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I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

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Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#331

Post by megablast »

sizzzzlerz wrote: post #196

Who waits for 5 hours to get a hamburger? That's just silly. Either limit the hours in which burgers are served or hand out tickets allowing the holder to buy up to, say 4, burgers. The total amount served would be based on what the staff can reasonably prepare over a certain amount of time without going crazy. If you don't get a ticket, sorry, come back tomorrow. If you don't want burgers, you get to skip the burger…

I mean, if you are there with friends, you grab a beer, sit around and talk.

Or as the article says, someone yelled out a silly time to make people go away.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#332

Post by passwordreset »

paavoova wrote: post #121
LargeWu wrote: post #79

One of the sad things about this sort of list is that it's literally just one guy's opinion. Sure, he tried all the burgers. I'm sure all the burgers in the top 100 are good burgers, but there's probably very little separating them except some personal preference. For example, I probably wouldn't have rated this place as high because I don't care for grilled onions on burgers; I would much rather have raw onions. The…

Yeah, strangely enough, food and its accompanying culture is one of the most prevalent socially acceptable, encouraged biases. There's no objective, empirical stance you can take. Well, sure you can value food based on its nutritional content, but food and health science is continuously flipping back and forth on the facts and is overrun with pop-science, stirring confusing to no end. But most of all, your brain does…

“The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

:)

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#333

Post by megablast »

JPKab wrote: post #19

People 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…

I mean, you are a local, right? You know all those places. If I am in town for a few days for work, WTF am I going to do? Go to the one place someone told me about or I saw on a list? Of course.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#334

Post by fapjacks »

tokyodude wrote: post #327
clubm8 wrote: post #325

This is why I tell no one of my favorite spots. My second favorite bars, restaurants, and nature spots are where I meet coworkers, dates from apps, and acquaintances. Only close friends/partners/family get to know my true favorites - keeps them healthy as long as possible. For example, I know of a cheap, quiet bar in the heart of a major west coast city. It's not perfect, but it's got wifi and cheap drafts and is rel…

How will you feel if it goes out of business from not enough patronage or if the owner closes it because it's not meeting his financial requirements for retirement? If the owner just wants a quiet cozy place that's certainly great but maybe the owner wants the place to be 3x as busy or maybe she want's to open a bigger place or 2nd place as soon as she gets enough people and funds.

I am particularly sensitive to this issue as I live in a beautiful tropical metropolis which everyone on the planet knows about and is the stereotypical vacation spot and which sees more and more tourists every year. I'm 100% behind OP. If the owner of the business wants to scale, that's their job. If I've found a truly amazing place, I keep it to myself and only maybe tell my closest friends after a lot of careful thought. One word to the wrong person and it will be gone. Loads of stuff here is ephemeral, even if loads of other places are institutions. It's best to just enjoy it while you can. The city and county here are well-known to shut down popular areas that two months ago were a "best-kept secret" before Instagram got a hold of it and now it's almost destroyed by foot traffic. I could post a link to an article in our newspaper from just last week about something being closed for repairs of which, if you are actually from or living in Tokyo, you may have seen pictures making the rounds on Instagram, as it was very popular with Japanese tourists. I live at the far end of that slippery slope and it definitely happens.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#335

Post by dahauns »

toofy wrote: post #329
radlad wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's risk associated in shunning your existing clientele in hopes of attracting a newer, more premium clientele.

I think this is the point many people are seemingly missing. Ask any family restaurant/bar owner in a seasonal tourist destination and they’ll explain why locals must be one of the first considerations before you make drastic changes. Particularly if an important reason for opening was a personal preference to serve locals over tourists in the first place. It’s incredibly interesting to see how few people understand…

>It’s incredibly interesting to see how few people understand that someone may open a business with priorities other than massive growth potential.

It really is interesting, but hardly surprising, given the demographics of this forum. :)

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#336

Post by fapjacks »

yholio wrote: post #254
crazygringo wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. There's a fine line between a reasonable price with a long line... and raising it where people say "they're price gouging, ugh!" and lose your customers forever because you're no longer someone with a passion for the best burger, you're a sellout for the money. Supply and demand doesn't work as smoothly as you think. It's the same reason why huge TicketMaster fees exist -- so artists can sell tickets at a "f…

A simple fix for that is to put up a big sign that says "Tourist tax in effect" and make a $25 rebate for any regular customer or person that can prove a local address; or simply assert with a straight face to the staff they live on this and this street. It's a bit of a hassle for the locals but the place is saved. Sure, the tourists will attack you on Yelp and Instagram and accuse you of price gouging. But to hell w…

That's how it works where I live. You show your driver's license, you get the local discount.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#337

Post by microcolonel »

This seems like hyperbole chasing hyperbole.

I mean, if the lines are huge, you don't have to serve all of them, you don't have to run your staff into the ground, and you don't need to run up a debt of sanitation tasks.

If you're too popular for your favourite regulars, you can issue them little cards which get them preferential entry. If you're too popular in general and you're not afraid of scaring away the old guard, raise your prices until the fools go away, if you are afraid of losing the old card, give discounts to card carriers.

If they didn't want to scale this humble bar burger enterprise, they could just not scale it, and not grind their staff to a pulp.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#338

Post by somabc »

kibwen wrote: post #224
masklinn wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If clients have to wait hours for a burger, the existing clientele is gone either way. If you end up folding, the existing clientele is hosed anyway. And as the original commenter noted, you could put coupons in the local newspaper and the library and whatever else, so the locals have access to burgers at the old price.

Or you have someone whose job it is to stand outside and memorize the names and faces of local patrons and turn away any newcomer who can't present an ID with a local address. You can have a second entrance for everyone else, takeout-only, with an hours-long wait, which plenty of food tourists will happily endure.

I see you are familiar with Berlin nightclubs!

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#339

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

mabbo wrote: post #184
tptacek wrote: post #135

It'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…

> To the commenters saying Stanich should simply raise its prices: there's a price ceiling for that burger. It's not a fancy chef burger; If you have a five hour lineup for a burger, you need to raise your prices at least a little bit. You'll make more money overall, and your customers will be happy.

I wonder how price-insensitive people pursuing the 'best burger' are.

They've probably made a trip to go eat it, what's another $5 or $10?

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#340

Post by tptacek »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #339
mabbo wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To the commenters saying Stanich should simply raise its prices: there's a price ceiling for that burger. It's not a fancy chef burger; If you have a five hour lineup for a burger, you need to raise your prices at least a little bit. You'll make more money overall, and your customers will be happy.

I wonder how price-insensitive people pursuing the 'best burger' are. They've probably made a trip to go eat it, what's another $5 or $10?

That's exactly the problem! All the viable price increases won't deter the tourists.
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