I grew up thinking of “home-cooked meals” with a shudder. My mother once produced a Thanksgiving turkey so inedible our cats wouldn’t touch it; my father fell victim to every food fad from the 1960s Tiger’s Milk powder to the recipes of Euell Gibbons. One of my favorite things about modern life is that one no longer has to be rich or a competent cook to eat well. So I found this
… After a prolonged stretch of explosive growth, fueled by interest from Wall Street, experts say there are now too many fast-food, casual and other chain restaurants.
Since the early 2000s, banks, private equity firms and other financial institutions have poured billions into the restaurant industry as they sought out more tangible enterprises than the dot-com start-ups that were going belly-up. There are now more than 620,000 eating and drinking places in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the number of restaurants is growing at about twice the rate of the population…
Customers continue to spend a large share of their food budget in restaurants, but they’re spreading the money across a larger number of establishments, so profits are split into smaller individual pieces. Yet the industry — particularly chain restaurants — continues to expand, a strategy that both masks the problem and makes it likely that more places will falter.
Sales at individual chain restaurants, compared with a year earlier, began dropping in early 2016, analysts reported. A majority of restaurants reported sales growth in just four of the last 22 monthly surveys from the National Restaurant Association. Before that, most restaurants had reported growth for 20 consecutive months, from March 2014 through October 2015, the survey found.
As Americans work longer hours and confront an ever-growing array of food options, they are spending a growing share of their food budget — about 44 cents per dollar — on restaurants, according to food economists at the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service.
But while consumer demand contributed to the restaurant boom, it was changes on Wall Street that really fueled the explosion. Chains like Del Taco, Papa Murphy’s and others began attracting money from private equity firms, and banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America saw lending opportunities in the restaurant industry.
Those developments complemented each other well. New fast-food investors wanted to rely less on owning restaurants, and offloaded many company locations to eager buyers who came with bags of cheap money from the banks. The investors could then count on a steady stream of franchise fees and royalty payments — buffers against overall sales declines if, say, the market ever became oversaturated. And they didn’t have to worry about actually operating the restaurants.
Franchisees pay for the right to operate a McDonald’s or a Subway, following rules that dictate everything from what type of taco to sell to where to buy iceberg lettuce. They take on the risks and costs of running the restaurants, in exchange for the marketing muscle and name recognition these big companies provide. While every Dunkin’ Donuts or Taco Bell may look the same, dozens and sometimes hundreds of independent owners can operate most of the restaurants within a single brand…
he shuttering of restaurants could have a major impact on the labor market. Since 2010, restaurants have accounted for one out of every seven new jobs, and many restaurateurs complain that it has become increasingly difficult to hire and retain workers. In Muscogee County, Ga., a former textile center, the Labor Department reported an overall decline in employment of 2,000 jobs since 2001 — but a gain of 2,700 restaurant jobs.
Those positions could be in jeopardy if sales continue to fall and force more restaurants to close…
So, having broken the small local restaurants and dinners by overbuilding franchises, Wall Street will now break the individual franchisees by demanding unrealistic quarter-upon-quarter profits. And when those franchises go under, they’ll kill one of the last low-skill, can’t-be-moved-overseas job sources. Another “win” for the banking community!
PsiFighter37
I actually think that you have a drastic shift in the food that millennials want to eat. A lot of it is the dramatic shift (IMO) of younger people valuing experiential, transient activities (that can of course be memorialized on social media to make it permanent) over owning stuff (outside of an iPhone, perhaps). So eating the cheapest yet crappiest / unhealthiest food has little appeal (although I do love my Mickey D’s once in a while), and places that are truly worthless – like Applebees, Olive Garden, etc. – are suffering even more. I was talking to my wife about how there seems to be an explosion of places like poke shops (which is a bit ridiculous – I think it’s almost like the shooting star that Pinkberry was 5-7 years ago or so), and I wasn’t sure they would all be sustainable. But given the appetite that millennials have, I think you’ll actually see a decentralization in the food experience, with only the ‘deserving’ fast-casual shops like Shake Shack having staying power (even though I think they expanded too fast as well).
Corner Stone
Those jobs are going away anyway. And as much as over saturation is to blame, the quest for squeezing every possible penny out of the system is evident by the increasing trend to use more and more inferior product.
Hunter Gathers
A few less overpriced indigestion inducing crap factories wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Major Major Major Major
I remember reading a year or two ago about how there are just way too many midscale casual restaurants, chain or no, in SF and Seattle and Denver and such. Seemed convincing. Not surprised to read the numbers have nonetheless expanded. That which cannot go on forever…
@PsiFighter37: ohh, maybe I’ll get poke for dinner!
