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Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

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Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#301

Post by alkonaut »

sleavey wrote: post #197

Something's up. In Germany in a normal city I can get a döner the same size as the one in the photo for €3 ($3.50?). It's not sourdough nor high quality protein but that can't explain the $7.50 difference. Edit: as the commenter below reminded me, it's actually more like €4-5 but my point stands.

And in Stockholm you’d be lucky to get one under €9. These things vary with taxes and living costs (which ironically include the Döner).

Germany also has a huge Turkish community, perhaps competition is just fierce in that category?

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#302

Post by deathgrips »

sneak wrote: post #149
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…

So, this is a refutation of one of the author’s points: either you differentiate, or is is unskilled labor (and the iron law of wages is nipping at your toes). It’s possible to differentiate purely on marketing and not just food alone, too. But it’s madness to expect to make your money on volume in the restaurant biz and make any significant money without double-digit location counts and significant capital reserves;…

The iron law of wages was based, among other things, on Malthus' demographic theory. Modern economists are highly critical of it. Supply and demand are sufficient to explain the wages of cooks and dishwashers: anyone can be trained in a couple weeks to be a minimally competent cook or dishwasher. The labor supply is roughly equal to the number of people who need any kind of work.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#303

Post by carlob »

indecisive_user wrote: post #283
mikekchar wrote: post #214

I suspect some of these prices are generously rounded up. I think there is a very good possibility that the author doesn't actually track costs down to that level. They are probably looking at their overall costs and extrapolating downwards to the one item. Possibly a good review of their spending could save them a lot of money. Yes, I realise it is Ottawa and CDN, but I lived in Ottawa for over 10 years and these pr…

$2 per 100g is about $8.50 per pound. I don't know what prices in Ottawa are like but that really doesn't sound that outrageous for a high quality beef depending on the cut, whether it's grass fed, etc.

Maybe it sounds good to you, but I'm assuming that if you have some economy of scale you are going to pay less than what the general population does. Also that should be the average between beef, chicken and tofu, and if you take that into account, it's crazy expensive...

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#304

Post by virgilp »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #215

I really dislike the way in which this article has been written - it reads as the typical piece from the "bro culture" that massively ignores the rest of the world. Besides this, which is not the point... 1) most restaurants in US and high-end Europe that survive and thrive do so by having big margins on alcohol. Their margins are not single-digits. (edit: just saw other comments mentioning this). 2) Many restaurateu…

US restaurants ask me to pay their tax and their personnel separately, and are still expensive. I get it that cheap fastfoods operate on slim margins but I have a very hard time believing the decent restaurants do. I read the article hoping to find what the hell costs 50-70 USD + tax + waiter wages (aka “20% tip that you’re a monster if you don’t pay”), found no such thing.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#305

Post by tiborsaas »

Tomte wrote: post #213
sleavey wrote: post #197

Something's up. In Germany in a normal city I can get a döner the same size as the one in the photo for €3 ($3.50?). It's not sourdough nor high quality protein but that can't explain the $7.50 difference. Edit: as the commenter below reminded me, it's actually more like €4-5 but my point stands.

That's uncommonly cheap. East Germany somewhere? Those Döner prices are usually found in Berlin itself. I live in a cheap part of Germany, and our Döners have gone up from 4.50 or 4.70 Euros to about 5 Euros everywhere. But let's not forget that even 5 Euros is an insane price for that much meat. It works out because (a) the meat isn't great to begin with and (b) Dönerstuben are hotbeds for tax evasion. Many many Dön…

Budapest: 2.2 EUR for a nice Doner.

The best shawarma I was able to find costs 3 EUR in the innermost district.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#306

Post by carlob »

winter_blue wrote: post #231
sleavey wrote: post #197

Something's up. In Germany in a normal city I can get a döner the same size as the one in the photo for €3 ($3.50?). It's not sourdough nor high quality protein but that can't explain the $7.50 difference. Edit: as the commenter below reminded me, it's actually more like €4-5 but my point stands.

Yea, a döner can be made for far less money . They're using over-the-top expensive premium ingredients, but if you just use regular supermarket ingredients, you could make a döner for far far less . Let me attempt a prices breakdown: I'm in the U.S., and the nearby Aldi sells boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $2.49 per pound (a restaurant could probably order in bulk, and get that an even lower price). A pound i…

Though you don't want to use chicken breast with a doner, it would come out too dry. I think it's very common to use brown meat from birds, something like turkey thighs, which are gonna be even cheaper than chicken breast.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#307

Post by devit »

Good riddance!

Restaurants are an horribly inefficient way to eat compared to supermarkets, and they are a really lousy social environment, where you can only interact with people at your table, often in very inauthentic (aka "formal") ways.

Not much will be lost if only a few restaurants survive.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#308

Post by distances »

MattGaiser wrote: post #252
Gollapalli wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Restaurants must relocate to cheaper areas like warehouses and shift to a delivery-first distribution model, which Uber, Lyft, and Google Express could help dispatch. It sucks from a customer-interaction perspective, but it's necessary. Other businesses like Pret in London were already using a hybrid centralized preparation with small, hyperlocal retail sales model. Yes. Let's just kill all community space. Great id…

> Yes. Let's just kill all community space. Great idea. I too enjoy being a pod person. The problem is that a heck of a lot of people are ok with that. I'm one of them. When I went to university, the delivery apps arrived in the middle of my time there. I think I went to a restaurant a 5-6 times in the remaining two years after UberEats and SkipTheDishes arrived. I lived in the centre of downtown my final year and I…

I also want to be on my computer, but I have never ordered food delivery and don't plan to change that. I'm lucky to have a wealth of restaurants nearby and I like it that way, so it's eat out or take-away when I don't feel like cooking. The price premium alone for delivered food makes the whole concept unappealing to me in inner city.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#309

Post by carlob »

freeone3000 wrote: post #148
zwirbl wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how does cashless pay make it cost a few bucks per serving more? If it is that, why would anyone offer cashless payment? Most Döner and other Street Foods in Austria are cash only, but that's not the reason a typically priced Döner costs ~5€

Cash-only means no card reader rental, which saves a couple hundred per month and at least 5% of every transaction, and possibly no internet bill, either... But you can't go cash-only because so few people carry cash, that our would drive out your sales.

And I'm pretty sure no receipt and under-reported taxes. But what am I saying, that's only something that happens in PIGS, nobody evades taxes in Germany...

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#310

Post by gridlockd »

mikekchar wrote: post #214

I suspect some of these prices are generously rounded up. I think there is a very good possibility that the author doesn't actually track costs down to that level. They are probably looking at their overall costs and extrapolating downwards to the one item. Possibly a good review of their spending could save them a lot of money. Yes, I realise it is Ottawa and CDN, but I lived in Ottawa for over 10 years and these pr…

Never mind that preparing such a sandwich should take no more than five minutes of labor total. They are clearly not selling enough if 2.50 goes to labor.
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