7 ms·

I'll make another observation about the landscape of restaurants. You may notice that in Europe, Asia, the demographics of restaurants are noticeably different

I'll make another observation about the landscape of restaurants. You may notice that in Europe, Asia, the demographics of restaurants are noticeably different from the US. There are far more hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop restaurants in those places compared to the US, running a small and seemingly profit-thin but subsistence restaurant for the neighborhood. Think of a suburban neighborhood in Madrid or Rome, where a small restaurant is just as common as a tabacchi / corner convenience store. I believe (have not seen a careful study yet) that the rent-seeking / zoning policies of our cities in the US increase greatly the cost of running restaurants. And incentivize / prohibit anything but large commercial / chain places from surviving as a rule. It makes it very hard for small experiments or small-time mom-and-pop shops to survive and stay in a community for decades at the low profits those places are willing to accept. There may also be something about the small square footage of typical shops in such cities being unfavorable towards chain restaurants which seem to require a certain size (like hotel properties). The landscape of our policies for cities, neighborhoods, plus the way they interact with our corporations, directly translates into the kinds of restaurants that we get as a result.

stock_toaster 7y ago
Maybe food trucks will just become more pervasive. They _were_ pretty common in portland for a while, but not sure how many of them will survive. ;_;
- pbourke 7y ago
  This will no doubt be an unpopular opinion, but I’m not a fan of food trucks as an everyday dining experience. Not super impressed with the average food quality, and the “stand around waiting for 20 minutes” experience is also not ideal. Crowded food truck clusters are super annoying to me. For the odd meal at a festival or park or whatnot - sure. But every day? not so much.
  - zhoujianfu 7y ago
    Yeah, I was pretty excited about things like "Food Truck Tuesday" in our neighborhood, but it didn't take long to realize 90%+ of them are pretty bad, slow, and unhealthy.
  - edaemon 7y ago
    As an everyday experience I would agree, but food truck pods are great for groups of people since everyone can pick what they want. Food trucks were really meant to make use of an empty lot while the owner waited for development opportunities but they took on a life of their own. Here in Portland people are very attached to them, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
  - kebman 7y ago
    "Crowded food truck clusters are super annoying to me." This tells me that there is indeed a market for food trucks. If this annoys you, then nothing is stopping you from shopping somewhere else. :) The alternative would be to get real estate close to these clusters and open up a "real" and high quality restaurant. Though my guess is, in these clusters, people are busy, they're not looking to sit down, and just want a snack while on the move to some other point of interest. I see these kinds of trucks in tourist-heavy areas, or in shopping areas, so that should give you a clue. The patrons are only looking for a quick snack, and not a Michelin star experience.
    - kebman 7y ago
      Oh my, looks like I hit a nerve... Punishing people for using good arguments when talking about freedom and free trade is the way to go, guys! :) That was sarcasm btw. You guys remind me of Chinese authoritarians sometimes, with this so-called "karma" social credit score. I guess it only counts when you have the same opinion as all the other sheep in here.
bobthepanda 7y ago
Where I live in Seattle, there is a lot of new dense neighborhoods going up. And many of these large apartments have ground-level retail, which is supposed to be that urban planning magic sauce for walkable neighborhoods. The problem is, most of these retail spaces are actually vacant, despite massive job and housing growth. But why? Because the retail spaces are simply too large. These spaces are big enough to seat 100-200 people, but most restaurants, even popular ones, will not seat that many people most of the time, so they end up paying rent on real estate that is not being fully utilized the vast majority of the time, and then they go belly up because they can't afford the rent. One recent trend that has kind of taken us back to the roots of small restaurant square footage is the food hall, where many small setups share one large communal seating area. Another is the food truck, with no seating, minimal rent costs, and the entire operation fits in a parking space. There is a great irony when I've been to a food truck serving food out of the parking lot of an under-occupied strip mall, because the strip mall spaces are simply too large. It also doesn't help that mom-and-pops are not exactly the most attractive tenants for commercial lending; better to ink a long-term contract with a sure bet like a bank branch or a national chain.
- aaronbrethorst 7y ago
  South lake union? Gonna be even more of a ghost town with the amazon ‘wfh til October’ directive.
- anovikov 7y ago
  Almost reminded me the picture from the early Middle Ages when whole population of the Roman city now fit in a market square...
- toohotatopic 7y ago
  Too large shouldn't be a problem. Every large space can be trimmed down to a small space. If there are too many vacant shops in an area, and there would be a market for smaller shops, I would assume that tenants add walls and rent out the smaller space. Even if that walled-off space is unused, tenants would make more money than not renting out at all.
alexashka 7y ago
I want small restaurants as much as I want shoe makers instead of automated Nike factories. The way forward is not by enabling people who can serve 500 people/day to exist when we can have a robot serving 5,000. We want automation, we want people doing what they choose to do because we've automated away things they had to do, such as work for a living. The way to get there is more automation. Restaurant cooks/servers are the equivalent of hand washing clothes. We have washing machines - technology has enabled humanity to do a great deal more with their life, let's move in that direction please. The other piece of the puzzle is this - technology alone is not enough - technology alone is why we have nuclear weapons and idiots with nuclear codes. The time will come soon, when we have to have a frank conversation about the number of idiots inhabiting this Earth and that it's not climate change, it's idiots, that will be the end of all of us if this keeps up. Anyhow :)
- walterbell 7y ago
  Great restaurants are like art, in the eyes of patrons and creators. They will continue to find each other among the robotic masses.
  - vnorilo 7y ago
    True, and even if the meal is not "Tate modern", even a workday lunch can make me feel that someone actually cared and reinvigorate my soul in the middle of work. Most of the time I will choose to pay a premium in time or money instead of cheapest/convenient-est.
    - kebman 7y ago
      Plot twist: Tate Modern is all about the industrialization of art.
  - barrkel 7y ago
    Art, yes - theatre especially, but also visual, along with the obvious of taste and smell.
- gorgoiler 7y ago
edmundsauto 7y ago
As a counterpoint, SF has some of the strictest zoning in the country. It has very few chains, from my experience. Most places where I know the owners, they are just normal people scratching out their existence.
- supernova87a 7y ago
  Unfortunately, I observe that SF typically does it backwards. They (the peculiar political process there) identifies the business or person they like, and puts up rules to protect that specific thing. Rather than create the broader incentives and guidelines that lead to that business being made possible. It produces a lot of bad side effects.