Amaranthine RBG
Too many resstaurants?
Have you tried getting a reservation at Dorsia?
NotMax
Calling McDonald’s, Subway, Dunkin’ Donuts and Taco Bell restaurants is a stretch.
Yarrow
Automation is going to kill a lot of restaurant jobs. Order via tablet. Robots make your meal. Maybe one employee to deal with customers.
Do those mail-order cook-your-own-meal boxes fall under this category? Seems like there are hundreds of those things. I can’t see how they can make a profit. It’s gotta be really expensive to package and ship food around like that.
Millard Filmore
When I offer a destructive labor wage rate (at or near minimum wage), why is it so hard to find eager, conscientious people willing to work hard to make me rich?
NotMax
There cannot, however, be too many restaurant or food-centered movies. A hefty menu of delicious ones in that genre.
SiubhanDuinne
I was in my early 20s before I knew that beef came in a colour other than grey. My grandmother had many sterling qualities, but her pot roast was not amongst them.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: Chef’s Table is great!
Steve in the ATL
Gosh, it’s not often that the banksters make a mistake
Shana
I have two millennial daughters. One is a young lawyer, working at a firm that’s not Big Law (at a firm but not one of the ones where they pay $160,000 for new lawyers but expect them to work about 60-80 hours a week). She works more than 40 hours a week, but still has time to be involved with friends, exercise and (yeah) Democratic politics in our area. She eats out about half the time, but also uses one of the meal prep companies for about half of her home cooking and her own (or my) recipes for the other half. The other daughter is a grad student in an area that certainly has a bunch of restaurants but prefers to cook when she has the time. Or her boyfriend does. Anyway, neither of them will go to chain places unless they have to.
I don’t know how typical they are, but there you go.
jl
@Steve in the ATL: As Keynes said, as long as they all fail together, it’s all good (at least for them).
Adam L Silverman
What aren’t going away are going to be replaced with automation. iPad/tablet ordering devices at the tables requiring fewer and fewer actual waiters at mid scale chains. Just food runners, cooks, dishwashers, bar tenders. And when they can figure out how to either fully automate the dishwashing or just make it so that the food runners are also the bus people and the dishwashers, they’ll do that.
Now I’m going to go and make my dinner.
lollipopguild
@Steve in the ATL: I am glad that I was not drinking anything when I read your comment. LOL funny!
Davebo
Living in a city that has perhaps the best restaurant scene I’m glad to see the chains dying. Haven’t been in one in years.
While Tillman Fertitta still has a strong hold around here I’ve enjoyed some fabulous dinners, brunches and lunches at great semi independent spots.
FYI, the mussels at Black Ruggles are better than I had in Marseille and the wild game at Rainbow Lodge is incredible!
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Would love to join thread but have to get up at 5:00 am tommorow morning for my clinical. Looking forward to listening to some OTR Superman before I fall asleep.
Good night all!
Miss Bianca
I read this article, forwarded it on to my brew buddy, and said, “Remember – NO FOOD!” (We’re looking at opening a commercial meadery).
JR
Restaurants are wholly dependent on the business cycle. I think of their propagation as an *effect* not a *cause* our current bubble.
The obvious bubble industry is tech, particularly speculative non-profitable companies like Twitter, etc.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@NotMax: You might like the recent french food movie by Eleanor Coppla “Paris Can Wait”, starring the ever beautiful Diane Lane (trailer)
jl
@Adam L Silverman: For whatever it’s worth, I heard a news report that the recent automated eateries (they don’t really sound like restaurants to me) in the SF Bay Area are having trouble. Most of the recent openings have closed.
NotMax
Fish folly.
Davebo
@Yarrow:
Eating out should be an event. At least to me. Get a little dressed up, perhaps the Symphony after.
No robotic waiter or chef replaces that.
Yes, it’s pricey, but it’s eating out! A once a month perhaps indulgence that Europe seems to understand better than we do.
jl
@NotMax:George Sr’s famous diplomatic banquet pukefest is preferable.
Doug!
Well, they haven’t broken the local restaurants around here.
Shana
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Diane Lane is indeed “ever beautiful”.
Gvg
I don’t think it’s true where I am. Ther actually seem to be fewer than there used to be. I have recently experienced McDonalds attempt at automating orders and it’s a failure. Screwed up what I wanted so bad the clerk had to cancel it and re enter at the cash register. Most people were having that problem. It wouldn’t let you leave off musterd. I hate musterd.
