Pay attention to deviations from mainstream incentives
commoncog.com
commoncog.com
A long time ago, I went to a Czech restaurant in San Francisco (I am always interested in finding Czech food, as it is somewhat rare in the US anywhere but where I'm originally from: near Chicago, aka Czech-ago ;P). The food my friend got seemed to be literally microwaved (he said half of it was very cold while the other half of it was very hot), and they were entirely out of at least fruit dumplings I remember for sure but I also think there were a couple other things missing. I definitely remember someone commenting that it felt a bit like a money laundering scheme more so than a restaurant.
Years later (still a while ago... maybe a decade?) I was again in San Francisco, and I went to the same restaurant--I mean, at least it is Czech food, right?! ;P--and now it was in a different much fancier dining area (though I also remember being somewhat difficult to find and sort of almost in a basement; it was just furnished almost ridiculously fancy). I was the only person there, however. This time, their menu didn't have a bunch of options they could be out of: they had exactly three dishes.
There was, however, multiple wait staff at the restaurant, all just kind of doing nothing. I ordered a goulash I think, and it was OK. I mean, I was coming into this expecting it might just be them microwaving frozen scoops of food, and didn't care as, again, "at least it is Czech food". It was tasty enough that I went back the next day for the svickova.
Again, no one was there. They also seemed so confused by how I was there. Now twice in a row. Ordering food off of their menu of only three options ;P. At the end of the dinner, I asked them "do you ever have... fruit dumplings?" and suddenly the guy--who maybe thought I was a cop casing the joint ;P--suddenly had a realization: "are you... Czech?!".
I did not return for a third day ;P. I remember checking and a number of the reviews on whatever review site I was using at this point were also people who stumbled into this restaurant and started to think "how is this even a restaurant? are we sure this isn't a money laundering front?!". That said, it also isn't clear to me how money laundering can work if everyone suspects it at your business!
The huge wave of "American Candy" stores in the UK are apparently being investigated: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61777445
In that case, the alleged fraud relates to business rates (effectively property taxes). If it was empty, the landlord would have to pay them. If there's a business there, the business is liable .. unless, of course, it simply runs for a while and then vanishes.
When I used to work late at night I would drive by there would sometimes be people inside scurrying about.
It has been open for nearly 20 years like this.
Rando store would seem to be the best option.
One of those can keep an store open with no visible movement but still highly profitable.
Sounds like the cleaners.
First thing I said to my friend was: "Yep, sure as hell they're getting the money from somewhere else"
We visited a couple in Chinatown that were striking similar to your Czech restaurant: employees kind of surprised to see someone come in the door, one operational fish tank with one or two fish in it amidst a large wall of empty tanks, comically outrageous over the top nobody-would-ever-pay-that-ever-ever prices. Figured it must have been some flavor of money laundering, but it also seemed... too obvious?
Turns out the owner was a fence, buying and selling stolen goods. The police busted them a few years back.
"Scary" indeed: look at that health inspector report...
I've had a similar experience with fellow classmates at a small osteria in Vienna we used to frequent when skipping English classes. But the food was actually decent and very cheap. But we never saw any other patrons.
My family's favorite restaurant growing up was Riverside Family Restaurant. I was back home recently, and intended to have dinner there, but hadn't realized they had closed back in 2019.
https://www.rblandmark.com/2019/04/09/riverside-restaurant-o...
> “Most of the recipes were basically personal recipes, and some were fine-tuned, but the basic were always there,” Stanga said. “We still cook, we make the dumplings. So maybe that’s why we were around for so long. I think we tie people to their roots.”
Then Little Bohemia closed in early 2020 (before the pandemic, FWIW).
https://www.rblandmark.com/2020/01/21/riversides-restaurant-...
> Riverside Restaurant closed and now Little Bohemia. If you notice, they were both restaurants that served Bohemian/Czech food. Good comfort food. At present I can count more good ethnic Bohemian restaurants that have left the area than still remain. Of course who could forget Czech Lodge in North Riverside? A bit fancier than the usual. You could go up and down Cermak Road to satisfy your cravings.
> Luckily Czech Plaza in Berwyn and Klas in Cicero, both on Cermak Road are still open. In Stickney there is Josie’s. In Westchester, I’ve been told, there is a good place to go — or if you want to take a ride, go to Crystal Palace in Westmont. So there are still places to go, but I liked having them here. I’m starting to whine and that’s not good!
But they are wrong about Klas: it closed in 2016.
https://news.wttw.com/2021/07/29/ask-geoffrey-cicero-s-klas-...
