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“The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

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Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#151

Post by JoeAltmaier »

slt2021 wrote: post #145
ReptileMan wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For kebab some comedian gave the best advice - look at the knuckles of the kebab maker - if they are very hairy it will be good. Then look at the neckline of his shirt - if there are hairs coming out of it - the kebab will be great.

this reminds me my experience: when I went to Salt Lake City and wanted to try Turkish food and picked nearest Turkish restaurant with the the highest reviews from google maps. Interior was authentic and nice, but the food turned out to be AWFUL, kebab was burnt to ashes, everything food wise was horrible. When I complained, the cook came back and apologized, and I saw the cook was White American. Not saying all Amer…

Have a friend who rates ethnic restaurants by the decor. The fancier the place: the worse the food.

The best places are mismatched chairs and Formica tabletops, menus left over from the previous occupant with a page of badly translated new menu pasted inside.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#152

Post by drjasonharrison »

dole wrote: post #148
xobs wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading an article that had the theory that Thai restaurants in hotels were usually very authentic under the assumption that the parents were immigrants who wanted the child to inherit the business, but the kid wanted to run a restaurant instead. It would certainly explain why you get Thai restaurants attached to random hotels in the middle of nowhere, at least.

The Thai government practices gastro-diplomacy, they have a program where you set a Thai restaurant up in a foreign country, you can pick from three different packages for size or fanciness of restaurant. It's why you see a lot of the same decorations and similarities between differently owned Thai restaurants, or occasionally a family will own a number in a metro area.

/s missing?

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#153

Post by aqueueaqueue »

Buldak wrote: post #122
aqueueaqueue wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy fix: just add a ? to the end.

"study" is already in scare quotes

Ha ha I had my coding eyes on. I removed the quotes mentally as the entire title starts with one.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#154

Post by aqueueaqueue »

sthatipamala wrote: post #104
aqueueaqueue wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My rule. Check TripAdvisor!

Is being well-rated on TripAdvisor a positive or negative signal? I could see it either way.

You need like always to read some of the reviews and judge. If sceptical look at the users histories (e.g. I seen perfect 5 star reviews in Google then seen the users were bots even though the comments sounded ok)

Depends on the stakes too: anniversary dinner or grabbing a coffee in a different part of town?

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#155

Post by MattGaiser »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #150
btilly wrote: post #42

Many years ago I came up with a rule of thumb. Restaurants have three basic strategies, be a known quantity (chain), have a good location, or be actually good. I've found some gems by looking for the third category. Given that "near the train" is a good location, that would support this theory.

Based on the empirical evidence from OP, this seems correct. But there's a theoretical argument for why "good location" and "actually good" should be positively correlated: 1. Good locations are more expensive. 2. People are willing to pay more for better food. 3. Therefore (all else equal), better restaurants earn more revenue. 4. Therefore, better restaurants have a higher willingness-to-pay on rent. 5. Therefore,…

You lost me at point 4. Why would more revenue mean a higher willingness to pay rent unless it made them more profit?

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#156

Post by tialaramex »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #131
tialaramex wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but you can clearly see that the bottom-right quadrant of the plot is basically empty, which is an important insight. I don't think so? It's mostly a result of the fact that (obviously) the best place to sell food is where there are people, which is also the best place to put a metro station. So on average the kebabs are pretty good and on average they're near a station. In Figure 9 one of the worst reviewed restau…

> Long after other kebab places are dark they're still doing enough business to justify remaining open. Is that a quality signal, or just a sign they don't mind selling to people going back from parties, in various stages of being drunk? I always assumed the latter. Few restaurants (McDonald's and KFC aside) want to work those hours, so whichever does is almost guaranteed a steady trickle of customers who literally h…

The KFC next to them shuts long before they do. The nearest McDonalds (a drive through) is 24/7 but I've been there late at night and it's extremely quiet. Moreover neither sells kebabs, whereas plenty of places which do sell kebabs in this part of the city close earlier.

However, thinking about it more carefully, while I've never bought a kebab from them technically the Chaiiwala which is 24/7 does sell kebabs. They're a bit fancier (and of course, more Indian) than the kebab you'd get from the kebab shop but that's definitely a chicken kebab. Their clientèle in the middle of the night are a mix of "gig workers" and people either going to or coming back from prayers (for whichever of the religions is into praying when other people are in bed - Islam and maybe others?). I have never seen drunk young people in there, but it is open 24/7 so that must happen once in a while.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#157

Post by LorenPechtel »

FloorEgg wrote: post #74
macrael wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP found no correlation between railway proximity and quality

Actually OP found a very small correlation between railway proximity and Google rating . The study didn't actually measure "quality"... Also, the lowest scoring outliers were the closest proximity, which I think is noteworthy.

Yeah. The overall correlation was tiny but just looking at it you could see a pattern that's getting lost in the analysis.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#158

Post by morsecodist »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #150
btilly wrote: post #42

Many years ago I came up with a rule of thumb. Restaurants have three basic strategies, be a known quantity (chain), have a good location, or be actually good. I've found some gems by looking for the third category. Given that "near the train" is a good location, that would support this theory.

Based on the empirical evidence from OP, this seems correct. But there's a theoretical argument for why "good location" and "actually good" should be positively correlated: 1. Good locations are more expensive. 2. People are willing to pay more for better food. 3. Therefore (all else equal), better restaurants earn more revenue. 4. Therefore, better restaurants have a higher willingness-to-pay on rent. 5. Therefore,…

This falls apart a bit if providing better food costs more. Restaurants with better food may earn more revenue all else being equal but their costs may be higher. People are willing to pay more for the same quality of food in a better location. It makes sense for a the restaurant with worse food to outbid a restaurant with better food because the location is more important to them and they are allocating more money towards towards rent rather than food quality so they have more to spend.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#159

Post by mxfh »

decimalenough wrote: post #64
mxfh wrote: post #40

Duh, commuters are just less picky with their food choices, reliably fast service trumps food quality here for obvious reasons. Tourists as mentioned in the article are not that many. Anecdotally the worst McDonalds Burger I had was with a cold slice of cheese at the Berlin Main Station, while the Döner there was always above par.

Döner in Berlin is like ramen in Tokyo: the competition is so furious that objectively bad places go out of business quickly.

There are a few that are obviously some sort of front business. It can't be the Döner.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#160

Post by mxfh »

macrael wrote: post #60
mxfh wrote: post #40

Duh, commuters are just less picky with their food choices, reliably fast service trumps food quality here for obvious reasons. Tourists as mentioned in the article are not that many. Anecdotally the worst McDonalds Burger I had was with a cold slice of cheese at the Berlin Main Station, while the Döner there was always above par.

OP found no correlation between railway proximity and quality

The point is, that quality is not the metric here; the metric is google ratings. I would take a place with a solid 4.6 but hundreds of ratings over a low double digit 4.9 any time.
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