What we have is too much retail space unfilled. Empty buildings that are new, never filled and I know from checking on line are foreclosed on but they are still building more less than a mile away. Been noticing it since at least 2008. Can’t understand why the builders can still get loans when there are multiple shopping complexes unfilled.
On the other hand housing is finally getting scarce and prices are creeping up. Actually all real estate trends my entire life seem to be full of dumbness.
NotMax
Can’t get enough KFC? Oh, those wacky Japanese!
Food dispensary related, kind of.
raven
Muscogee County, Ga is where Columbus and Ft Benning are. It hasn’t been a textile center in years.
Davebo
@raven: In decades.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
My mother was a bad cook, though as an excuse we were flat broke and she had to use cheap ingredients. My brother and I started college the same year and neither one of us could understand why everyone complained about the dorm food.
Geoduck
Somewhat off-topic, but mentioning Euell Gibbons reminded me of this classic short by the outdoor humorist Patrick McManus: Salami on Rye and Hold the Wild Gobo.
gene108
@Shana:
Chain restaurants seem to appeal to people with kids to feed. They are standard, the food is relatively kid friendly, and parents can rest a bit, instead of constantly trying to get kids to eat a meal.
I’m GenX, but the change with my older brother, with regards to restaurants, after my nephew and niece were born is illuminating.
Kay Eye
If you have the option, always choose a locally owned and run eatery.
Always.
When you don’t cook at home.
schrodingers_cat
There is no cooking like home cooking. I taught myself how to cook. I am not bad cook but my mother’s the best.
@Davebo: Agreed! Dinner and movie or a concert.
prufock
@Adam L Silverman: Downtown Dunedin Florida is experiencing an explosion of brew pubs, with all the beer being produced on site.
I don’t know how they’ll all survive, but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.
Major Major Major Major
@PsiFighter37: yum, poke, thanks for the inspiration!
I’m at one of three poke places in as many blocks from Church & Market in SF. Faddish but tasty!
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: * a bad cook.
Missing article is missing.
Gravenstone
So say this bubble does indeed implode. What exactly would stop someone from starting up a traditional mom and pop place, if such were their desire? If the competition collapses, why not give it a try.
delk
@Major Major Major Major: Five (chain) poke places closed last week in Chicago. One was only open for five days.
Anne Laurie
@Miss Bianca:
More power to you! Around here, the problem would be obtaining a license unless you offered at least a pretense at being a ‘restaurant’, even if that meant just a handful of sandwiches or nibbles to go with the mead. Local non-chain restaurants complain they can’t make a profit without liquor sales, and it’s hard to get one of the limited number each community allows (yes, the ‘blue laws’ have not yet completely died in Massachusetts), and I’m told even harder for breweries to ‘justify’ getting a license without offering food (YOU WANT TO SET A LOT OF DRUNKS LOOSE IN OUR LOVELY TOWN, YOU FIENDS).
Our beaten-down, blue-collar city (pop ~50k) has been built up almost out of recognition just in the 25 years since we bought our house. We actually went to a local ‘planning meeting’ when they were about to break ground on a “mixed use” hotel/restaurant complex at the end of the block, between the busiest local office complex and a massive car dealership, on a Superfund site no less. Spousal Unit had (has) fears about more traffic on what AAA says is the third-most-dangerous intersection in the state, but the neighbors who attended were mostly concerned about attracting “Section 8” (assisted housing) tenants. This is when we found out why official restaurant closing time, except for a lone Bickfords and an adjoining McDonalds next to the freeway interchange, is before midnight: Late-night hours attract Those People, you know, drug users & layabouts who don’t have to go to work in the morning. To be fair, the city *does* have a lot of Section 8 and “project” housing already — side effect of being so run-down and consequently “affordable” for so many years — but refusing to allow late-night non-drive-thru dining isn’t going to attract Millennials to replace the fearful retirees or rent from the “realtors” making a living off renting out their dead parents’ house plus a couple of ‘seasonal’ properties they manage for neighborhood snowbirds.
Calouste
@Davebo: Americans go out for food, Europeans go out for dinner.
Duane
I think we’re seeing a bubble of Trumpism.As his tiny hands sprinkle deregulartory dust and tax cut candy upon the nation, we’ll have a land of supply-side happiness.
Of course, when the bubble pops, we’ll be covered in greed goo and chaos crap.
Mike in NC
Been to Manhattan a few times and was never particularly impressed by the restaurants we were taken to.
Steeplejack (phone)
@NotMax:
Debunked (somewhat). Trump did dump his food load, but only after Abe did the same thing.