> A connecting line – literally – for all these communities was 22nd Street, known today as Cermak Road.
> The street is named for Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, himself a Czech immigrant who served only two years in office in the early 1930s.
> Klas ultimately closed its doors in 2016 mostly for financial and operational reasons, although many hope not for the last time – more on that in a minute. ... As for the Klas Restaurant today, it’s currently unoccupied and not in great shape. ... Their goal is to turn the building into a museum of Czech history, as well as a bar and event space.
They probably just kept hearing about it as there is that campaign to rejuvenate it?
https://www.wbez.org/stories/whats-that-building-the-klas-re...
> In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chicago was a powerful magnet attracting Eastern European immigrants. One of the most colorful remnants of that era sits at 5734 W. Cermak Road in Cicero. Currently closed and moldering, an organized effort is trying to save it, and possibly transition it into a memorable place for immigrants from all parts of the world.
> Klas Restaurant has been vacant since it closed about five years ago. From the street, an exuberant exterior of half timbers, carved stone, wooden shutters and metal spires is still an eye-catching presence.
And then Czech Plaza closed in late 2020, now dealing with the post-COVID restaurant landscape.
https://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=45872
> Czech Plaza has announced it is closing at the end of December 2020. Really a sad situation, they were done in by the pandemic. They were also not able to really get in on the outdoor dining thing in the summer because they lacked space and are located on busy Cermak Road. The owner of the building (not the owner of the restaurant) is trying to sell it. So we have lost both Little Bohemia and the Riverside Restaurant, both in Riverside over the past few years, as well of course as Klas.
> What's left? Well Bohemian Crystal in Westmont seems to be open, as well as the Westchester Inn, and the McCook Bohemian Restaurant. If anyone ventures to go to these, I would check first as restaurants seem to close abruptly sometimes, change hours or their menus, or they are only doing carry out business now, although some are defying the Governor's orders and allowing in house dining. There is also Cafe Prague, in the city, but it does not look like they have much Czech food on the menu. If anyone else knows of a Czech restaurant in Chicagoland, please post here. Some may say the Golden Pheasant in Elmhurst, and the Bavarian Lodge in Lisle but I'm not sure these are really on point for Czech Food.
I am assuming the aforementioned "Crystal Palace" is the "Bohemian Crystal", which is the other restaurant my family would go to if and only if Riverside was closed. However, it is currently for sale, so I guess get it while the gettin's good? :(
https://old.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/ktw7jp/czech_plaza...
> Back on August of 2020, Bohemian Crystal was listed for sale on Zillow. I just checked the link once again and found this info:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/639-Blackhawk-Dr-Westmont...
> Redevelopment opportunity directly across the street from the new FMC Natatorium at Ty Warner Park development. The existing 6,371 square foot free-standing building sits on 1.45 acres located just off the busy Ogden Ave commercial corridor with a traffic count of 32,000 vehicles per day. Currently operated as a successful restaurant with multiple dining rooms, large fully equipped kitchen and bar. The existing building sits on an expansive lot with 84 surface parking spots. Surrounded by high-end car dealerships including McGrath Acura/Lexus of Westmont, Laurel BMW of Westmont, Infiniti of Clarendon Hills, Audi Westmont, Mercedes-Benz of Westmont and Napleton Westmont Porsche. Across the street from Standard Market gourmet grocery store. Convenient access from both Kingery Highway (Rt 83) and the Tri-State Tollway (I-294). Perfect redevelopment opportunity. Land is being sold with existing restaurant and all the equipment and fixtures. DO NOT DISTURB EXISTING BUSINESS.
(early edit:) Oh... and it is now listed as "Contingent" (I did all of this research back in April); if it already was then I didn't know what that meant at the time, but if the new owner isn't intending to keep a similar restaurant running--which I presume is unlikely, as it was listed as a "redevelopment opportunity"--then the Bohemian Crystal is about to go on the pile of dead restaurants :(.
(later edit:) And now tptacek noted below that they have actually announced that they will be closing soon :(. I am adding a quote of that letter here, for completeness.
http://www.bohemiancrystal.net/
> Dear Customers,
> With huge regret we have to inform you that after 41 years in business we are closing our restaurant, Bohemian Crystal. Our last day will be Sunday October, 2nd.
> We would like to thank to all our customers for their long term loyalty and friendship.
> Please, come to visit us before the front doors of our restaurant will be closed for good.
> Your Bohemian Crystal Restaurant Team
For my dinner in April, I started having to dig more deeply, trying to find ones I hadn't heard of before, and it just got more depressing.
https://old.reddit.com/r/ChicagoSuburbs/comments/bs59oe/favo...
