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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

#271

Post by monksy »

121789 wrote: post #266
tptacek wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'm not sure I'm sold on any destination burger. Google Kenji Alt's ultra-smash burger, and just make them at home. I'm unhappy about Au Cheval because the rest of the menu is relevant to my interests, but I can't eat there because it's a destination burger restaurant now. But, back to the point of this article: my problems != Hogsalt Restaurants problems!

Oh please, the Au Cheval wait has been ridiculous for at least 5 years now. If you have friends and you drink, it’s very easy to plan to hang at one of the bars that’re close by for a couple of hours.

I'm pretty sure that's the only reason that the Lonewolf exists. I've never heard of a time where you can get into Au Chavel without a wait for the time that I've lived here. (About 5+ish years)

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

#272

Post by aapeli »

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…

That's actually really interesting about TicketMaster. I can't find any info about it online; but if that's actually what's happening, it's genius—I never thought about that possibility.

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

#273

Post by bedhead »

tptacek wrote: post #268
bedhead wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I once waited in line at Hot Doug's and when I reached the front, a dude in a limo pulled up and offered to buy my place in line for $100. I didn't take him up on it, but one of the dudes I was there with did! It turns out though that there was a secret to Hot Doug's, which is that you could just fax an order in and then skip the line to pick it up. I always worried that the line would murder me when I did that.

You didn't even need to fax, you could call. That was literally the only way I would go after my first trip when I stood in that miserable line. Originally you could call in a takeout order anytime. Then he limited it to weekdays. Then he cut Friday's. Sometime in the last year of operation he stopped phone-in orders altogether. There was nothing better than saying, "Excuse me" 20 times as I bypassed the line to pickup an order, as the people standing in line had emotions ranging from bewilderment to rage. Then I would walk out with a bag of food and a smile on my face and everyone was in shock. In summer I would just plop down on that picnic table next door. Good times.

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

#274

Post by tptacek »

monksy wrote: post #271
121789 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please, the Au Cheval wait has been ridiculous for at least 5 years now. If you have friends and you drink, it’s very easy to plan to hang at one of the bars that’re close by for a couple of hours.

I'm pretty sure that's the only reason that the Lonewolf exists. I've never heard of a time where you can get into Au Chavel without a wait for the time that I've lived here. (About 5+ish years)

If you're going to Au Cheval during the middle of the day, Lonewolf isn't an option. If you're going at peak hours, Lonewolf is likely to be as packeed as anywhere else. I like Lonewolf as much as anyone else does, but if I'm going to make a multi-hour project out of going to a restaurant, it's not going to be Au Cheval.

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

#275

Post by jonnycomputer »

mabbo wrote: post #184
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; If you have a five hour lineup for a burger, you need to raise your prices at least a little bit. You'll make more money overall, and your customers will be happy.

He would, in all likelihood, lose his regulars that had come in for years. For people who just want to make a living, and enjoy life doing it, that might be like losing all your friends.

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

#276

Post by Applejinx »

This is another aspect of frictionless criticism. Being able to tell the whole wide world 'this is the one bestest burger in America', EVEN IF IT'S TRUE, is greatly different from just knowing it for yourself. Things don't scale the way internet attention can scale.

And nothing a 'market' or price-juggling can do, will change that. If you simply jack the price until it's so high that the sales unit volume is the same as it should be, you've completely changed everything in the dynamics of the business and its relationship to its context. You can't CURE this with markets.

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

#278

Post by ValentineC »

aapeli wrote: post #272
crazygringo wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's actually really interesting about TicketMaster. I can't find any info about it online; but if that's actually what's happening, it's genius—I never thought about that possibility.

This Freakonomics podcast was where it originated, I believe: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-scr...

There was also a good discussion about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18025209

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

#279

Post by purplezooey »

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…

Do they really call the place where the orders are picked up "the pass"? :)

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

#280

Post by joezydeco »

purplezooey wrote: post #279
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…

Do they really call the place where the orders are picked up "the pass"? :)

Yes.

https://firstwefeast.com/eat/kitchen-slang-101-talk-like-rea...

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