More than 600 restaurant operators attend industry's key political event

The restaurant industry's most important political event opened last Monday in Washington with more than 600 restaurateurs from 49 states and the District of Columbia.

By the end of (Tuesday), we will have more elected officials who understand what it takes to run a restaurant and how their actions can help or hurt us," Association Chairman Burton "Skip" Sack, Classic Restaurant Concepts, Boston, Mass., told a standing-room-only crowd as he opened the conference.