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I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

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Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#251

Post by matt4077 »

briandear wrote: post #75
gilrain wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They live in a community. If they raise prices such that their friends and neighbors can not afford to eat there, they will become social pariahs. It would be very difficult to do, and it would alienate the very people they probably wanted to be serving. If you’re a restaurateur, you probably don’t even live near that restaurant. But this advice is tantamount to: tell your friends and everyone who helped you get wher…

It’s called supply and demand. If there is a 5 hour wait, there’s a problem: no local will wait 5 hours for a burger so you exclude them anyway. Price is the best mechanism to address supply and demand.

All the successful restaurants I've experienced chose to give preferential treatment to locals and regulars. That's because they often give the place the charme that makes it special in the first place. And that the business is rather cyclical, and you don't want to end up without tourists AND local all hating you.

At the point where you're running 20 tables or more for three rounds every night (plus mabybe 2x lunch) you stop caring about making more money. Because if money were that important, you would have gone into investment banker, not chef.

Plus restaurants tend to get into and out of favour. IT'

And everyone hates tourist. Seriously: if you work anywhere close to tourists, you will hate work because it's full of tourists. Then you take a vacation and start hating yourself.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#252

Post by tptacek »

bedhead wrote: post #242
tptacek wrote: post #135

It's hard to blame Kevin Alexander for this, because Steve Stanich played ball with the review, like most restaurants would. If he wanted to, he could have asked not to be featured in the list, and Alexander probably would have complied; otherwise, he could have done other things to make it clear to his customers that he wasn't interested in fulfilling the role the ranking carved out for him. We see this effect in Ch…

Au Cheval is easily the most overrated burger (and perhaps restaurant) in Chicago. Hey guess what, if you make a 12oz burger, put three slices of cheese on it, place it on a buttered roll, then put pork belly, a fried egg, and mayo on it, it will taste good. And it will also make you want to freakin die the moment you're done because you just consumed 25,000 calories. But people will wait literally 2.5 hours for this…

Grant Achatz is famously a fiend for Potbelly (a cheap chain that is like a notch up from Quiznos). I don't know that it's fair to ding him with Au Cheval.

I hear good things about the rest of Au Cheval's menu!

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#253

Post by tptacek »

notyourday wrote: post #226
tptacek wrote: post #135

It's hard to blame Kevin Alexander for this, because Steve Stanich played ball with the review, like most restaurants would. If he wanted to, he could have asked not to be featured in the list, and Alexander probably would have complied; otherwise, he could have done other things to make it clear to his customers that he wasn't interested in fulfilling the role the ranking carved out for him. We see this effect in Ch…

> To the commenters saying Stanich should simply raise its prices: there's a price ceiling for that burger. It's not a fancy chef burger; it's a standard burger shop burger executed well. That's incorrect. Chef driven burgers are no different from the other burgers - the prices are raised until the price no longer can be raised. As long as Suzi from Chicago is willing to make a trip to Portland and she does not balk…

I don't think that's true, but it's being discussed ad nauseam upthread if you're interested.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#254

Post by yholio »

crazygringo wrote: post #244
tptacek wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do that to a point, but if what you're serving is simply a well-executed diner burger, then, like I said, there's a ceiling. You can't charge $30 for that. Or, you can, but you'll create more problems than you'll solve. This guy ate at 330 different burger restaurants. He has a finely-tuned metric for what a good burger is (his #3 is also a neighborhood place he grew up with). He's set up to appreciate what S…

Exactly. There's a fine line between a reasonable price with a long line... and raising it where people say "they're price gouging, ugh!" and lose your customers forever because you're no longer someone with a passion for the best burger, you're a sellout for the money. Supply and demand doesn't work as smoothly as you think. It's the same reason why huge TicketMaster fees exist -- so artists can sell tickets at a "f…

A simple fix for that is to put up a big sign that says "Tourist tax in effect" and make a $25 rebate for any regular customer or person that can prove a local address; or simply assert with a straight face to the staff they live on this and this street. It's a bit of a hassle for the locals but the place is saved.