And of course Fox News is now having a field day pillorying the “fake media” for their gaffe.
Anne Laurie
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
There was a food poisoning incident in my freshman dorm. The only students I knew who didn’t get sick were those few who didn’t use the dining hall… and me. My friends made jokes about my NYC-toughened digestive system, but I credited my mom’s terrible kitchen habits.
Doug R
@Davebo: We went to a Japanese style noodle place once BECAUSE it had a robot noodle cutter.
What classification is there for those mostly prepped meals from a supermarket?
Can’t beat that Costco roast chicken and potato salad with a couple of $1 pepsis.
GregB
I recommend buying as many shares of Soylent Green as possible?
Hitless
@Geoduck:
I loved McManus…I acquired every book of his i could find while growing up. In actual bookstores, which was the fashion at the time…rather hard to find now. Robotic booksellers… robotic restaurants…
schrodingers_cat
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Everything tastes the same, no matter what it is called.
MoxieM
Euell Gibbons… you mean he liked … Grape Nuts?? (Anyone else remember those commercials?)
Steve in the ATL
@Mike in NC:
I too was disappointed with the bread sticks at the Times Square Olive Garden
Doug R
@Steve in the ATL: I heard Hell’s like The Olive Garden, except the food’s good.
Gin & Tonic
@Steve in the ATL: Everybody knows that in Times Square you go to Red Lobster, not Olive Garden.
Anne Laurie
@Hitless: Me too! I first discovered him because my not-yet-Spousal-Unit’s dad ran an archery-equipment business (back in the mid-1970s, this was still a quirky midwestern niche) and the SU had a distaste for all things “Outdoors” approaching mine for “home cooking”.
(P.S. You can indeed make flour from wild cattails, but it takes a better cook than my old man to make the resulting muffins worth eating. Ditto foraged periwinkles, or tomato-based ice-cream topping… )
eclare
@gene108: Agree, appealing to parents with small kids.
Another Scott
@MoxieM: Many parts of the pine tree are edible….
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in NC
@Steve in the ATL: Olive Garden almost always wins the annual Best Italian Restaurant award in Myrtle Beach since most of the diners are from Indiana and Oklahoma.
JCJ
@Major Major Major Major:
OK, I gotta ask. What is served at a poke restaurant? Fried Pikachu? Roasted Bulbasaur?
Jeffro
@NotMax: @Steve in the ATL: @Doug R:
Ok there are some good funnies in this thread…=)
I would cook at home most every night if I could. It’s fun, it doesn’t take all that long, you know exactly what went into the dish, you know what didn’t (a shitload of butter and salt, usually), and the chef washed his hands a half-dozen times while making everything, guaranteed. Plus it’s cheap, or perhaps I should say, dining out is expensive!
Same thing with bringing lunch to work – no hassle, 200% healthier, 400% cheaper.
Steve in the ATL
@Mike in NC: Myrtle Beach is gonna Myrtle Beach
@Doug R: @Gin & Tonic: I just go wherever I get the best AAA or AARP discount. I’m a Midwestern foodie–want to read my review of Bob Evans?
jl
@Jeffro:
Poke (fish salad)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poke_(fish_salad)
Adam L Silverman
@jl: That is good to read.
Corner Stone
They’ve got Melania’s body double accompanying Trump in South Korea.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Unless you consider women removing apparel made of textiles while adjacent to a pole to be a textile center.
Another Scott
I do think that there are too many chain restaurants, and the banksters being involved makes sense as a cause. We’ve all seen the jokes about Starbucks…
I was surprised (but I shouldn’t have been) when 5 Guys expanded like mad via franchising. The first time we ate at their original store, it took something like 30 minutes to get 2 hamburgers and fries. It was good, sure, but “extremely slow fast food” seemed to me to be the path of madness. Their expanded stores still have good food, but it’s still slow (about 10 minutes now). It’s hard to see them competing with places that have more character, and frankly better food.
E.g. the best burger I’ve ever had was the one last week at PaveMint Taphouse and Grill in Front Royal, VA. Yeah, it was twice the price of a 5 Guys’s burger, but it was better and faster. And from a genuine small business with ties to the local community.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: At Exit 3 or 5?
Adam L Silverman
@prufock: I am aware. Remember if you see advertising for Celtic Conundrum that’s my friend and former teammate’s band. Go see them they’re very good. Though since his kid moved to Oregon they no longer have a bagpiper on the roster. Depending on where they’re playing and my schedule, I may be rigging gear and working security for them.
