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Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

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Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#381

Post by scarface74 »

every wrote: post #144
kyuudou wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bars however are a dream. As long as the location is good and the clientele are don't fight, get unruly or drunk drive. Ideal would be somewhere like NYC that's mostly walkable. Can't just open up a bar at the end of the universe. Unless talking cow being served.

I once worked for a chain of nightclubs. We used a poor man's form of demographic analysis. We looked to see where the major franchise food operations were building and would shop for a property there. People eat and people drink...

This isn’t a poor man’s analysis. This is what major business do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jILgxeNBK_8

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#382

Post by scarface74 »

GlennS wrote: post #350
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the passion argument is that valuable. For a LOT of people programming is their passion. Yet they command some of the highest salaries. The labor market doesn't care about passion. It will settle where it needs to based on demand and supply.

It boils down to supply and demand, though, right? I think the large number of people who love programming makes getting an "elite" programming job difficult. But, I think the vast majority of people think they'd hate or couldn't do programming, and so never consider it as a job despite how much demand there is for it. And that keeps our entry level wages safe.

There is an entire world of people who are willing to work for less and developing can be done remotely.

Even ignoring that. Everything gets commoditized over time. How much does your typical PHP/Wordpress developer make now? Companies like make it easy for someone who doesn’t know anything about programming to make a decent website. There are companies now that make it easy to make a cut and paste iOS app.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#383

Post by goldenkey »

pbourke wrote: post #219
alexashka wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We have this today - McDonald’s, Chipotle, Jimmy John’s, Dominos, etc. Sure there are some humans, but there is also an optimized supply chain and in the case of McDonald’s, a fair bit of automation. > Restaurant cooks/servers are the equivalent of hand washing clothes Both are a skilled trade. Can you not tell the difference between the best meal you’ve ever eaten at a restaurant and a cup of fried cheese balls from…

Actually, some of the best food I've had has been frozen but cooked correctly, ie. using convection. For example, Healthy Choice used to have a Marsala Pasta steamer in a balsamic wine reduction. If microwaved properly it was tastier than 90% of the expensive pasta meals I've had at 4 and 5 star Italian restaurants. And I live in NYC so I know good food.

That said, it's very possible healthy choice employs very skilled chefs to either do small batch production or has figured out a way to do large batches without sacrificing quality.

Their microwave steamer container technology also factors in, since most microwave meals taste bad due to excess moisture.

I don't think automation and quality have to be mutually exclusive. The same goes for spirits. Some small batch Icelandic vodka I had was absolutely horrible compared to the mass produced Grey Goose, despite costing more.

I see the benefits of covid. Culling the inefficiencies in our markets. Shale fracking, unnecessary luxury services like mid-tier restaurants, etc..

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#384

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Huge mortgage because they build them out like Disneyland? Used to be restaurants had a couple pictures on the wall, vinyl covered booths and bent-steel frame chairs/formica tables. Now they've got to have a slice of redwood tree in acrylic for the party table, antique kitsch all over the walls, leather seats and a bar that's a cross between a church organ and a cuckoo clock. A million dollars in 'environment' before you get to the kitchen.

But if the foods good, there's a way. The answer to margins when you've got a product that people want, is always the same: raise the prices. Value what you have, and market the hell out of it.

But what do I know.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#385

Post by mtrower »

acjacobson wrote: post #362
virgilp wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ref 3: 1. Prices in USD 2. Quotes Philly Mag. (Philladelphia?) 3. Mentions how generous tipping is required to help servers survive Yeah, of course one would assume it’s about US. I’m honestly very surprised if it isn’t.

Prices are in Canadian dollars, but I didn't know this until I looked up the restaurant. $11 felt kinda high for a döner, even a really good one. But that works out to ~7€ which is a little high for Germany, but not that much higher.

That definitely explains a lot; I thought $10/lb for the type of meat they were describing was kind of crazy (for someone complaining about margins, anyway). ~$6.30 USD/lb feels far more sane.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#386

Post by keiferski »

rv-de wrote: post #359
kenneth wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "bro culture" article written by a female entrepreneur who isn't from Silicon Valley… right. I think you need to check your prejudices. 1) plenty of restaurants don't sell alcohol, including it seems this one. she also had a point about how drinks aren't a great revenue generator given the price you can expect to charge in a fast-casual setting vs. the costs (higher than grocery stores) 2) how is the restauranteur'…

how about this? https://medium.com/@joelleparenteau/wolfing-it-down-f703a3cf... "We are looking for people who love food and crave the experience of working in a restaurant that operates more like a tech startup — after all, that’s my background and we are backed by the Shopify founders." who craves the experience of working in a restaurant? wtf is wrong with that woman? it's a job and they enjoy it if the boss treat…

I worked in restaurants and bakeries for years. Certainly they have their issues, but the environment is a lot more enjoyable than a sitting at a desk in a generic office.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#387

Post by wendyshu »

mark-r wrote: post #88
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…

Landlords, like any other business, are out to maximize their profits. Their goal is to capture 100% of the profit of businesses that rent from them. Given that the mechanisms for doing this are very crude, there's a chance that they could be getting 101% or more and that spells death for your business.

So with profits dropping they should lower rent?

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#388

Post by wendyshu »

karmelapple wrote: post #128
duxup wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I wonder about the real estate situation. There is a retail development near me that sat largely empty for years. They kept it up and clean, but word was the prices were sky high. It still has a huge number of vacancies ... we're talking 5+ years after it was built. Meanwhile other retail places had shops closing, word was the rent kept climbing. I almost want to suggest that the local city come up with a concep…

Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA, has trended towards being one of these places in recent years. Restaurant or other long-standing business can no longer afford the rent, and it’s either replaced by nothing or a bank. It says the lifeblood out of the area. From what I understand, the owners of the buildings are holding out for the high cost renters... like a bank. A city government could provide incentives to ensure t…

Isn't the lack of rent already an incentive to not let places sit vacant?

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#389

Post by wendyshu »

runxel wrote: post #373
puranjay wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real estate sector hasn't made sense to me in years. No matter what happens, prices either stay intact or go up. Nothing seems to move the prices down.

Greed. It's just that.

Is greed unique to the real estate market?

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#390

Post by wendyshu »

nickff wrote: post #12

This post misses the forest for the trees. The reason for the low margins in the restaurant business is the lack of differentiation. Their products are largely commoditized, so they have no competitive advantage or market power. Peter Thiel discussed this in a lecture for YC, where he said that you can work very hard to make the best restaurant in a city, but it doesn't give you much pricing power, because the second…

What's an example of a well differentiated restaurant?
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