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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”

#71

Post by function_seven »

macrael wrote: post #59
legitster wrote: post #47

This immediately reminds me of Tyler Cowen's book "An Economist Gets Lunch". He infers all sort of rules for profiling restaurant quality. In fact, he makes this very observation - high foot traffic areas command higher rents, and it's harder to provide both good quality and good value where rents are high. But restaurants that can be successful without good real estate are a green flag.

OP found no correlation between railway proximity and quality

You're doing important work throughout this thread. Thanks.

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

#73

Post by tialaramex »

myhf wrote: post #38
janwillemb wrote: post #9

He didn't find a correlation, or rather found that there is no correlation, between proximity to a railway station and how the kebab is reviewed. It's a nice study for a statistics class!

There may not be a correlation, but you can clearly see that the bottom-right quadrant of the plot is basically empty, which is an important insight. A more accurate aphorism would be "You can sell good kebabs anywhere, but you can only sell bad kebabs near a train station." And if you look at the "minimum viable quality" instead of the overall quality, there does seem to be a linear correlation with the distance. Yo…

> 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 restaurants is over 3km from a metro.

You're likely seeing a pattern where there isn't one, which is normal for humans.

There's one obvious place to go around here for a good kebab, it's a few minutes walk to the station, but the way you can tell it's the best place for a kebab is how late it's open every night. Long after other kebab places are dark they're still doing enough business to justify remaining open.

The best place for pizza in my city is very close to a train station but that's a total accident, they park (it's a van, no really, best pizza in the city but they hated owning a restaurant so they put their oven in a van instead) in the car park of a railway station's pub about five minutes walk from me.

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

#74

Post by FloorEgg »

macrael wrote: post #58
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.

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.

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

#76

Post by robocat »

golergka wrote: post #50
robocat wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does crappy restaurant fit into your taxonomy?

Good location or bankrupt. Just look at all the tourist trap restoraunts.

> tourist trap restoraunts

Recommendations still matter and some tourists are around for a week or two. I'm highly likely to be a repeat customer at any place that is good.

In my experience finding a good restaurant in a tourist zone is not hugely more difficult than finding a good restaurant elsewhere. The search is easier as a tourist in many ways because the selection is often a limited set.

In San Carlos de Bariloche (highly touristy) I adored Alto El Fuego and I want to go back just for that. Don't try L'Italiano Trattoria: I wanted a bad experience for a masochistic change and I certainly got it. Please gain some pleasure that you've never been there. There's a massive difference between the tastes of local tourists and international tourists.

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

#77

Post by robot »

asah wrote: post #52
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.

They are not mutually exclusive. Counter examples: - Katz's deli in NYC is incredibly famous, in a great location, and actually has kickass pastrami. The trade-off are relatively high prices and lines down the block - restaurants with exclusive relationships. - restaurants that make money another way, e.g. gambling. - family owned restaurants with legacy rent deals. - restaurants that cater to niche audiences e.g. sm…

these examples are all exceptions. how much do the exceptions contribute to the discussion?

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

#78

Post by immibis »

bitwize wrote: post #7

I've observed the following: 1) An alarming number of regions in the world have a pizza joint called "New York Pizza", "Manhattan Pizza", or similar. 2) The similarity of the pizza therein to the actual thin, greasy slices served up in pizza joints from actual New York is inversely proportional to the location's distance from New York. So, the New York Pizza in Boston -- pretty close. The New York Pizza in Brisbane,…

I've heard that the farther you go from Italy, the more adventurous ingredients you can find on a pizza.

I used to live in New Zealand.

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

#79

Post by dsr_ »

robocat wrote: post #45
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.

Where does crappy restaurant fit into your taxonomy?

It's a maximum of two, not a minimum. The minimum is zero: low quality expensive food in an inconvenient location.

Luckily, those usually go out of business. Un-luckily, you may be a customer first.

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

#80

Post by macintux »

smpnav wrote: post #70

On a slightly related note, what’s with the terrible quality kebabs in the UK? You go to Germany and it’s almost a completely different food.

The ancient joke springs to mind.

Heaven is where the cooks are French, the police are British, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and everything is organized by the Swiss.

Hell is where the cooks are British, the police are German, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and everything is organized by the Italians.

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