The changes described in TFA seem like good ideas, but one would have expected to read of them in May rather than September.
The Rise and Fall of Pret a Manger
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Re: The Rise and Fall of Pret a Manger
#72In Silicon valley there was a chain called Specialty's Cafe and Bakery. They shut down permanently after the pandemic but it was very common place for offices to order meals for lunch meetings. The sandwiches were bland but the cookies were always nice.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Pret a Manger
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hyper-Bowl would describe typical US portions. The good thing is, that its also common to get "to go" boxes alongside so you can reasonably eat twice for one purchase. It is very rare (on my personal observation, I have no stats here so its anecdata) for anyone to walk out of a ready-made food outlet without the soda and chips. I have also felt at times "pret" was a bit stingy. If I get a turkey and brie sandwich, I…
The pastrami (or corned beef) sandwich thing at the better known NYC Jewish delis is a bit of a Manhattan trope. And, yeah, people mostly either split it (for extra cost) or they take half of it home.
Back in the 80s, I used to get hot salt beef rolls with my Dad in an inner-london cafe when he got off the sleeper from Edinburgh, coming to London to go to meetings. They heated it up with the steam-jet of the cappucino machine...
Re: The Rise and Fall of Pret a Manger
#74When I was in London on vacation nine years ago, Pret shops were a godsend. I think at least half of my lunches and dinners were Pret sandwiches, as I was generally running around and didn't have time or energy for much else. After they became popular in NYC a few years later, I tried them a couple of times but didn't find nearly as good a selection of healthy options as in London.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Pret a Manger
#75As an American, I've always been so confused by Pret's sandwiches. Specifically, how they're like 95% bread. Seriously. You get their "famous ham and cheese" and it's a mini baguette with like a single layer of ham and cheese. Like the ham and cheese is a condiment, rather than filling. It's a stretch to call what they sell "sandwiches". It's closer to just flavored bread. And remember -- it's not just sugar that inc…
I've eaten both european and american sandwiches. American ones are certainly better "value for money" but only in the sense that they typically feed a family of four. They're kind-of excessive. the US didn't invent the foot-long sub for no reason, worldwide obesity scores had to be earned.
I have some family in the UK. A few years ago my cousin came to visit me from England and we stopped by a local pizza place (Mike's Pizza in Fairfield, CT for anyone who cares). I got a regular meatball sub and she didn't want anything. When we got home and I unwrapped it, her eyes popped.
Until then, she thought that the sandwiches she saw on American TV shows were just a joke: she had no idea that our sandwiches were actually that big (yeah, Mike's used to really stuff them, but still). As she explained, back in the UK, you could maybe get one half the size and even then it would be unusual.
I nodded in understanding as I sucked the entire thing down.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Pret a Manger
#76We need to wait and see how things develop. Even if people continue to WFH in the long term, I think many would still like to buy Pret a Manger (and others) products because it's not because people are at home that they necessarily want to cook their lunch every day or don't want to buy snacks. So there may be an opportunity to adapt and perhaps we'll have Pret a Manger vans driving around in residential areas like i…
| We need to wait and see how things develop.
But these headlines need armchair prognoses now!
Re: The Rise and Fall of Pret a Manger
#77My guess from chatting to some of the people in the stores is there's gonna be a bloodbath. Your average food shop is running on what kind of margin? Maybe 20% at best, 15% more commonly? I chatted with a guy who says his business is down 90%. The guy at Subway said something similar. Before the apocalypse, the business made sense because of the sheer number of people walking by. You could pay for the food, the labou…
To be cynical, that's what it looks like when the status quo chooses its victims. This time it hits close to home for everyone because we're all familiar with this sort of loss.
>To be cynical, that's what it looks like when the status quo chooses its victims.
What do you mean by this? What's the status quo? WFH? the pandemic?
Re: The Rise and Fall of Pret a Manger
#78I can honestly say that, aside from "good pubs", Pret a Manger is the thing I miss most having moved from London to San Francisco. There's just nothing like it for quick, easy, good coffee-and-premade-food (or I just haven't found it - in which case, please consider this a masterful invocation of Cunningham's Law).
I think SF is more of a burrito and onigiri type of town. Some of my favorite grab and go spots are Asian grocery stores.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Pret a Manger
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
The GP is clearly using hyperbole, but there are much more calorific sandwiches at Subway. From Subway's nutrition datasheet (PDF): http://www.subway.com/~/media/USA/Documents/Nutrition/US_Nut... There are several standard menu items over 900 calories for a "footlong," with the Chicken & Bacon Ranch Melt coming in at 1,060 calories.
Throw in chips and soda for a "meal" and you're looking at probably 1600+ calories.
This is an important point - a 24oz Coke is about 250 calories, and a 1.75oz bag of Doritos is also about 250, so “making it a meal” adds an additional 500 calories on top of any sandwich.
Re: The Rise and Fall of Pret a Manger
#80My guess from chatting to some of the people in the stores is there's gonna be a bloodbath. Your average food shop is running on what kind of margin? Maybe 20% at best, 15% more commonly? I chatted with a guy who says his business is down 90%. The guy at Subway said something similar. Before the apocalypse, the business made sense because of the sheer number of people walking by. You could pay for the food, the labou…
Now that WFH has been "discovered" it's doubtful. I mean if everyone works from home just one day a week, that's 20% fewer sandwiches they will need to buy.
I’m not so sure. Just because you’re working from home, that doesn’t mean you want to spend a significant amount of time shopping for and preparing lots of different things for your lunches. If you were OK with that, you could easily have taken a packed lunch to work before and probably saved quite a bit of money, but the existence of the sandwich shop as a concept suggests that plenty of people prefer the convenience and variety they offer.
What I do expect to see now is a rebalancing of where these places are found. Not so long ago, we moved from a busy area of Cambridge (UK) to a village a few miles outside the city. Life is different here, but better in most ways. We don’t have a Pret sandwich place or a Wetherspoons pub here. We do have a couple of local cafés and a baker, though, and several other pubs. We also get something I had only noticed in passing while living in the city, which is the food trucks that travel around and set up in a different spot each evening. Each truck typically has its own speciality cuisine and they’re great if you want something interesting for dinner.
As far as I can tell, these are all independent small businesses, often run by the owners. We were worried for them during the months when almost everything was closed down because of the virus, but fortunately they made it through and now they seem to be thriving, presumably because they’re well placed to serve a suddenly-larger local market.
I have nothing against Pret. I've eaten there many times when I’ve been travelling for work or shopping for a while in a big place. But almost everything is better about those local businesses I mentioned. If the strange circumstances this year cause a permanent change in our lifestyles and if that makes local catering more viable at the expense of the big convenience chains aimed at a commuting workforce, I find it hard to see a downside, at least in the long term after a possibly disruptive period of change. The trade and jobs will probably still be there, just in smaller businesses serving their own communities.