J R in WV
@JCJ:
Poke: Raw tuna, odd noodles, covered with various strange sauces. But often good! Right? Have had it at places that served lots of other foods.
We’re lucky here, many local restaurants, from pizza (pies and pints), greek food, Italian food, creative food, Japanese food, Thai food (really!) etc.
Last chain place we drove through Wendy’s and got a single, nothing on it, let it cool, tore it in half, gave the pieces to the two dogs as a reward for being good dogs at the Vet clinic for their annual vaccination boosters and exams.
There is a local “chain” with 2 or 3 outlets called Steak Escape that does subs and Belgian style fries. We split a medium 9″ steak sub with grilled onions, peppers, mushrooms, provolone, lettuce and tomato and a fry for lunch when running errands.
You get to watch them make the food, and you can get the fries w/o extra salt (they get a little the first time they fry them) and it is crisp and good. But they aren’t really a chain.
Steve in the ATL
@Another Scott:
Stopped there for gas a few times going from Lexington to Georgetown. Does it still have the museum that is half Confederacy and half Elvis?
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL:
Huh?
ETA: While I’ve spent time at army bases in the South, I have never lived south of Columbus, Ohio.
Major Major Major Major
@J R in WV: I’m pretty sure steak escape is a chain, unless you live in Denver.
AnonPhenom
Del Taco, Papa whatevers, Subway, McDonalds….we need a new definition for “Restaurant”
Feathers
A houseguest once gave an interview to The Washington Post where he talked about how bad my mother’s cooking was. Good times. Not really. The thing is, she’s an excellent cook, famed among her friends for her dinner parties and holiday dinners. She’d pull out the cookbooks and whip up difficult recipes with ease. But the everyday meals were just plain, unadorned food without any seasonings at all. Nowadays, she and Dad never seem to actually cook anything for themselves, just pick at leftovers. Something very Irish in it all.
Omnes Omnibus
@AnonPhenom: Why?
Mike in NC
@Steve in the ATL: Ten years ago Front Royal had a gas station where you could buy pecan logs and beer nuts, and crappy canned beer of course. Really not much else. The shrine to Stonewall’s amputated arm is nearby.
jl
@J R in WV: Oops, I replied to you when I meant to reply to JCJ.
I like the Japanese version of poke, tataki. I’ve had poke a couple of times at a local Hawaiian BBQ type place, and it was good. But it was a good Hawaiin BBQ joint and pretty much everything was good there. Except I never tried the spam sushi.
The new faddled poke places I have seen in SF Bay Area are fast food / causal joints, that have mounds of cubed raw tuna and octopus, and squid, and whatnot sitting in big pans. I haven’t been able to bring myself to ever try them.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve in the ATL: Bob Evans, for people who find the pancakes at Denny’s too spicy!
Corner Stone
McRib is back!!
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Both.
Major Major Major Major
@jl:
That’s what I had for dinner! Poke bowls are tasty.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: it’s exactly as described. An old house divided into two sides, like a duplex, with one half dedicated to the big guy and the other to the lost cause. It always confused the hell out of me. And I was a resident of Memphis attending a college named after Robert E. Lee.
Corner Stone
@Feathers: I….what?
jl
@Corner Stone:” McRib is back!! ”
That will turn things around!
A very long time ago, I remember kind of liking it the first time I tried it.
The second time, it seemed like spam made with BBQ sauce, except they forgot to grind up the meat scraps.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I never really had the chance to find out at Benning. But everything that a soldier could want tended to be found at one of those exits.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: You know they do that whenever the pork:beef price ratio hits a certain number?
delk
Local hotdog place in my new neighborhood.
jl
@Major Major Major Major: Probably it tastes OK. I am just suspicious of heaping mounds of cubed raw fish sitting in pans for indeterminate periods of time.
I’ll stick with poke at the Hawaiian BBQ joint down by Pacifica whenever I pass by.
JCJ
@J R in WV:
and @jl
Thanks! I have had tataki and I have had all sorts of things like poke when visiting my in-laws in Bangkok. Had not seen the term.
I still like my theory of different cooked Pokemon. Maybe Tentacool or Magikarp?
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Umm, wow.
AnonPhenom
@Omnes Omnibus: …because I have too much respect for people who can cook food.
jl
@JCJ: Those might be a real novel taste treat.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
Is it a universal truth that the best looking “dancers” are right outside military bases?
Major Major Major Major
@jl:
It tastes good. I assume you’ve never seen the back of a sushi restaurant.
Omnes Omnibus
@AnonPhenom: They might be bad restaurants, in your view, but why are they not restaurants?
