The medium post seems to be arguing for charging $12 for the example Doner instead of $11. It could just be that I'm relatively price-insensitive, but if I'm choosing between meals at two different restaurants where one costs $11 and the other $12, the decision is being made by which meal I'd prefer eating, not by the $1 difference.
If we're talking a 2x in price, then sure, that can sway my decision. But the article is not talking about such big differences.
If restaurants had 20% margins they would still be facing collapse.
Rent is a huge portion of costs vis-a-vis most other businesses that can be run 'anywhere' whereas restaurants need prime locations.
Restaurants must relocate to cheaper areas like warehouses and shift to a delivery-first distribution model, which Uber, Lyft, and Google Express could help dispatch. It sucks from a customer-interaction perspective, but it's necessary. Other businesses like Pret in London were already using a hybrid centralized preparation with small, hyperlocal retail sales model.
If you want to make money, you can't think and do what everyone else is doing in all respects.
Under which logic? The Baron Von Muchausen argument of demoralization?
It could also be that the expo/chefs valued speed over anything else, I've never been or eaten at a Howards Johnoson's, but I can easily see it being an issue if you're trying to make an effort while being behind on a ton of tickets and management prioritizes volume over quality and it they're seen as the bottle neck.
I admit speed is not my strong point, but my presentation and knife skills are strong so I make up for it that way and I'm organized and clean--its what got me to work under a 3 star Michelin chef (total nightmare, he finally got fired a months after I left) despite focusing mainly on Farm to table concepts for most of my career.
But I've been judged negatively in other kitchens for playing to my strengths and believing/saying that speed comes with time--in the last place I proved that is the case and trained 4 people due to that philosophy/results.
But patience isn't exactly easily found in kitchens or tolerated amongst a bunch of fast talking, high-strung adrenaline/stress junkies which is what most chefs are, myself included.
Yes. Let's just kill all community space. Great idea. I too enjoy being a pod person.
It might be helpful to differentiate "community space" from "restaurant". Or perhaps to differentiate "restaurant that is primarily selling convenience", which is the kind the article seems to be describing, from "restaurant that is primarily selling a dining experience in a community space". I would expect margins on the latter type of restaurant to be significantly higher.
But only restaurants that can be this are famous ones which have a lot of celebrity pull. So the remaining ones that don't have such pull will need to adapt, or die.
It's not that all restaurants will die - just the ones who aren't celebrity/famous and can sell an experience.
Wanting to be a dining experience, and having "be a dining experience" be your primary business model, are two different things.
I'm sure the author of the article would like his restaurant to be a "dining experience", but that's not his primary business model. His primary business model is selling convenience. His customers buy his food because it's more convenient than preparing it themselves, not because they need to have the "experience" of dining in his restaurant. His restaurant could just as easily be a truck parked at the curb--as many sellers of food actually do in large cities--and his customers probably wouldn't care as long as the food was the same and was available as quickly.
Sure, if you ask the customers, they'll say they prefer the restaurant space to a truck at the curb, but unless they're willing to pay more for the former than they would for the latter, there's no business value in the former. And the fact that customers aren't willing to pay enough to support a restaurant space, but what they're willing to pay probably would be enough to support a truck at the curb, is precisely why the author is struggling to find ways to cut costs--because he mistakenly thinks the space itself is part of his business model, when it actually isn't. He'd like it to be, but it isn't, because his customers aren't willing to pay extra to support it.
The hyperfocus on "disruption" you sometimes see in here is really... something.
The problem is that a heck of a lot of people are ok with that. I'm one of them. When I went to university, the delivery apps arrived in the middle of my time there. I think I went to a restaurant a 5-6 times in the remaining two years after UberEats and SkipTheDishes arrived.
I lived in the centre of downtown my final year and I didn't go to a restaurant downtown once.
I'm an extreme case of wanting to be at my computer to be sure, but it only takes a small percent opting out to make slim margins go to zero.
A lot of the demand for community type space was under a certain logistical duress. I either had to go to a restaurant, choose from a limited selection of delivered foods, or order takeout (and I may as well just eat it there if I have to make the journey anyway). That no longer exists and instead of paying for the overhead of the restaurant, my money goes to UberEats.
A Veblen good:
>...A higher price may make a product desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. A product may be a Veblen good because it is a positional good, something few others can own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
A Giffen good:
>...The classic example given by Marshall is of inferior quality staple foods, whose demand is driven by poverty that makes their purchasers unable to afford superior foodstuffs. As the price of the cheap staple rises, they can no longer afford to supplement their diet with better foods, and must consume more of the staple food.
Exactly. The French Laundry can charge $325+ for dinner because it is arguably one of the 15 best restaurants in the country. It is incredibly differentiated.