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Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

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Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#201

Post by toohotatopic »

bobthepanda wrote: post #163
supernova87a wrote: post #137

I'll make another observation about the landscape of restaurants. You may notice that in Europe, Asia, the demographics of restaurants are noticeably different from the US. There are far more hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop restaurants in those places compared to the US, running a small and seemingly profit-thin but subsistence restaurant for the neighborhood. Think of a suburban neighborhood in Madrid or Rome, where a…

Where I live in Seattle, there is a lot of new dense neighborhoods going up. And many of these large apartments have ground-level retail, which is supposed to be that urban planning magic sauce for walkable neighborhoods. The problem is, most of these retail spaces are actually vacant, despite massive job and housing growth. But why? Because the retail spaces are simply too large. These spaces are big enough to seat…

Too large shouldn't be a problem.

Every large space can be trimmed down to a small space. If there are too many vacant shops in an area, and there would be a market for smaller shops, I would assume that tenants add walls and rent out the smaller space. Even if that walled-off space is unused, tenants would make more money than not renting out at all.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#202

Post by mrpopo »

irrational wrote: post #191

>The craziest thing to me in all this is, I love food. Like, obsessed. Who’s with me? My point is: if eating is literally one of our favourite things ever, are we willing to pay adequately for it? Do we value it sufficiently? Honestly, seems to me like, if there’s one industry that should be profitable, it’s restaurants. One, we have to eat. Two, we love to eat! I'm wondering if there is some personality differences…

As it's something you have to do, why not at least try to make it enjoyable? I don't get it.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#203

Post by AnthonyMouse »

toohotatopic wrote: post #201
bobthepanda wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live in Seattle, there is a lot of new dense neighborhoods going up. And many of these large apartments have ground-level retail, which is supposed to be that urban planning magic sauce for walkable neighborhoods. The problem is, most of these retail spaces are actually vacant, despite massive job and housing growth. But why? Because the retail spaces are simply too large. These spaces are big enough to seat…

Too large shouldn't be a problem. Every large space can be trimmed down to a small space. If there are too many vacant shops in an area, and there would be a market for smaller shops, I would assume that tenants add walls and rent out the smaller space. Even if that walled-off space is unused, tenants would make more money than not renting out at all.

That's assuming the zoning allows the space to be subdivided.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#204

Post by mprovost »

supernova87a wrote: post #123

Unless you're a really special restaurant with significant differentiation capabilities and people come to eat at your place irrationally, here's a tip: Restaurants are never the ones making the money. They enable others to make money. Usually, landlords. And generally, be cautious about going into a business where people want to do it because it's their passion. It means you're going to competing with people who are…

That's a good observation about landlords. Often if you find a local "ethnic" restaurant that's been there forever and is run by a family (typically Chinese/Indian/Thai/etc) they own the building or at least the space for their restaurant. That means they can stay in business basically infinitely (well, until now) without worrying about rent increases. But this is a different model than most trendy restaurants where the owners are not interesting in buying a property outright - those are seen as an investment not as a steady income for a family.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#205

Post by PhantomGremlin »

irrational wrote: post #179

>we’re so used to free garbage pick-up at home that I never anticipated having to pay for it What locales have free garbage pick-up at home? This is the first time I've heard of such a thing.

New York City is free for residential.

Business trash pickup must be contracted for with a private company. The Mafia used to run a lot of it, but the NY Times claims that's no longer true. Here's an article on the currently screwed up state of commercial trash in NYC: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/opinion/nyc-sanitation.ht...

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#206

Post by watwut »

alexashka wrote: post #180
supernova87a wrote: post #137

I'll make another observation about the landscape of restaurants. You may notice that in Europe, Asia, the demographics of restaurants are noticeably different from the US. There are far more hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop restaurants in those places compared to the US, running a small and seemingly profit-thin but subsistence restaurant for the neighborhood. Think of a suburban neighborhood in Madrid or Rome, where a…

I want small restaurants as much as I want shoe makers instead of automated Nike factories. The way forward is not by enabling people who can serve 500 people/day to exist when we can have a robot serving 5,000. We want automation, we want people doing what they choose to do because we've automated away things they had to do, such as work for a living. The way to get there is more automation. Restaurant cooks/servers…

The robot restaurant is something completely different then restaurant for date or familly dinner.

The robot restaurant is for lunch during work - you care about price and speed and nutrition. That is it. Self service checkout is fine. SittIng close to other people does not matter.

For date, meetups with friends, celebration or filly dinner I want calmer, more intimate place.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#207

Post by AnthonyMouse »

alexashka wrote: post #180
supernova87a wrote: post #137

I'll make another observation about the landscape of restaurants. You may notice that in Europe, Asia, the demographics of restaurants are noticeably different from the US. There are far more hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop restaurants in those places compared to the US, running a small and seemingly profit-thin but subsistence restaurant for the neighborhood. Think of a suburban neighborhood in Madrid or Rome, where a…

I want small restaurants as much as I want shoe makers instead of automated Nike factories. The way forward is not by enabling people who can serve 500 people/day to exist when we can have a robot serving 5,000. We want automation, we want people doing what they choose to do because we've automated away things they had to do, such as work for a living. The way to get there is more automation. Restaurant cooks/servers…

The same things that are preventing small restaurants also stand in the way of that sort of thing. If you could install a machine like a kiosk where people walk up to it, press buttons and insert money and out comes a hot sandwich made to order, people would be renting space to install them all over the place.

But the machine doesn't take up that much space. If the zoning requires you to rent 200 times that much space, the economics go away. So you still have to solve the original problem.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#209

Post by nullc »

JackFr wrote: post #150
every wrote: post #112

I worked bar and restaurant for 25 years. I would never, ever open or own a restaurant voluntarily. The margins are minuscule and require huge up-front costs with micro-managed inventory, labor and quality control to break even. Bars however are a dream. Inventory control is simply tracking portions and comps. Outside of garnishes nothing rots or goes bad. And assuming tips are good, labor is no worry either. We had…

Yeah it’s funny that she ever mentions booze, where the markups are 200-500%. If you can use your tables and food to sell bottles of wine, you can really improve your bottom line.

Ah the benefits of selling an addictive substance in a market with a large base of addicts and a legal environment that largely shields you from liability for even the fairly direct consequences of your product (such as drunk driving after serving at places and times where the non-availability of alternatives guarentees that most of your patrons will be driving).

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#210

Post by diebeforei485 »

I'm starting to think commercial landlords need some competition from local governments. They could create a privately-run charter corporation that rents out small amounts of space to local businesses. Not rent control, but reasonable terms (3-6 month leases, instead of 10-year leases).

There is too much NIMBYism and too many middlemen and archaic expectations in real estate for any mom and pop business to be viable.

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