PsiFighter37
@Mike in NC: You clearly need better guides. Next time you come here, let me point you in the right direction.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Those E1s just finishing basic have to find their fiancés somewhere.
jl
@Major Major Major Major:
” I assume you’ve never seen the back of a sushi restaurant. ”
I prefer to eat in the front of a sushi restaurant. But if a guy can get a good deal back there, I’ll consider it.
Another Scott
@Steve in the ATL: Dunno, but probably. We just stopped there on the last day of our vacation before heading to Luray Caverns and Skyline Caverns. Stayed at a Holiday Inn in FR and saw at least 3 tiny black kittens that were apparently living in the long grass off the golf course. :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Villago Delenda Est
Banking needs to be boring again, as Elizabeth Warren has commented.
If they don’t like that, we can make it Place de la Concorde exciting.
Jay Noble
Sidney’s – population of @ 6,000 (and shrinking) but home of Cabela’s – current Interstate 80, Exit 59 fast food/casual chain roster: iHop Express, Tre Margahritas, Arby’s, Runza, McDonald’s, Perkin’s, Applebee’s, Subway, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut, Sonic, and Godfather’s Express. Add locals: a Chinese buffet, a steakhouse, a Mexican place, and Cabela’s little in-store cafe. And WalMart’s deli. Most of them have “Help Wanted” signs up all the time and pay $9-$10 to start just to get warm bodies.
Why so many? Cabela’s store and and being a 100 miles east or west of the next major stops Cheyenne and North Platte. Both Truckers and traveller’s are looking for something familiar. That’s the attraction they’ve always had. Back in the day, the advice was to eat where the Trucker’s ate when you travelled. The food might have been good but the . . . ambience might be a bit lacking.
Given that Interstae presence, we still have about a dozen what I like to call “eateries” in town. They are holding their own by catering to the locals and limting their hours – like doing only lunch. The problem that many of the owners face is a common one – they’re getting on in years and no one wants to buy them out/take over.
I don’t really see any of these going too far down the road to automation because other than McDonald’s, part of the attraction for most of them is your food is made when you order it. Our McDonald’s would probably be faster automated!
Now, I don’t like to look at financial stuff – gives me a headache – but everything I’ve ever seen says to steer clear of restaurants unless you are hip deep in the day to day stuff.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: I can’t recall any joints like that in Augusta (lots of dance clubs, just not “Gentlemen’s Clubs”), but Fort Sill? Good grief yes.
Frankfurt am Main? YES!
Seoul? YES!
jl
@Villago Delenda Est: I think execs risking jail time for screwing around with other people’s money would make banking very exciting. But that is just my opinion.
Edit: I am a boor. Took me a while to get the guillotine humor in your comment. I’ll settle for jail time. I’m a moderate.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: In towns with army training bases, there are unofficial officer and enlisted strip bars. The officer bars are a little further away from the base – the officers are more likely to have cars. In my limited experience, the best looking “dancers” were in the officer’s bars. Officers have more money.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Ha!
Peale
@Gin & Tonic: the locals go to Tad’s steak, if we go anywhere
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: I am a creature of Benning and Sill.
Major Major Major Major
@jl: Just saying, the fish doesn’t exactly come straight off a quivering live animal there either.
jl
@Major Major Major Major: True. But I have some assurance they at least glance at the fish with some vauge interest before they hack off a piece and give it to me.
If you have knowledge of poke joint practices and you find the presentation appetizing, that is fine. I have an alternative source that I like better, and their product is good.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s funny because it’s true!
Jay Noble
Ok, What’d I do to get moderated?
Adam L Silverman
@Jay Noble: You’re free.
Randomly selected. Just like the way the TSA does it at the airport.//
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: That pretty much mirrors my experience with “Gentlemen’s Clubs” near Army bases.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Ever eat at Meers?
http://www.meersstore.com/
Why do I think we’ve had this discussion at least once already?
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I know. I, as a young LT, had to counsel them about their marital problems. At a time when I personally was ducking relationships that lasted more than a week. It was odd.
Jeffro
@jl: I️ wasn’t the one who asked about poke (and personally don’t dig it). But thanks! ?
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Of course, I ate at Meers. I also mailed a letter while I was there.
NotMax
@Peale
Because nothin’ says good eatin’ like a 99¢ steak dinner.
