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Comment by qurren | Hacker News Reader

Related: I've seen several local restaurants offering extremely good food come up and die simply because they could never get attention.

People only look at recommendations now, they don't look with their eyes anymore.

So now restaurants have to focus on growth hacking rather than food quality.

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This really isn't a new problem.

That's why the mantra in running restaurants has been "location, location, location".

Location was a proxy for marketing and attention, based on foot traffic. So yes it does need to be updated to be the 2026 version for what gets peoples' attention on trying your new thing.

I think almost all good restaurateurs know that. The rest, who hyper focus on food quality, are tragically doomed.

source: my parents were in the restaurant business

And its still location. Marketing will get get people to come try your food, but location gets them to come back every week.

Location makes them try it once. Quality makes them come back every week. Which is useless if they never tried it once. On the other hand if you set up in a place where each person only comes by once or twice in a lifetime, like an airport, you don't have to make them come back and you just have to make sure the food is tolerable.

To be fair, restaurants have always had very high failure rates (something like 75% close within the first year.)

Keeping a restaurant open is more about managing costs than having good food; many die because of not great inventory and supply chain handling, for example.

I've seen a lot of "Thai Food Near Me" as the name of restaurants.

What do you think would happen if they were called Current Location?

Slightly off topic, but that would be a great name for a curry restaurant

Or a dried-fruit retailer.

IGMC.

This is why the long-term survivors tend to be pretty mid chains & franchises. They've got the marketing down and the food is an afterthought.

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