> I frequently visited Bohemian Crystal in Westmont. Never had a bad meal in the five years I ate there. Westchester Inn is also on the list of my favorites.
> Seems like these kind of restaurants are slowly dying in the Chicago area. Muldau's in Brookfield is closed along with Chauteau Rose and Klaus restaurants once located in Cicero.
So that leaves only the Westchester Inn, the Bohemian Crystal (for now), and McCook Bohemian Family Restaurant & Lounge. The former two are closed on Monday, and I happened to be in town on a Monday, so I tried to go to McCook... and there was a handwritten special sign on the door saying they were closed for the day :(.
I ended up finding a place a very short drive away from there on Yelp which shockingly sold fruit dumplings (and seemed to be a Czech place generally)... but the reason they were confusing was because they were a really a catering outfit which also sold some frozen food, not a restaurant where I could get something to eat.
The (Czech) owner there told me to go to McCook, as they should be open; but when I told her they were closed for the day she got this super defeated look on her face as she sighed "of course" and then started going on a sad rant about how all of the Czech restaurants were gone.
She listed the couple others I knew, noting they were closed on Monday, and then mentioned the existence a fourth one I didn't know of which was also closed on Monday and Tuesday (but she couldn't remember the name, so I don't know what it was).
(final edit:) That fourth restaurant is probably Cafe Prague, which was mentioned earlier in a quote as "in the city, but it does not look like they have much Czech food on the menu". I checked, and they are, in fact, closed on both Monday and Tuesday. FWIW, their "Czech Specialties" menu is complete enough? (They don't have fruit dumplings, though, which I personally find very sad.)
My (Polish) friend and I ended up going to... Texas Roadhouse :/.
But so, there are still a handful of places that might be open if it isn't Monday. It isn't, though, the vibrant community it once was, back when I would hear people say "Czech-ago" :(.
https://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=45872
LTH seems to think Westchester Inn is still going strong. I'll have to hit it up. I've been to Prague a couple times and remember enjoying the food (I need more rose hips in my diet).
The bottom of that thread also mentions Café Prague a lot... I realized that that was likely the fourth restaurant mentioned by the owner of the catering outfit (as the hours check out, being closed on both Monday and Tuesday). Their Czech menu is a subset of their full menu, but is way more complete than anywhere I have so far found in the US outside of Chicagoland and is frankly competitive with McCook.
So, I guess that means we are down to three remaining restaurants, with Westchester Inn being the only one that still has fruit dumplings (boiled, not fried), which I have found to be extremely difficult to find anywhere... I went to a town in Texas that is 90% Czech and, while people knew of and loved fruit dumplings, they didn't know of anywhere locally that had them :(. (I ended up not even managing to get Czech food in that town, due to conflicts with the opening hours.)
Did you report this suspicion to any authority? Your answer should be there.
Right or wrong, such reasoning means that you and others wave away reporting. And without any indication anything is wrong, the police may never know, never investigate.
Thus, the abridgement of process means failure is guaranteed.
You can report stuff to the FBI and they will ignore most of it.
You know, I've never had one of those microwave Velveeta Mac and Cheese cups. But I bet they're pretty good, in terms of guilty pleasures.
Not that I don't want authentic meals and experiences of course.
Will give it a read...
So, hire nice people, be fair to them and encourage everybody to treat the customers fairly and kindly?
Maybe just being a good person is good for business?
In fact, this is an article in of itself. With most jobs, employers are heavily incentivized to not make them incredibly enjoyable.
Everyone complains about their employers. Especially in technology.
However, tons of businesses emphatically do not have an incentive to create happy, enjoyable workplaces for their employees.
Do you believe that is an accurate summary of "management through a simple set of rules that stimulate complex and intricate behaviours benefiting customers"?
The customers in the story had experience that were more than fair and kind. In fact, they are quite remarkable interactions. And the repeatability of remarkableness is not easy.
You say it like this is something well-defined and easily achievable, but I am not sure it is.
Morals and ethics. Things which were heavily taught in earlier times, and which now have been replaced by STEM.
Someone is going to squwak that morals and ethics have been debated for millenium, thus certainly NOT well defined.
response: nice STEM thinking, which assumes a mathematical definition of "defined".
VS a morals and ethics definition, which says "here are the points of variance which go into moral decision making." Where a "definition" is not an answer, it is a framing of the debate.
Because moral decisions are always tradeoffs along different dimensions. And moral reasoning is about making judgement calls under uncertainty.