stock_toaster 7y ago

Maybe food trucks will just become more pervasive. They _were_ pretty common in portland for a while, but not sure how many of them will survive. ;_;

pbourke 7y ago
This will no doubt be an unpopular opinion, but I’m not a fan of food trucks as an everyday dining experience. Not super impressed with the average food quality, and the “stand around waiting for 20 minutes” experience is also not ideal. Crowded food truck clusters are super annoying to me. For the odd meal at a festival or park or whatnot - sure. But every day? not so much.
- zhoujianfu 7y ago
  Yeah, I was pretty excited about things like "Food Truck Tuesday" in our neighborhood, but it didn't take long to realize 90%+ of them are pretty bad, slow, and unhealthy.
- edaemon 7y ago
  As an everyday experience I would agree, but food truck pods are great for groups of people since everyone can pick what they want. Food trucks were really meant to make use of an empty lot while the owner waited for development opportunities but they took on a life of their own. Here in Portland people are very attached to them, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
- kebman 7y ago
  "Crowded food truck clusters are super annoying to me." This tells me that there is indeed a market for food trucks. If this annoys you, then nothing is stopping you from shopping somewhere else. :) The alternative would be to get real estate close to these clusters and open up a "real" and high quality restaurant. Though my guess is, in these clusters, people are busy, they're not looking to sit down, and just want a snack while on the move to some other point of interest. I see these kinds of trucks in tourist-heavy areas, or in shopping areas, so that should give you a clue. The patrons are only looking for a quick snack, and not a Michelin star experience.
  - kebman 7y ago
    Oh my, looks like I hit a nerve... Punishing people for using good arguments when talking about freedom and free trade is the way to go, guys! :) That was sarcasm btw. You guys remind me of Chinese authoritarians sometimes, with this so-called "karma" social credit score. I guess it only counts when you have the same opinion as all the other sheep in here.

