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How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

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Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#71

Post by mikeash »

stormbrew wrote: post #68
zappo2938 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Wars is for children and always have been. If a bunch of adults complain that the films don't speak to them, there is something very wrong with their state of maturity. I wasn't passing judgement on the films whether they were good or bad. I was pointing out like the chef, after Lucas gained popularity, people started to attack him and his films with harsh criticism. Maybe the criticism of the chef is legitimate…

> Star Wars is for children and always have been. Please notice something about the average age of the people lined up to see Star Wars on opening weekend in 1977. http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/21/46/45/4614480/9/920x1240.jpg There are a lot of non-children there. George Lucas, at some point, decided that Star Wars was entirely targeted at children. He was wrong. From the very beginning, Star Wars has had fans of all a…

The first movie involves torture, genocide, and a robot-man who likes to choke people with his mind. It's hard to see how this could possibly be conceived as "for children," especially in 1977.

The only thing in the entire original trilogy that I can think of being "for children" is the Ewoks.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#72

Post by Mikeb85 »

cushychicken wrote: post #41

Another possible explanation, as an alternative for all the "failing to scale" scorn shovelers who rushed to post: he started this restaurant, and then had it blow up in popularity before he had the chance to shake out all the bugs.

Not to mention, you can't 'scale' a small restaurant. You have a limited amount of space, and sometimes it's just not possible to progress beyond a certain point. Sometimes a neighborhood restaurant just needs to stay that way, it can't become a 'destination' restaurant because it simply doesn't have the logistics to manage.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#73

Post by downandout »

stormbrew wrote: post #67
downandout wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any statement, taken to its (il)logical extreme, can be made to seem ridiculous. But no one has accused the food here of being "disgusting". In this case, OP said that he didn't like a wine pairing, and ended his comment with "good riddance". In other words, he was happy to see the livelihood of another human being destroyed because he was unhappy with the specific part of Europe that the wine he was served came from…

Can we please have some perspective here? The business owner's livelihood was not "destroyed". His business failed. That is a risk every business owner takes when they start a business, and even that failure generally leaves them more equipped for their next effort. The article even explicitly talks about what he's doing next, which will almost certainly do well by him. He's going to be fine, and the OP of this threa…

Bad Yelp ratings routinely destroy businesses (which usually function as the livelihood of the owner(s)). When OP said "good riddance," he was saying that he was happy to see the demise of this restaurant because he disliked the part of Europe his wine was from. IMO, that is the kind of "extreme overreaction" you are referring to.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#74

Post by zappo2938 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #59
zappo2938 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Wars is for children and always have been. If a bunch of adults complain that the films don't speak to them, there is something very wrong with their state of maturity. I wasn't passing judgement on the films whether they were good or bad. I was pointing out like the chef, after Lucas gained popularity, people started to attack him and his films with harsh criticism. Maybe the criticism of the chef is legitimate…

> Star Wars is for children and always have been. That's objectively false, though. Star Wars marketing quite clearly targets both children and adults; much more so than, say, Pixar films, which are marketed solely at children despite arguably being more mature (in the "thoughtful and intelligent" sense, not the "sex and violence" sense) than Star Wars. You're actually trying to say that adults who like Star Wars are…

I absolutely enjoy Pixar and Star Wars films, along with many Dr. Seuss books which have messages not only directed towards children but also their parents reading it to their children on subjects like nuclear nonproliferation, anti-Semitism, dictatorial leadership, environmentalism, and in the case of Horton Hatches and Egg, not being a dead beat parent. I considered Star Wars just entertainment until my early 20s when I read Joseph Campbell which made me very conscious of what George Lucas and Disney were doing including the message of self sacrifice for a person's community, family, and friends. This means that George Lucas and everything from Disney [1] thoroughly rejects the libertarian philosophy of Ayn Rand using a language of myth and symbolism which according to Campbell connects deeply with children. That is Han Solo's character arc; he didn't care about anyone but himself when we first met him, maybe a little for Chewbacca, until he met the princess. She was the first person he put above his own self interests and the investment paid off when she put herself in harms way to rescue him. It's for children, the toys which children use to foster their imaginations are for children, the dress up customs for Halloween are for children, and Campbell explains that the particular myth of Star Wars is the coming of age story of a boy who leaves the safety of his mother to join the men.[2] Most people are heavily influenced by these stories. It's pseudo science but we understand what is going on with children who have nightmares of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast or Darth Vader. As for adults who play pretend and dress up in customs for play, they really miss the point of coming of age in the stories.

