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Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

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Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#491

Post by spacechild1 »

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.

Here in Austria, a Döner is usually 2.50-3.50€. I would be surprised if it were more expensive in Germany (expect for tourist traps)

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#492

Post by apta »

hnick wrote: post #477
apta wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been proven what the dangers of alcohol are. Practically the only benefits are monetary for the seller.

I don't drink much these days but I think that's taking it a little far. You could make the same argument about fatty foods and many other things. There are non-drink culinary uses for it too. The wholesale banning of alcohol misses the point a lot of the time. I had a friend who taught cake decorating and it's common to mix high concentration alcohol with coloured dust to paint on sugar flowers because it's a great…

Correct, it's mainly to avoid intoxication and the ramifications that come out of it. However, I agree with what those students did. They have principles and they stuck to them. The alcohol could have mixed with the food for instance, even though it wasn't meant to be consumed directly. Secondly, someone could unknowingly consume it thinking it was edible.

As to your first point, highly processed foods are definitely something to watch out for. However, the effects of alcohol are immediate, and can be seen in a single sitting. Countless instances of rape, drunk driving, and homicides that come out of it. You won't see someone consume a couple of meals at a fast food place then lose his decision making ability for instance.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#493

Post by thatcat »

bobthepanda wrote: post #163
supernova87a wrote: post #137

I'll make another observation about the landscape of restaurants. You may notice that in Europe, Asia, the demographics of restaurants are noticeably different from the US. There are far more hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop restaurants in those places compared to the US, running a small and seemingly profit-thin but subsistence restaurant for the neighborhood. Think of a suburban neighborhood in Madrid or Rome, where a…

Where I live in Seattle, there is a lot of new dense neighborhoods going up. And many of these large apartments have ground-level retail, which is supposed to be that urban planning magic sauce for walkable neighborhoods. The problem is, most of these retail spaces are actually vacant, despite massive job and housing growth. But why? Because the retail spaces are simply too large. These spaces are big enough to seat…

A tax on under utilized spaces could result in reduced rents that make the space usable anyway.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#494

Post by jinglebells »

MattGaiser wrote: post #277
gambiting wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buffet for me means one of these restaurants where you pay a fixed price and then eat as much as you like. That's not the kind of restaurant that is common in Central/Eastern Europe(in fact those all-you-can eat restaurants have never caught on here)

So what are they like?

Ever been to IKEA restaurants? If not Google it. Lots of stuff they dish up for you out of massive trays.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#495

Post by triceratops »

WalterBright wrote: post #476
triceratops wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The landlord's costs go up, too. Not if you've owned the place for a long time and seen rent and value appreciation.

I suppose that would be true if you weren't paying maintenance, taxes, insurance, legal bills, accounting costs, compliance with regulation costs, repairs, upgrades and assume that none of those go up over time.

I'd expect most of those to rise only insofar as the inflation rate. The cost of housing in major North American metros has outpaced inflation in the past 20 years.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#496

Post by kid_atticus »

kenneth wrote: post #344
sleavey wrote: post #197

Something's up. In Germany in a normal city I can get a döner the same size as the one in the photo for €3 ($3.50?). It's not sourdough nor high quality protein but that can't explain the $7.50 difference. Edit: as the commenter below reminded me, it's actually more like €4-5 but my point stands.

A good Döner in Berlin runs about €5, this restaurant is in Canada where CA$11 = €7. It's slightly more expensive than dirt-cheap Berlin, but it's hard to compete with dirt-cheap Berlin. Berlin is wonderfully cheap in every aspect. Most of the western world can't compete with that. Try having a similar Döner in Zürich and you'll be wishing for that $11.

I live near the one of the best Döner and most famous places in Berlin and it is €4.10 including everything.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#497

Post by irrational »

mtrower wrote: post #438
irrational wrote: post #179

>we’re so used to free garbage pick-up at home that I never anticipated having to pay for it What locales have free garbage pick-up at home? This is the first time I've heard of such a thing.

Anywhere I've lived in Wisconsin is free* residential, contractual for business. Basically what PhantomGremlin said, minus the mafia. I'd always assumed it was this way everywhere in the U.S. Whereabouts do you live, and what is the situation there with residential waste and recycling? * Of course, this is (presumably) funded by city taxes, so "free" means "I don't see the cost explicitly".

I've lived in Florida, Indiana, Texas, Colorado, Utah, California, Oregon, and Puerto Rico. As I recall we had to pay for garbage and recycling everywhere.

Re: Why Restaurants Are So Fucked

#498

Post by dba7dba »

smabie wrote: post #287
dba7dba wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I know (not personally) this guy named Ian McCollum. He's kind of well known on youtube, filming/writing/presenting on a topic that is personally very interesting to him. He graduated from Purdue with a degree in mechanical engineer. But he didn't want to settle with a 9 to 5 job and a normal life, just to pay his bills. So instead he earned some extra small pile of money after college and set up a low cost life s…

Why didn't he just get a engineering job for 2 or 3 years? Presumably he would have made lot more money.

Knowing a few other mechanical engineers myself, finding a decent paying job as a mechanical engineer was nearly impossible. At least 10 - 15 years ago.

So the revelation from his story is that working as a bartender can bring in quite a bit of money due to high margin of alcohol and bigger tip.

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