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How would a restaurant be in any way analogous to a yacht?The GP meant that it's a business people get into because it's their passion, and it is a lot of people's passion when compared against the market for it. I'd say a comparison against "glamourous" creative industries like acting and journalism is more apt -- good profit to the ones people remember the names of, and cutthroat for the 90% fighting over the rest of the market.
> Restaurants have always been run on razor thin margins, but the piece makes a compelling case that it's tipped beyond that.
Maybe it's an echo-chamber thing, but a large fraction of my friends in SF rarely/never cook dinner. Almost none bring their lunch to work. We don't have a shortage of places to buy prepared food.
The cost of eating out will probably scale closely with the cost of running a restaurant. Demand is solid (though not entirely inelastic.) Profits will always be thinner than in other industries.
Lower rents would help, but there would probably also be negative second-order effects of lower meal prices. And positive third-order effects of increased demand because of price elasticity...