[1] http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm#Memo

[2] http://billmoyers.com/content/ep-3-joseph-campbell-and-the-p...

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#75

Post by jonnathanson »

eridius wrote: post #63
vehementi wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> restaurant in crisis Then you talk about an example where they forgot to cancel a reservation, and one where the restaurant was closed and a customer didn't call ahead to check before driving for an hour (why is driving for an hour through rush hour something that reflects on the restaurant?). Then one guy who didn't like the food style. None of those point even remotely to a restaurant being in crisis, so let's lo…

Why would you call ahead? It's a reservation! By definition, you have already called ahead! I have never in my life heard of anyone calling ahead to check on their reservation.

Depends on how far in advance the customer made the reservation. I sometimes call places to double-check, particularly if I placed the reservation weeks in advance.

Also worth noting is that I live in LA, where Alma is (was). LA is basically a "nothing is set until you call to confirm it" kind of town. It's the entertainment industry culture, and its effect on places like hotels and restaurants. There is always a danger that aomeone more important calls and bumps you off the list. Especially at hot restaurants. (Hell, I'd bet at least half the maitres d' in this city are on the take.)

Not saying I blame the customer at all in this case. I really don't know the circumstances. Just saying that reservations in LA are weird.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#76

Post by stormbrew »

downandout wrote: post #73
stormbrew wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we please have some perspective here? The business owner's livelihood was not "destroyed". His business failed. That is a risk every business owner takes when they start a business, and even that failure generally leaves them more equipped for their next effort. The article even explicitly talks about what he's doing next, which will almost certainly do well by him. He's going to be fine, and the OP of this threa…

Bad Yelp ratings routinely destroy businesses (which usually function as the livelihood of the owner(s)). When OP said "good riddance," he was saying that he was happy to see the demise of this restaurant because he disliked the part of Europe his wine was from. IMO, that is the kind of "extreme overreaction" you are referring to.

That businesses fail because customers are unhappy is a bit tautological, don't you think? That we have some visibility into the grapevine doesn't mean the grapevine never existed or that the grapevine (now called yelp) is to blame.

Again, my point is that conflating the fate of the restaurant with the fate of its owner (as with any business) is the extreme reaction. The owner is fine, the restaurant is closed. Does it suck for the owner? Yes. Is it career ending or livelihood ending? Not by a long shot. Is it part of opening a business? Absolutely. Most businesses fail. And restaurants fail far more often than other businesses to boot. I have no doubt this owner knew all that going in.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#77

Post by crdb »

dmatthewson wrote: post #70
crdb wrote: post #56

Seems like an expensive lawsuit was an issue: June 2015: "If you add another $18,000 a month in legal fees ... we just can't absorb it on our own." October 2015: "We're still working with the other party to wrap up the lawsuit. But to maintain the restaurant at this point it would just continue to put us in a substantial amount of debt. [...] as small business owners, we won't be able to afford a trial, and we really…

Thanks, those articles are helpful in understanding the real issues. This next article gives the other side of the story regarding the lawsuit. http://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/alma-lawsuit http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/custom/...

Thanks for these! Very interesting:

"... they offered to set up a payment plan to reimburse the money he had spent on the restaurant."

Which goes to show - it's a bad idea to do anything before terms have been put down on paper! It is quite amazing when you first start doing business by yourself (as a contractor, entrepreneur, or even chef it seems) how often people "go back on their word".

