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I've lived in SF for 25 years, and eat out often. While I never visited this particular restaurant, as others have noted, 3.5 stars on Yelp in SF's hyper-compet
by s1mon 8y ago
I've lived in SF for 25 years, and eat out often. While I never visited this particular restaurant, as others have noted, 3.5 stars on Yelp in SF's hyper-competitive market is telling. 3.5 is maybe enough to keep the cheap place you go to across the street when you're lazy in business. Less than 4 stars isn't going to get enough people to make a reservation, travel across town and shell out $$$. We have over 4500 restaurants listed in Yelp, and roughly 7% turnover of openings/closings per year. It's physically impossible for anyone to eat at all, let alone a fraction, of the places here. Foodie places which are successful may be a big hit when they first open, but if they don't keep up the quality, they will die quickly as that crowd moves onto the next shiny thing. It takes a lot to stay in business here.
The way that some restaurants blame their success and failure on the high cost of labor makes about as much sense as when people review restaurants on Yelp and complain how surprised they were by the bill at the end of the night. It's a math problem. Other people are managing to balance their costs and revenue and stay in business.
- logifail 8y ago>> Foodie places which are successful may be a big hit when they first open, but if they don't keep up the quality, they will die quickly as that crowd moves onto the next shiny thing. Q: Is keeping up the quality going to be enough, though, when it appears crowds seem to demand "the next shiny thing" above other factors (including, perhaps, quality)?
- abalone 8y agoNah, closures are up and openings are down all across the city due to higher costs.[1] You may have lived here 25 years but that’s no substitute for hard data. [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/2017-wasn-t-the-greatest-year-for-San-Francisco-12480441.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/2017-wasn-t-the-gre...
- s1mon 8y agoThat’s where I got the data. That article mentions higher costs, but the Harvard study they referenced links review stars to closures. Clearly costs are one of the main pressures on restaurants, but there are plenty of things that restaurants can do to improve diners’ experiences which don’t necessarily cost more. Hypothetically, restaurant A and B are the same except A is better organized and your food gets to the customers table faster and at the right temperature. Or restaurant B’s staff doesn’t notice when your wine glass is almost empty and doesn’t sell that second or third glass. Little things can make a huge difference in revenue and ratings, and yet you can see restaurants making stupid mistakes all the time.