Seems like an easy fix is to only sell prepaid burger cards. Set some number - 10x, 20x, etc. the cost of a burger.
Keeps the locals able to frequent regularly and highly discourages anyone coming just to cross it off a list.
I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It
141–150 of 410 posts
Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It
#142There's an easy solution to having too much business : raise prices. I think this is one of A16Z's big insights into most businesses[1]: they don't charge enough. If you look at the best restaurants in America like the French Laundry in Napa, they charge astronomical ridiculous prices and they still have reservations for months ahead of time. The oldest restaurant in Paris requires you put down a 400 euro deposit jus…
Then this prices out the neighborhood locals who made the place successful in the first place. These are people that the owner and workers know and care about. I think he could care less about the tourists that come in once just to Instagram their "best burger in America".
>>Then this prices out the neighborhood locals who made the place successful in the first place.
Did they really make the place successful though? I don't see what exactly they contributed to the business. Had the locals not liked the food they probably would never have returned and would have also told all their friends never to go there.
Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It
#143Enjoyed the article. This reminds me a lot of what Groupon used to do to restaurants in the early days. They would just get slammed by hundreds of crabby people looking to one and done them for a half priced meal. Obviously as Groupon became more ubiquitous this lessened, but I do vividly remember going to a hot dog and burger place and finding the two owner-operators absolutely miserable as a line of 20 people forme…
> I'm sure this place has a lot of smart money wanting to use their name and recipe. Maybe not such a bad outcome? You have to understand and emphasize with someone's goals for starting and running a business. It's not always money and notoriety. Sometimes it's just that someone wants to do a certain thing with their waking hours.
Totally agree. More just meant at this point he doesn't have that option as easily, so maybe he sells out and then starts something small again. I know it's probably not too feasible given the emotional attachment he has to the business, just can't imagine some operator coming in there without ruining the charm of the place, which would be the main reason to keep things the same.
Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It
#144Everyone here is suggesting the "correct" business-y solutions, like "raise prices", "offer membership", etc -- but sometimes, you don't need sound economic theory, you just need a dirty hack that kind of works. Change the name and move a block over. Boom. Tourists gone. (You should be able, in this situation, to convince a lender that you can build a successful business, if liquidity is an issue.)
Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not just look at driver's licenses and student ids instead? Disney parks do the same thing - cheaper prices for locals
Well, sure, but having the customer flash a card to the employee would save more time than having the customer hand over the card for inspection by an employee.
...but it would invite a secondary market for these cards. The logistics of fabricating them would suck, and you have to look at an ID to judge if a card should offered anyway.
Plus having special cards feels corporate, not homey. Looking at an ID for locals discount is pretty well trodden ground.
Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It
#146It's hard to blame Kevin Alexander for this, because Steve Stanich played ball with the review, like most restaurants would. If he wanted to, he could have asked not to be featured in the list, and Alexander probably would have complied; otherwise, he could have done other things to make it clear to his customers that he wasn't interested in fulfilling the role the ranking carved out for him. We see this effect in Ch…
I made a similar comment further down, but if Stanich's took reservations and just held tables for walk ins (and treated regulars/locals preferentially) they would probably have been fine. Takes more front of house effort though, and he probably still should've raised his prices a bit.
Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It
#147The title is too clickbaity for me to read it. Tl;dr?
The article is worth your time.
Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It
#148This reminds me of the first thing everyone asks when you tell them you just got back from Maui: "Did you go see the sunrise on Haleakalā?" And, no I have not, because I don't want to wake up at 5:00am while on vacation and drive to a crowded parking lot to watch the sunrise in the cold with 80-100 strangers. Why is it that we all have to have the same experiences?
If you have a week there, and it's on the list of things to do, why wouldn't you go do it? Are you going to go all the way out there and not do the things? Then you'd be missing out! We all want a magical experience in a drive-thru window, and we fear missing out. If you live on the east coast, you could go to the Caribbean cheaper and quicker, but it's not Hawaii! . The Caribbean is beautiful, but Hawaii is magical!…
> If you have a week there, and it's on the list of things to do, why wouldn't you go do it?
Maybe one day. I guess I'd rather pack in as much surfing as I can.
I don't feel I've missed out on the Haleakalā sunrise thing, I just think it's funny that that is always the first thing people ask.
Some of them seem to almost discount my trip when they found out I didn't go.
Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It
#149People are lemmings. Franklin's BBQ in Austin has hours long lines. It's very good brisket. The hill country of Texas is FILLED with equally good brisket joints that don't have lines. People who wait in line for 4 hours won't admit this. Cognitive dissonance kicks in, and Franklin's is unique and better than everyone else in their minds. Try telling a person that their Bose headphones are overpriced and overrated, an…
Right I've seen hipsters in the Bay Area lined up for hours just to eat ramen noodles ! What's wrong with these people? Even great noodles aren't much better than average noodles. I really can't understand it.
I waited about two hours to eat at a ramen place in San Diego. Worth it. And the whole time we waited I complained this was stupid. I was wrong. Very well managed wait experience though.
Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It
#150People are lemmings. Franklin's BBQ in Austin has hours long lines. It's very good brisket. The hill country of Texas is FILLED with equally good brisket joints that don't have lines. People who wait in line for 4 hours won't admit this. Cognitive dissonance kicks in, and Franklin's is unique and better than everyone else in their minds. Try telling a person that their Bose headphones are overpriced and overrated, an…
Just to add a little subtlety to your comment, Franklin (no s) BBQ revolutionized Texas BBQ when it first opened. Nowadays, there are several places that can go head to head with it (Micklethwaite and La Barbeque for example), but at the time, there was nothing even close. Many of those famous places in the hills or even, gasp , Lockhart, really weren't that good once we had Franklin BBQ. I've noticed a lot of these…
[deleted]