What happens is that both sides have a different idea of the deal, probably picking on whatever hints were in the conversation to interpret them in the most favorable light possible; and in some cases, it's just a case of one side last-minute-changing the deal because they feel the situation has progressed to give them more leverage.

In this case, the disagreement could easily have been avoided if they had typed up a term sheet and preferably some kind of legally enforceable shareholder's agreement BEFORE the payments were made.

Now begins the PR battle as both sides will try and influence public opinion to protect their reputation.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#78

Post by istorical »

tptacek wrote: post #65
Animats wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The rap on NYC and LA is that they have competitive, take-down cultures (NYC more so than LA)." That's why they're better in the arts. In NYC, they tell you if you suck. In LA, they don't call you back if you suck. In SF nobody says anything and you can suck forever. Go to little theater or art openings and this is quite obvious.

Neither Chicago nor San Francisco have takedown restaurant cultures, and both have relatively spectacular restaurant scenes. Some of this gets to what you're looking for from a restaurant. If you're looking at food as an art form, and only want to spend time getting exposure to the very best of it, NYC may indeed be a better filter for you. If what you want is a Great Neighborhood Restaurant, which is perhaps Great i…

I think you could almost describe this in the context of only positive-reinforcement cultures vs positive-reinforcement and negative-reinforcement cultures. Both approaches seem to work well in the long-term, but the city which also has negative-reinforcement might have 'failures' more often, which could be seen as a positive from the POV of looking at the health of the whole system, but on the other hand could be seen as needlessly cruel to individuals.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#79

Post by zappo2938 »

mikeash wrote: post #71
stormbrew wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Star Wars is for children and always have been. Please notice something about the average age of the people lined up to see Star Wars on opening weekend in 1977. http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/21/46/45/4614480/9/920x1240.jpg There are a lot of non-children there. George Lucas, at some point, decided that Star Wars was entirely targeted at children. He was wrong. From the very beginning, Star Wars has had fans of all a…

The first movie involves torture, genocide, and a robot-man who likes to choke people with his mind. It's hard to see how this could possibly be conceived as "for children," especially in 1977. The only thing in the entire original trilogy that I can think of being "for children" is the Ewoks.

To be fair as I said in another comment, Dr. Seuss covers some of these topics you mention too. Perhaps George Lucas has a different set of values. He draws the plot for most of his works from the Joseph Campbell's comparative mythology. Star Wars is the myth of a young boy who is still with his mother or surrounded by mother symbolism with his mother's family before joining the men, ep.1 and ep.4. An example of one of these rites of passage the plot and symbolism Star Wars draws from is a rite of passage with indigenous Australians when a male child is taken violently from his protective mother to join the men. During this ceremony they cut the boys penis open. George Lucas and Disney don't hide this as their source for symbolism and story plots.

From ep.3 of the interview between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers at Skywalker Ranch 1988:

"JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, we know what they do in Australia. Now, when a boy gets to be, you know, a little bit ungovernable, one fine day the men come in, and they’re naked except for stripes of white down that has been stuck on their bodies, and stripes with their men’s blood. They used their own blood for gluing this on. And they’re swinging the bull-roarers, which are the voice of the spirits, and they come as spirits. The boy will try to take refuge with his mother; she’ll pretend to try to protect him. The men just take him away, a mother’s no good from then on, you see, he’s no longer a little boy. He’s in the men’s group, and then they put him really through an ordeal. These are the rites, you know, of circumcision, subincision, and so forth."

I for one completely support we stop coddling privileged children at Yale.

Re: How Being Named the 'Best New Restaurant in America' Hurt My Business

#80

Post by yarou »

Honestly, it just seems like they were a mediocre restaurant.

Whether or not Yelp and publicity helped or harmed them is debatable, but that doesn't change the fact that their restaurant wasn't anything spectacular to write home about.

There are many instances where a genuinely good product or service receives negative publicity (remember the original iPad anyone?), but is still a genuinely innovative product or service.

It just seems like they weren't able to deliver an exceptional restaurant experience.

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