I cannot let this go because my Engineering undergrad is the one place I encountered a decent course on ethics; studying the subject is necessary for licensure. We didn't displace ethics, Philosophy departments got lost in their own rhetorical devices and don't talk about the 'how then should we live?' question enough to interest the general public.
I wonder what separates the two.
Self mockery, I guess. If you're a fancy restaurant, it implies that you are high end but not arrogant enough to ignore your own mistakes. So, it conveys the message that you are always willing the best for your customers.
When multiple people recognize and respond to you, it is a sign of fame and respect. People generally like to be well-known and respected, so this coordination is appreciated.
When a machine recognizes and responds to you, it is often not a sign of respect but a sign of exploitation. I think it's kinda useful when I see relevant ads on a website based on my recent browsing. But I might feel differently if I spent 8 hours a day driving wherever a computer told me to go or cooking whatever a computer told me to cook.
I counter with a simple note: what about a LEGIT company who is just a branch of a parent company in another State, something let's say like a P.O. box in Delaware, a thing perfectly legal there, and the branch company have to pay much service to the mother company ending every year in red or nearly red and so paying no local taxes but still get allowed to remain in business? That's happen ALL by electronic money, officially transferred, officially formally billed according to the laws.
On contrary let's say we only tax the net, so we want to document any expense, even the smallest one, what do you think in this scenario?
The high staff numbers indicate either a) staff can accumulate and no-one is really bothered because the normal economics don't apply, or b) more staff implies a bigger business (to anyone looking at the books), which means more money can be laundered without raising suspicion. Efficiency just depends on how much cash you can imply this coffee shop makes, so more staff is a good thing.
I suppose if your "other" side of the business has people working for it, then it's not going to change the financials much to have them on the books of the restaurant.
Efficient money laundering will get you caught. Incentive is not to get caught and not having all the money seized.
Which also comes back to early comments about "treat your employees well", which incurs a higher up-front cost to generate a massive long-term payout.
Also see comment on ML efficiency rates, yes, 30-40% hit to get the money clean is a lot better than no money plus jail. One of the reason black market goods are expensive is because the costs of doing business are so high. You pay 40% or higher money laundering "tax" to avoid paying tax.
But to clarify, I meant the 30-40% as a total cost, i.e. I put in 100 dirty dollars and take out 60 clean. You are correct that an income tax would then apply.
If instead I kept the 100 as cash, I could spend the 100, and not pay any income tax.
Staying all cash probably works at the 100 level. Becomes dicey at the 100K level.
At the end he says:
> ‘for the record I’d rather a waiter say, “Have a nice day” and not mean it, than ignore me and mean it.‘
[1] https://time.com/3720218/difference-between-american-british...
Not saying either perspective is wrong. Just that there's some nuance.
Also, Hooters originated in the US. Make of that what you will
Good service in North America heightens the whole dinner experience.
Incentives are everything.
I tried to look at the preceeding article mentioned to go deeper on this but it is paywalled. I can't say for sure but this article has wiffs of the quasi-mysticism that surrounds F&B worship of successful professional F&B proprietors. And I'm getting a touch of the worst brand yet which is mixing F&B business metaphorically with startup brain.
So for example, almost all of these articles will talk about how some "culture" is "different". They'll enumerate all the quirky training processes that "bond" the teams together.
But in the end there are a few realities. Most people that have very professional service in F&B pay them more and give them better benefits. They can afford this because they work in niches of F&B service that allow for higher margins. Unless you can move your operations into something higher margin, you can't afford these pay and benefits. And if you do, someone else will fill your low margin hole and end up asking themselves the same questions. Namely, why do my employees hate me? I exploit them. Why do I exploit them? The margins demand it.
The other and much more insidious way that F&B luminaries provide superior service is by exploiting professionalized workers' egos. Essentially, working in a fancy restaurant is very clouty. A lot of people end up working in cutting edge or high end F&B while still earning very marginally improved wages because they believe in the place they work. In my opinion this is not good. This is asking people to start making real personal sacrifices for something they will never actually own, something that will give them nothing the day it slides from under their feet.
The vast majority of F&B is so low margin that I actually think the only conceivable way to pay people a livable wage, outside of high margin niches, is to be unrpofitble. Essentially, you have to distribute the profits to the workers. And the problem here becomes that scale is often the only way to secure yourself in the industry, yet getting capital invested into your explicitly profitless venture is unlikely.
I really wish I could read the other article because maybe I'm preaching to the choir but in the end I'd say, be very cautious about glorify anyone in the F&B business.