:)
/old
Jeffro
@Mike in NC: if you’re out by Front Royal you need to hit the Apple House for a bbq sandwich and then take home a half-dozen cider donuts. Mmm mmm mmm
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Also, when in OK, order bottled foreign beer to get past the dreaded 3.2.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Every year I was assigned at USAWC I always wound up as the academic advisor/front line supervisor to the one officer in my seminar whose marriage was coming apart. I’m always bouncing between being single (never married) and being involved with someone for anywhere from one to six months or so. I made it clear I was always available to listen, made sure they were connected with both the family counseling folks and the chaplain’s office, and then tried not to make anything worse by giving advice I had no idea about. So I understand exactly what you’re talking about.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Used to be a local food place here that served one of those little paper cups filled with salmon poke along with any order.
So salty that a glass of water from the Dead Sea would have been bland in comparison.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
OK, never saw one not in Charleston WV… perhaps started here?
Pretty good subs, tho. And Fries! I luv potatoes, fixed most any way, but crispy crunchy French Fries are best! Good for a quick lunch, and since we’re regulars, they often sell us a regular and provide a medium, know we like extra onions on the grill… not like a chain at all, but maybe it’s just the franchise owner.
Another Scott
@Jeffro: The woman behind the counter at the Apple House was quite upset when we asked for the famous “apple cider donuts”. They’re Apple Butter donuts! The original recipe from 1963!! We ordered 2, and got 3 in the bag, so I guess she wasn’t too upset with us. ;-)
And they are pretty good. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: His free what?
Jeffro
@NotMax: ugh. Do not want, even more than before
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: My go to was, “you may want to talk to LT T****s about that. He’s been married for a while.” I was the FDO and he was the PL. We did not see eye to eye. Dumping a problem on him was fun.
Jeffro
@Another Scott: that’s funny! I️ don’t think I’ve ever had to order them out loud because they’ve always had them ready to go on the counter in those clear containers.
Or maybe I️ was just so stuffed from lunch all I️ did was grunt and point? That’s a definite possibility
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: His free visit with moderation.
AnonPhenom
@Omnes Omnibus:
Make no mistake. I have respect for fast food as a business (McDonalds specifically, I have more of my 401k in their stock than any reasonable person would put in one stock. Why? The fuckin’ thing is bullet proof! Really. Check out the how little it swung from 4th qt ’07 to 1st qt ’09.) I just haven’t eaten that shit in 30 years.
Restaurants? Those are places you go to have bucatini with borttaga.
I haven’t eaten a bacon egg and cheese biscuit since I was hitting the take out window at 6 AM after a ‘good night out’ while listening to ‘ol 55 on my way to an 18 hour work day at the retail pharmacy I owned back in the day.
Food?
No.
Fuel? Sure.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: Stop gaslighting me by fixing your typos after I point them out.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: That works too!
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: What typos?
Barbara
@Steve in the ATL: Yes. My husband wandered in a few weeks ago.
Fair Economist
I had a class in graduate school where I saw presentations from one student on oceanic parasitic nematodes. This particular nematode had a cycle involving fish and seals. She went into great detail about how the nematodes crawled through the seal’s bodies through their hearts to chew their way out through the lungs. For some species of seal, infestations were frequently fatal.
I have avoided raw fish since. No, freshness doesn’t help. You’ll never eat as fresh as the seals do.
Omnes Omnibus
@AnonPhenom: You are a snob. Okay.
TenguPhule
I am reliably informed that this kind of defeatism and negativity reflect poorly on this blog, Anne.
TenguPhule
@Hunter Gathers:
Except we’re talking more of an extinction event then a healthy culling.
The difference between a .22 and a large asteroid.
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
In all fairness Japan still demands a quality level from KFC that we no longer receive in the USA.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@NotMax: You want Poke on Maui, Tamura’s is probably the best.
Of course, Poke is kind of like art. There’s a fair bit of ok Poke, on the mainland I imagaine there is a lot of BAD Poke. but you know what you like.
AnonPhenom
@Omnes Omnibus: LOL!
Original Lee
Ah, Euell Gibbons. My dad went through a Euell Gibbons phase when I was 9 or 10. Purslane was pretty tasty, cattails not so much. We had always harvested the wild asparagus near the house, but after Gibbons, we had to be quick or someone else would get to it first. Similarly the wild onions.
Corner Stone
@Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]: I’ve only had limited experience but I have to say the best poke I’ve ever had was at Sushi Girl in Hanalei Kauai. The only sushi place I have actually put on weight from eating so much over several days.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Mom was a good/great cook. Sister was even better. And I actually got to learn quite a bit from both of them. Now to the dark side.
