4 ms·

And the drive to mediocrity continues. Now everybody can serve up TV dinners Applebees/IHOP/Darden Restaurant style...

askafriend 8y ago
Why do you assume it has to be low quality or mediocre? The article is about infrastructure for food preparation and storage. How many food entrepreneurs and chefs have you talked to? What are their biggest pain points and what are the biggest barriers to entry to go from a novel food idea to serving it up to customers? What are the biggest barriers to quality in food? How many restaurant-goers have you talked to? What kind of food do people want and how is that changing? How fast are delivery businesses growing YoY and can something like this enable more delivery-based restaurants? There are so many interesting questions and data around this space. If you have even a fraction of the answers to these question, please do share and contribute because as it stands now, your statement is more suited for Reddit. I can't respect such a shallow take on something quite complex.
- monksy 8y ago
  The biggest cost in the restaurant industry is labor and very limited price points. ~15% of the price of your meal goes to the food cost. (That in its self is a challenge which is why people go for GFS and suppliers to deliver) Darien is known for being low quality because they have optimized their business to run with little skills. Made processes that could be taught vs using skilled and experienced labor.
- a_c 8y ago
  I am very curious why food-related startups are mostly about delivery like deliveroo and uberEats. Is it because of the advertising efforts put in, or my lack of attention. Would love to learn from someone who can shed some light on your set of question!
  - petra 8y ago
    VC based companies want to control the app(controlling user demand) and control the delivery network. Why ? Roughly speaking, high demand means you can deliver cheaper than others(assuming you have the delivery network) - because if you deliver all the meals in my building, it's very efficient. Once you have those, you tend to win the market, make tons of money, and it's very hard for someone else to build that and challenge you. A very good business.
  - mcintyre1994 8y ago
    > I am very curious why food-related startups are mostly about delivery like deliveroo and uberEats. I assume because it's much cheaper to hire contractors than employees, and it's much easier to make delivery drivers contractors (you can deliver for lots of companies in one night) than chefs (you're not going to cook each different meal for a different restaurant in one night). So if you only provide the delivery you only need contractors for the actual service you provide.
- athenot 8y ago
  The taste difference is noticeable. I stopped going to chain restaurants about half a decade ago, but every now and then get dragged into one by relatives. Whether it's Olive Garden, Applebees, Chilli's, OCharley's, IHOP, Longhorn, Outback... they all taste the same. Mediocre ingredients, assembled in a way that is convenient for their process but detrimental to taste. Ask for a rare steak, you'll either get something medium-well (because the manual says to cook for at least X mins) or something rare but with no browning whatsoever on the outside. Fish will always be overcooked. Sauces are all cornstarch based to give them a thick texture, yet don't make use of interesting fats like olive oil, butter or the meat fats from cooking. Bread tastes like it's a week old...
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > Why do you assume it has to be low quality or mediocre? Why don't you? If you can't see it and it's all abstracted away, what's the mechanism that prevents them from going for the cheapest ingredients available in bulk? Assuming the worst is a reasonable default whenever you're dealing with highly-competitive market. Even traditional restaurants cheat behind the back. Ever ordered a grilled chicken breast in a typical restaurant? Good chances are it was simply reheated in a microwave and then briefly put on a sandwich grill to add some grilling marks. When I first heard of this practice, I talked about it with my SO, who used to wait tables at an expensive restaurant, and her answer was, "why are you surprised? yeah, it's how it's done".
- kevin_b_er 8y ago
  Because it is used to drive down costs. The work is commodditized. It is made cheaper. It is a way to race to the bottom of cost and thus quality. The definition of a restaurant is commonly something like this: "a place where people pay to sit and eat meals that are cooked and served on the premises." They are no longer restaurants by definition, whereas McDonalds will be. I think the parent poster is right to treat the trend with disdain. It just means cheaper garbage being served everywhere. Why bother eating out?
- fredsanford 8y ago
  > Why do you assume it has to be low quality or mediocre? Have you eaten at any of the listed restaurants? They're all using a similar concept. Food is, for the most part, cooked elsewhere and heated up when needed. Just above the quality of a $4 frozen Stouffers TV dinner. I'm making a judgement based on what I'll pay for. I really don't care what the pain points are for the restaurant if the food is as shitty as the meals I've had at Applebees, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, IHOP, Dennys etc. Chilis has rolled out this concept (somewhat) over the last year or 2 and the quality of the meals has suffered greatly but it's still slightly better than the places listed above. FWIW, I have 2 friends whose family business are italian food. One of them lives in PA and ships me stuff in a styrofoam cooler that's better than 90% of the italian places around here. The other runs my favorite local italian place. I've been going there for 22+ years. I dread when he retires...
toomanybeersies 8y ago
Quite the opposite really. Where it used to be that the only food you could get delivered was curry and pizza (in New Zealand, at least), these days you can get a whole array of restaurant quality food delivered to your doorstep. If only it looked as good as the dishes do in a restaurant.
- northwest65 8y ago
  I find it mind boggling how quickly this changed in New Zealand. Almost everything is available now; Fast food outlets were actually late to the part, I see Burger King just became available in my area this week!

