There's one Argentinian buffet in Madrid (in Plenilunio mall if someone is interested) with an unusual system: they bring the food around the tables and you pick what you want. Most of it is barbecued meat. I avoid going there because I can't help eating too much every time.
The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
61–70 of 272 posts
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#62There's one Argentinian buffet in Madrid (in Plenilunio mall if someone is interested) with an unusual system: they bring the food around the tables and you pick what you want. Most of it is barbecued meat. I avoid going there because I can't help eating too much every time.
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#63I'm still at awe of the Sushi Buffet thing that you can see all around in Helsinki, Finland. So far I have not seen anything like it, anywhere else in the world. Usually the price you pay is 10€ for an unrestricted and no time limit access to eating sushi. And the sushi is incredibly okay! It's nothing compared to stuff you find Tokyo ofcourse, but the price for quality is literally unbeatable. And all this is happen…
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#64The only thing I found more interesting than all-you-can-eat buffets actually turning a profit is that there are business people who are apparently content running a business with such slim margins. This article quotes a 5% margin. I know food industry margins are low in the first place, but as a business owner in a different field I'm left wondering why anyone would even bother. The same business prowess and attenti…
But I think it’s an interesting point. Why fight all day long for a 5% margin when you could put your money in index funds?
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#65There's one Argentinian buffet in Madrid (in Plenilunio mall if someone is interested) with an unusual system: they bring the food around the tables and you pick what you want. Most of it is barbecued meat. I avoid going there because I can't help eating too much every time.
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#66I'm still at awe of the Sushi Buffet thing that you can see all around in Helsinki, Finland. So far I have not seen anything like it, anywhere else in the world. Usually the price you pay is 10€ for an unrestricted and no time limit access to eating sushi. And the sushi is incredibly okay! It's nothing compared to stuff you find Tokyo ofcourse, but the price for quality is literally unbeatable. And all this is happen…
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#67-Don't just downvote, explain why it won't work.
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#68If the number of all-you-can-eat buffets drops, it's likely because society is starting to advocate healthier lifestyles in my opinion.
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#69Gotta love this guy's confidence in the ability of the budget restaurant to procure and handle properly high quality fresh seafood
Re: The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
This may come as a shock but software is the exception. The vast majority of the business world operates this way. The fun part comes when you realize that absent monopoly conditions this is the natural stable state of a mature market, and think about what the future of software might look like, and what the current public policy fights are about.
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052515/what-average... This article claims that banks make 24%, and they are hardly a monopoly. It also claims the overall average is 8.5%.
The industry standard measure for bank profitability is something called ROA, return on assets, and it's an extensively studied academic topic, with the general consensus that an ROA greater than 1% is pretty good.
https://greyhouse.weissratings.com/ROA-ROE-and-What-These-Ke...
https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/resources/cbi/report/cbi-ro...
I'm sure there are some large institutional players that do consistently better than 1%, maybe up around 5 or 7.
But a longstanding industry with a sustained 24% returns would... sustained compounding 24% a year seems like it would lead to weird results. Like if a bank had survived fifty years and had a few hundred million in assets it would now be responsible for the entirety of US GDP.
EDIT: I looked at BOA as a random test case - 2.1T in assets, 22B in income, seems to match the ~1% rule: https://ycharts.com/financials/BAC/income_statement/quarterl...