First ship I was on had an amazing head cook. Anything that was on the serving line was great. He had his 30 yrs in just about 2 months after I got there and retired. That was the only good food I had in the navy, that 2 months. Less than a year later we almost had a mutiny over the food. I’m not kidding, people were talking about breaking into the gun locker and taking over. On of the lifers took his tray up to the captain and it got real interesting after that. And that ship wasn’t the worst. Great Lakes Training center, in tech school. The food was so bad the only way that anyone would step into the mess hall (what an apt name) was to be marched there every day at noon and ordered to eat. Every thurs we had fillet of Brontosaurus butt. And every thurs we would put the fillet in a separate trash can so it could be washed and reserved the next week. I had a razor sharp knife I carried and it would not cut that lump of hardened shit. The mess hall did come in under budget though.
There is no fast food that I’ve tried that was as bad at that mess hall. None. Zero. Zilch.
NotMax
@Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
Poke not my bag. Won’t turn up my nose at it but won’t go out of my way to order it either.
For those not in the know, Tamura’s is a liquor store that also sells poke and plate lunches in the back.
You still on the island or already in ABQ?.
Steve in the ATL
@Barbara: I guess it’s far enough from NoVa to be part of the Virginia that never, ever changes.
I hope he bought you something nice, like the Elvis lamp.
Steeplejack
@Jay Noble:
“[. . .] ambience might be a bit lacking.”
prostratedragon
Connubial bliss at the dinner table (from Frenzy)
What one hand giveth, the other taketh away.
Gretchen
Anne Laurie: what is it about Irish mothers being terrible cooks? It was almost a point of pride with my mom – you eat to live, not live to eat. Enjoying your food was creepy and suspect. Something to do with being the grandchildren of famine survivors? Be glad you have some food. Don’t fuss about whether it’s good.
parmenides
Having worked in kitchens for a while I can tell you why automated kitchens will probably only be chains and even then only in niche areas. Customers are picky, supply chains aren’t consistent, and the margins aren’t there. A well run restaurant that brutally over works waiters and waitresses and barely pays the kitchen is looking at maybe a 5 to 7 percent profit, on revenues of a million to a million and a half. The capital cost of the kitchen is already stupid. A home Cuisinart won’t last much past six months in a kitchen and the standard Robot Coupe is $1000, it will last a couple of years. Think of that cost markup for standard equipment in a restaurant kitchen as standard. Walk-ins are stupid expensive and break all the time. Add in a robot cook and the capital costs can’t ammertize themselves across any time frame before the place goes bankrupt.
Gretchen
@SiubhanDuinne: your grandma must have been in the same cooking class as my mom! My sister and I were blown away by how delicious college cafeteria food was!
Ruckus
Is there anything that the investment industry can’t fuck up?
parmenides
Also, note that profit margin. One thing I’ve been taught is that the only money is in starting a restaurant and then selling it once it hits profitability. Banks are stupid investing in industries they don’t understand.
Booger
@Miss Bianca: we just got our state license! Woo hoo!
Lurking Canadian
@Ruckus: To my uneducated eye, the fundamental problem is that Wall Street has too much money chasing too few investment opportunities. That’s why we keep getting bubbles. It’s like hyperinflation that only affects financial securities.
So of course the natural thing to do is to lower taxes on the wealthy. If only they had EVEN MORE money to invest, the problems would go away. Kind of like how if there’s a fire in the kitchen, the best thing to do is throw gasoline on it.
Miss Bianca
@Booger: Congratulations! Where are you located? : )
low-tech cyclist
@Lurking Canadian:
This. Exactly this.
The flip side, of course, is that no investment can pan out if there’s nobody with money to buy the goods and services that the investment will produce. Not only is there too much money at the top chasing too few investments, but there are so few viable investments because most people don’t have enough money.
There needs to be more money in the hands of the lower 90%, and less money in the hands of the top 1% and the big corporations. As long as there’s too much money with its owners so desperate for a place to park it that they’ll put their money in bullshit and bubbles, we’ll know that we haven’t yet got things back to where they ought to be.
Used to have an acronym for this – TALOMSAATT, short for “There’s A Lot Of Money Sloshing Around At The Top.” TALOMSAATT explains a lot of things about our economy and our politics. Too damn much, really.
Ruckus
@low-tech cyclist:
This of course. The wealth addicted want/need to have more of their fix so the both horde and invest in whatever might bring them more of the fix. For them too much is never enough. How many houses are enough? How many sq ft per person is enough? How many politicians are enough? How many boats, planes, hell just plain opulence is enough? There is no too much, that’s never even under discussion.
TenguPhule
@Gravenstone:
Startup costs. Trying to get a loan after the industry collapses is going to really really suck.
Jay Noble
@Steeplejack: Wow!