Why do you assume it has to be low quality or mediocre? The article is about infrastructure for food preparation and storage. How many food entrepreneurs and chefs have you talked to? What are their biggest pain points and what are the biggest barriers to entry to go from a novel food idea to serving it up to customers? What are the biggest barriers to quality in food? How many restaurant-goers have you talked to? What kind of food do people want and how is that changing? How fast are delivery businesses growing YoY and can something like this enable more delivery-based restaurants? There are so many interesting questions and data around this space. If you have even a fraction of the answers to these question, please do share and contribute because as it stands now, your statement is more suited for Reddit. I can't respect such a shallow take on something quite complex.

monksy 8y ago
The biggest cost in the restaurant industry is labor and very limited price points. ~15% of the price of your meal goes to the food cost. (That in its self is a challenge which is why people go for GFS and suppliers to deliver) Darien is known for being low quality because they have optimized their business to run with little skills. Made processes that could be taught vs using skilled and experienced labor.
a_c 8y ago
I am very curious why food-related startups are mostly about delivery like deliveroo and uberEats. Is it because of the advertising efforts put in, or my lack of attention. Would love to learn from someone who can shed some light on your set of question!
- petra 8y ago
  VC based companies want to control the app(controlling user demand) and control the delivery network. Why ? Roughly speaking, high demand means you can deliver cheaper than others(assuming you have the delivery network) - because if you deliver all the meals in my building, it's very efficient. Once you have those, you tend to win the market, make tons of money, and it's very hard for someone else to build that and challenge you. A very good business.
- mcintyre1994 8y ago
  > I am very curious why food-related startups are mostly about delivery like deliveroo and uberEats. I assume because it's much cheaper to hire contractors than employees, and it's much easier to make delivery drivers contractors (you can deliver for lots of companies in one night) than chefs (you're not going to cook each different meal for a different restaurant in one night). So if you only provide the delivery you only need contractors for the actual service you provide.
athenot 8y ago
The taste difference is noticeable. I stopped going to chain restaurants about half a decade ago, but every now and then get dragged into one by relatives. Whether it's Olive Garden, Applebees, Chilli's, OCharley's, IHOP, Longhorn, Outback... they all taste the same. Mediocre ingredients, assembled in a way that is convenient for their process but detrimental to taste. Ask for a rare steak, you'll either get something medium-well (because the manual says to cook for at least X mins) or something rare but with no browning whatsoever on the outside. Fish will always be overcooked. Sauces are all cornstarch based to give them a thick texture, yet don't make use of interesting fats like olive oil, butter or the meat fats from cooking. Bread tastes like it's a week old...
TeMPOraL 8y ago
> Why do you assume it has to be low quality or mediocre? Why don't you? If you can't see it and it's all abstracted away, what's the mechanism that prevents them from going for the cheapest ingredients available in bulk? Assuming the worst is a reasonable default whenever you're dealing with highly-competitive market. Even traditional restaurants cheat behind the back. Ever ordered a grilled chicken breast in a typical restaurant? Good chances are it was simply reheated in a microwave and then briefly put on a sandwich grill to add some grilling marks. When I first heard of this practice, I talked about it with my SO, who used to wait tables at an expensive restaurant, and her answer was, "why are you surprised? yeah, it's how it's done".
kevin_b_er 8y ago
Because it is used to drive down costs. The work is commodditized. It is made cheaper. It is a way to race to the bottom of cost and thus quality. The definition of a restaurant is commonly something like this: "a place where people pay to sit and eat meals that are cooked and served on the premises." They are no longer restaurants by definition, whereas McDonalds will be. I think the parent poster is right to treat the trend with disdain. It just means cheaper garbage being served everywhere. Why bother eating out?
fredsanford 8y ago
> Why do you assume it has to be low quality or mediocre? Have you eaten at any of the listed restaurants? They're all using a similar concept. Food is, for the most part, cooked elsewhere and heated up when needed. Just above the quality of a $4 frozen Stouffers TV dinner. I'm making a judgement based on what I'll pay for. I really don't care what the pain points are for the restaurant if the food is as shitty as the meals I've had at Applebees, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, IHOP, Dennys etc. Chilis has rolled out this concept (somewhat) over the last year or 2 and the quality of the meals has suffered greatly but it's still slightly better than the places listed above. FWIW, I have 2 friends whose family business are italian food. One of them lives in PA and ships me stuff in a styrofoam cooler that's better than 90% of the italian places around here. The other runs my favorite local italian place. I've been going there for 22+ years. I dread when he retires...

toomanybeersies 8y ago

Quite the opposite really. Where it used to be that the only food you could get delivered was curry and pizza (in New Zealand, at least), these days you can get a whole array of restaurant quality food delivered to your doorstep. If only it looked as good as the dishes do in a restaurant.

northwest65 8y ago
I find it mind boggling how quickly this changed in New Zealand. Almost everything is available now; Fast food outlets were actually late to the part, I see Burger King just became available in my area this week!