comforting on a cold day.”
“As I ate, I noticed the vases and planters with permanent flower displays on the ledges,” she wrote. “There are several dining areas with arched doorways. And there is a fireplace that adds warmth to the decor.”
The review, which Hagerty penned in her 80s, offered insight into the no-frills Italian chain that had just opened in town. But as the article gained traction online, she began to receive an onslaught of snarky comments.
As quickly as the Internet tore the piece apart, others jumped to Hagerty’s defense, including beloved celebrity chef, broadcaster and writer, Anthony Bourdain.
With all the attention, Hagerty wound up with appearances on the Anderson Cooper Show, Piers Morgan Tonight, Good Morning America, the Today Show, and was given a slot as a guest judge on Top Chef. Her viral moment also resulted in the publication of her book, “Grand Forks: A History of American Dining in 128 Reviews,” with a forward written by Bourdain.
In the forward, Bourdain describes her reviews as a “straightforward account of what people have been eating — still ARE eating — in much of America. As related by a kind, good-hearted reporter looking to pass along as much useful information as she can — while hurting no one.”
Despite the major success, Hagerty remained ambivalent about her moment in the limelight, telling the North Dakota Newspaper Association in 2014: “I never have known how I feel. I just never have been able to figure it out.”
“I’ve had so much notoriety, so much of it negative, but also with it has come a lot of positive responses that I never expected in my life to receive. I’ve always wanted to do well and to succeed. I’ve never figured I was a great national hero, or anything like that,” she said at the time. “I’m a person who is a newspaperwoman, and I want to be remembered as good at what I do.”
In addition to the national recognition, Hagerty was honored by her alma mater, the University of South Dakota, with the Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media. The city of Grand Forks also honored her civic presence by naming a sewage lift house after her in 2002, “a wink she appreciated,” according to her obituary.
Over the course of her career, Hagerty wrote 2,000 Eatbeat columns. Though she retired from working full-time at the paper in 1991, she continued contributing columns until last October.
Hagerty is survived by her son, James “Bob” Hagerty; daughter, Gail Hagerty; and eight grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Jack Hagerty, and her daughter, Carol Hagerty Werner.
North Dakota newspaper columnist whose Olive Garden review went viral dies at 99
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