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Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

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Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#91

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c »

novok wrote: post #86
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #56

My guess is that moving forward businesses will try to reduce labor and overhead through automation and centralization in places like cloud kitchens. Delivery costs to the consumer will eventually be sufficiently streamlined to be negligible, like they allegedly already are in East Asia. A $20 kebab is not going to fly. The only other option is to optimize whatever costs can be optimized. Unfortunately it's not looki…

Delivery food tends to not taste as well as food that come straight out of the kitchen, and that dynamic is going to be hard to compete with without a much faster delivery pipeline (drone delivery)?

Agreed. I don't think it makes sense to order food from a place that's a 30 minute drive away, but unfortunately in bigger cities with traffic this is the norm as of today. By the time the food makes it to you, it's lukewarm and has lost some of its appeal. A first world problem, but also one of the simple joys of food.

Maybe with cloud kitchens we'll be able to improve kitchen proximity, and we'll improve the containers that the food is delivered in.

Not to mention that most of the containers used for delivery are not biodegradable and, I imagine, generate a ton of extra trash.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#92

Post by IAmGraydon »

Waterluvian wrote: post #87

I think this can all be collapsed into a very simple explanation. Almost everyone has a kitchen in their home and practices being an amateur chef every day. What else does everyone practice almost every day at home that has higher margins? Restaurants are competing with a baseline price of homemade meals. Most other businesses aren't competing like this.

Most restaurants aren’t just selling food. They’re selling the experience.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#93

Post by mark-r »

Digory wrote: post #83
triceratops wrote: post #50

> Drinks for instance cost us more than at the grocery store — but we can’t exactly go get 20 cases of pop per day, so we don’t have much choice. I didn't understand this. It may not be feasible to buy 100 cases of pop at a regular grocery store, but isn't Costco/Sam's Club set up for that? I do think it comes down ultimately to real estate prices. Major metros in North America have gradually become unaffordable for…

And yet I'm not sure it's a smart deal to be a commercial landlord. These "Retail space per capita" graphs have been eye-popping for awhile.[0] The landlords that win seem to be the landlords who play the political subsidy and tax games, not just good developers. [0]

My favorite is the landlords that refuse to lower their rents to attract tenants. They got a loan to buy the property, and the loan is backed by the revenue potential of the property. If rents decrease, the revenue potential also decreases and the lenders require the property owners to make up the difference. It produces a huge incentive for a property to go unrented at a high price rather than rented at a low price.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#94

Post by fouc »

I eat out every meal in thailand, but I eat at small mom'n'pop shops, fresh cooked meals for $1 each.

It would be nice if we moved away from the big restaurants and moved towards smaller shops that are more kitchen than restaurant.

Restaurants should stop wasting money on signage, interior design, and fancy tables or dishes. Let's go back to simple, plain, and cheap.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#95

Post by 2019-nCoV »

virtualritz wrote: post #41

Amazing. 11 USD for a döner! A döner is between 2.5 and 5.0 EUR in Berlin (roughly 2.75 to 5.5 USD). That's takeaway or eat in at a place with a few tables but w/o table service. Meraba, which uses high quality organic meat from the region, comparable to the quality of the protein stated in the article, asks 4.5 EUR. A whole plate is 10 EUR.[1] If order to your doorstep it's 6.5 EUR.[2] [1] https://www.top10berlin.de…

Throw in a cold Lagerbier (€2) to wash it down with and the contrast is even more sobering.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#96

Post by tidenly »

teddyh wrote: post #54

> It’s very simple: let’s reset our expectations and restore respectable margins. If restaurants in general raise their prices, what’s to stop landlords from doing the same and raise rents to match?

Landlords are a whole other problem to be sorted separately.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#97

Post by Waterluvian »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #92
Waterluvian wrote: post #87

I think this can all be collapsed into a very simple explanation. Almost everyone has a kitchen in their home and practices being an amateur chef every day. What else does everyone practice almost every day at home that has higher margins? Restaurants are competing with a baseline price of homemade meals. Most other businesses aren't competing like this.

Most restaurants aren’t just selling food. They’re selling the experience.

Yeah. But that's not really the core concept. That's an add on. The core concept still competes with "anybody can make a version of that doner at home" so if you want everyone to rethink the value of the experience up to $15 a pita, it's just going to drive more people to eat out less.

I appreciate that there's more to a restaurant than the literal food on the plate. But I think it's what oversold that ambience drives such a premium.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#98

Post by tehlike »

Symbiote wrote: post #29
Tepix wrote: post #2

Döner for $11? I‘ve ever seen one sell for more than €5 and €3.50 seems to be an average price here.

It looks like it's fancier than average -- bread from a special bakery, "high quality beef" and so on. I wouldn't care for a fancy takeaway döner, I think other meals benefit far more from better ingredients etc. Evidently, others do appreciate it.

There is a saying. If it tastes good, you don't want to know what's in it :)

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#99

Post by 542458 »

fouc wrote: post #94

I eat out every meal in thailand, but I eat at small mom'n'pop shops, fresh cooked meals for $1 each. It would be nice if we moved away from the big restaurants and moved towards smaller shops that are more kitchen than restaurant. Restaurants should stop wasting money on signage, interior design, and fancy tables or dishes. Let's go back to simple, plain, and cheap.

A few things here:

- In NA, if you’re “just a kitchen” you’re essentially fast food/takeaway - and putting myself directly into competition with McDonalds+etc doesn’t sound like an awesome proposition to me. (Obviously this will vary by culture and local competition)

- Signage, fancy tables and dishes are way cheaper than you’d expect at commercial scales, especially once you amortize them over their estimated lifespans. And on the flip side, it allows you to charge significantly more for the fancier experience.

- I don’t think the “simple and cheap” restaurant actually works that well economically. My litmus test here is when an area gets gentrified, often these hole-in-the-wall places are first to go.

- Most restaurants are lifestyle businesses, so normal business logic breaks down a little. In many cases, the owners want the prestige of running a nice place.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#100

Post by icelancer »

fouc wrote: post #94

I eat out every meal in thailand, but I eat at small mom'n'pop shops, fresh cooked meals for $1 each. It would be nice if we moved away from the big restaurants and moved towards smaller shops that are more kitchen than restaurant. Restaurants should stop wasting money on signage, interior design, and fancy tables or dishes. Let's go back to simple, plain, and cheap.

Food stands and simple stuff like that are illegal in many cities or require burdensome permits/regulation.
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