Sure, the tourists will attack you on Yelp and Instagram and accuse you of price gouging. But to hell with them and their opinion, on the long run only the opinion of the locals matters.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#255

Post by goobynight »

astrodust wrote: post #101
hnaccy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provide a locals only card that gives reduced pricing, could even have a locals only day once a week.

Ten minutes later a "locals only" card goes on eBay.

To what end?

The whole idea is that non-locals are probably going to buy 1 burger per year or perhaps lifetime.

These kind of people don't fiddle with ebay and paying a random guy just to get 25% off of a burger that they will use once.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#256

Post by bedhead »

tptacek wrote: post #252
bedhead wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Au Cheval is easily the most overrated burger (and perhaps restaurant) in Chicago. Hey guess what, if you make a 12oz burger, put three slices of cheese on it, place it on a buttered roll, then put pork belly, a fried egg, and mayo on it, it will taste good. And it will also make you want to freakin die the moment you're done because you just consumed 25,000 calories. But people will wait literally 2.5 hours for this…

Grant Achatz is famously a fiend for Potbelly (a cheap chain that is like a notch up from Quiznos). I don't know that it's fair to ding him with Au Cheval. I hear good things about the rest of Au Cheval's menu!

Yeah, would be nice to try it but the wait make Hot Doug's look brief.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#257

Post by elvinyung »

moate wrote: post #185
elvinyung wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair; I think I'm slightly more-pissed-than-usual about this just because it's very easy to dismissive of ramen, especially in North America, because all people remember are those deep-fried dehydrated brick fixtures of every college dorm. It is precisely that it doesn't look like traditional fine dining, or even New American cuisine, that I think a lot of people think it's nothing worth looking at. It's reall…

Oh GOD, you want to get me pissed bring up that cry baby Chang. I could rant. But I won't. Listen, I get it. I spend 8 hours every few months boiling off a massive pot of bones and feet to make my own ramen broth to store in my freezer. I get that it's easy to dismiss it soup and noodles as just "some soup and noodles". Food is usually about what you know and are familiar with. It's about comfort for most people, but…

I don't really particularly like David Chang, but one thing that I do identify a lot with is that there is a lot of art and expertise in Asian cuisines that have been neglected in the west, precisely because it has been dismissed as simple, as lower class, as cheap.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#258

Post by [deleted] »

joezydeco wrote: post #221

Let's hear from a local about what really happened to Stanich's: https://www.metafilter.com/177718/Sometimes-its-better-not-t... "Anecdotally, I went to Stanich's a few weeks before the shutdown. They certainly weren't getting overrun with customers at that point. The place was maybe a quarter full on a Friday night, and it was filthy. Dust everywhere, dishes left on tables, stains on the floor, the crust on the ketc…

[deleted]

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#259

Post by goobynight »

Haegin wrote: post #176
astrodust wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ten minutes later a "locals only" card goes on eBay.

I wonder if you could switch the 'locals only' card for just requiring proof of address on a driving license or utility bill. Might still be a problem with locals offering 'burger tours' - you pay me $10, I buy the burgers for $5 because they'd charge you $20, everyone is happy (except the restaurant).

There's no need to go that deep.

Imagine you were taking a trip to Dallas. You're taking PTO, paying for flight/hotel, and so on.

Are you really going to waste time buying a local's 30% off card on ebay that you will use once a year? Maybe once in your life? No way.

Even if you did, what is the result? A handful of people hustled you for a few bucks, but still generated profit for your restaurant.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#260

Post by 49531 »

joezydeco wrote: post #221

Let's hear from a local about what really happened to Stanich's: https://www.metafilter.com/177718/Sometimes-its-better-not-t... "Anecdotally, I went to Stanich's a few weeks before the shutdown. They certainly weren't getting overrun with customers at that point. The place was maybe a quarter full on a Friday night, and it was filthy. Dust everywhere, dishes left on tables, stains on the floor, the crust on the ketc…

Yea _reading_ the linked article goes into all of this.
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