bobthepanda 7y ago

Where I live in Seattle, there is a lot of new dense neighborhoods going up. And many of these large apartments have ground-level retail, which is supposed to be that urban planning magic sauce for walkable neighborhoods. The problem is, most of these retail spaces are actually vacant, despite massive job and housing growth. But why? Because the retail spaces are simply too large. These spaces are big enough to seat 100-200 people, but most restaurants, even popular ones, will not seat that many people most of the time, so they end up paying rent on real estate that is not being fully utilized the vast majority of the time, and then they go belly up because they can't afford the rent. One recent trend that has kind of taken us back to the roots of small restaurant square footage is the food hall, where many small setups share one large communal seating area. Another is the food truck, with no seating, minimal rent costs, and the entire operation fits in a parking space. There is a great irony when I've been to a food truck serving food out of the parking lot of an under-occupied strip mall, because the strip mall spaces are simply too large. It also doesn't help that mom-and-pops are not exactly the most attractive tenants for commercial lending; better to ink a long-term contract with a sure bet like a bank branch or a national chain.

aaronbrethorst 7y ago
South lake union? Gonna be even more of a ghost town with the amazon ‘wfh til October’ directive.
anovikov 7y ago
Almost reminded me the picture from the early Middle Ages when whole population of the Roman city now fit in a market square...
toohotatopic 7y ago
Too large shouldn't be a problem. Every large space can be trimmed down to a small space. If there are too many vacant shops in an area, and there would be a market for smaller shops, I would assume that tenants add walls and rent out the smaller space. Even if that walled-off space is unused, tenants would make more money than not renting out at all.

alexashka 7y ago

I want small restaurants as much as I want shoe makers instead of automated Nike factories. The way forward is not by enabling people who can serve 500 people/day to exist when we can have a robot serving 5,000. We want automation, we want people doing what they choose to do because we've automated away things they had to do, such as work for a living. The way to get there is more automation. Restaurant cooks/servers are the equivalent of hand washing clothes. We have washing machines - technology has enabled humanity to do a great deal more with their life, let's move in that direction please. The other piece of the puzzle is this - technology alone is not enough - technology alone is why we have nuclear weapons and idiots with nuclear codes. The time will come soon, when we have to have a frank conversation about the number of idiots inhabiting this Earth and that it's not climate change, it's idiots, that will be the end of all of us if this keeps up. Anyhow :)

walterbell 7y ago
Great restaurants are like art, in the eyes of patrons and creators. They will continue to find each other among the robotic masses.
- vnorilo 7y ago
  True, and even if the meal is not "Tate modern", even a workday lunch can make me feel that someone actually cared and reinvigorate my soul in the middle of work. Most of the time I will choose to pay a premium in time or money instead of cheapest/convenient-est.
  - kebman 7y ago
    Plot twist: Tate Modern is all about the industrialization of art.
- barrkel 7y ago
  Art, yes - theatre especially, but also visual, along with the obvious of taste and smell.
gorgoiler 7y ago

edmundsauto 7y ago

As a counterpoint, SF has some of the strictest zoning in the country. It has very few chains, from my experience. Most places where I know the owners, they are just normal people scratching out their existence.

supernova87a 7y ago
Unfortunately, I observe that SF typically does it backwards. They (the peculiar political process there) identifies the business or person they like, and puts up rules to protect that specific thing. Rather than create the broader incentives and guidelines that lead to that business being made possible. It produces a lot of bad side effects.