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Many years ago I came up with a rule of thumb. Restaurants have three basic strategies, be a known quantity (chain), have a good location, or be actually good.
by btilly 2y ago
Many years ago I came up with a rule of thumb. Restaurants have three basic strategies, be a known quantity (chain), have a good location, or be actually good.
I've found some gems by looking for the third category.
Given that "near the train" is a good location, that would support this theory.
- macrael 2y agoOP found no correlation between railway proximity and quality
- FloorEgg 2y agoActually OP found a very small correlation between railway proximity and Google rating. The study didn't actually measure "quality"... Also, the lowest scoring outliers were the closest proximity, which I think is noteworthy.
- ghaff 2y agoAnd probably understandable. Empirically, I don't really expect to find the best restaurants right around railway stations.
- LorenPechtel 2y agoYeah. The overall correlation was tiny but just looking at it you could see a pattern that's getting lost in the analysis.
- robocat 2y agoWhere does crappy restaurant fit into your taxonomy?
- nh23423fefe 2y agoits either mcdonalds (well known) or close to work (good location). i still eat at crappy restaurants if they have 1 good item. we used to go a chinese place and we called it "spicy chicken." everything else on the menu was trash
- golergka 2y agoGood location or bankrupt. Just look at all the tourist trap restoraunts.
- robocat 2y ago> tourist trap restoraunts Recommendations still matter and some tourists are around for a week or two. I'm highly likely to be a repeat customer at any place that is good. In my experience finding a good restaurant in a tourist zone is not hugely more difficult than finding a good restaurant elsewhere. The search is easier as a tourist in many ways because the selection is often a limited set. In San Carlos de Bariloche (highly touristy) I adored Alto El Fuego and I want to go back just for that. Don't try L'Italiano Trattoria: I wanted a bad experience for a masochistic change and I certainly got it. Please gain some pleasure that you've never been there. There's a massive difference between the tastes of local tourists and international tourists.
- hot_gril 2y agoThere's a waiter standing outside trying to get people to come in, and I don't mean the reservation / front desk person. No way is it worthwhile for a restaurant with actually good food to pay someone to advertise outside.
- Scrapemist 2y agoHave a good location
- dsr_ 2y agoIt's a maximum of two, not a minimum. The minimum is zero: low quality expensive food in an inconvenient location. Luckily, those usually go out of business. Un-luckily, you may be a customer first.
- asah 2y agoThey are not mutually exclusive. Counter examples: - Katz's deli in NYC is incredibly famous, in a great location, and actually has kickass pastrami. The trade-off are relatively high prices and lines down the block - restaurants with exclusive relationships. - restaurants that make money another way, e.g. gambling. - family owned restaurants with legacy rent deals. - restaurants that cater to niche audiences e.g. small ethnicities and religions (And others, probably)
- porphyra 2y agoProbably one of the most famous examples is Jiro sushi which is in a subway station.
- deanCommie 2y agoThey're not mutually exclusive because they're a triangle. Cost, Convenience, Quality: Pick 2 This isn't that deep either - convenience and quality are 2 things that cost the restaurant money (either via higher rent, or more expensive ingredients). You can't do all 3 because you'll never make a profit. You can't do only 1 or you'll never get any customers. Two is just right for both buyer and seller.
- robot 2y agothese examples are all exceptions. how much do the exceptions contribute to the discussion?
- anamexis 2y ago> how much do the exceptions contribute to the discussion? A fair amount, if the number of exceptions are such that the rule of thumb isn't useful.
- handoflixue 2y agoI really don't think the 5 provided examples do much - I can't even imagine how "Katz deli in NYC" would be a useful data point at all.
- 2y ago
- seanthemon 2y agoMy rule of thumb: if it has the name of the country, i expect the food to be at best sub-par i.e "Great Indian" (gave me wild food poisoning). Second rule of thumb: if the milkshakes are good, the food will be good - almost never fails me.
- ReptileMan 2y agoFor kebab some comedian gave the best advice - look at the knuckles of the kebab maker - if they are very hairy it will be good. Then look at the neckline of his shirt - if there are hairs coming out of it - the kebab will be great.
- slt2021 2y agothis reminds me my experience: when I went to Salt Lake City and wanted to try Turkish food and picked nearest Turkish restaurant with the the highest reviews from google maps. Interior was authentic and nice, but the food turned out to be AWFUL, kebab was burnt to ashes, everything food wise was horrible. When I complained, the cook came back and apologized, and I saw the cook was White American. Not saying all Americans are bad cooks, but in my experience I would have expected turkish chef to cook turkish food for authentic experience and quality.
- JoeAltmaier 2y agoHave a friend who rates ethnic restaurants by the decor. The fancier the place: the worse the food. The best places are mismatched chairs and Formica tabletops, menus left over from the previous occupant with a page of badly translated new menu pasted inside.
- hot_gril 2y agoWell on the topic of kebab, good Persian restaurants usually have better decor.
- 2y ago
- 98codes 2y agoThis supports the inverse square rule for seafood restaurant quality vs. being near the ocean. There are good places, but right on the water? Universally bad.
- ghaff 2y agoLess true if you're talking about seafood "shacks." Tons of good places serving lobster rolls and steamers on the ocean in Maine for example. But, yes, for fancier restaurants especially in cities, the best views often don't come with the best food.
- hackingonempty 2y agoEl Bulli was considered the best restaurant in the world until it voluntarily closed and it is right on the Mediterranean with a dock. The web site even had directions to reach it by boat.
- munificent 2y agoI wouldn't say universally bad. I live in Seattle, and there are some restaurants on the water that I like. The way I think about it is this: the restaurant has to pay for the real estate, and that cost must get factored in somehow. Water views aren't cheap. So you can get good food on the water, but you'll be paying for the view.
- hug 2y agoIf this were true, the best seafood in Australia would be in Alice Springs. Conversely, I have one piece of life advice for you: Don't eat seafood in Alice Springs.
- bluGill 2y agoShipping of sea food is expensive so even the cheapest distant resteraunt will pay for premium prices since the difference isn't that much. Near the shore you can save buying cheap - but if you know what you are looking for you can buy the best off the boat for cheap.
- ghc 2y agoIf this is true at all, it only applies to cities. Many fantastic seafood restaurants are on or near the docks in regions economically dependent on seafood production.
- chadcmulligan 2y agoMy rule for finding a good restaurant - if it doesn't look that good and/or is in an out of the way place but seems to be busy, its probably good.
- aqueueaqueue 2y agoMy rule. Check TripAdvisor!
- sthatipamala 2y agoIs being well-rated on TripAdvisor a positive or negative signal? I could see it either way.
- ghaff 2y agoGiven lack of other signals, my experience is that TripAdvisor or Yelp is probably better than "they have a cool name." I've been living out of a hotel because of a kitchen fire and, as someone who really wasn't in the habit of eating out around where I live, the recommendations have generally been decent--combines with a neighbor and personal knowledge.
- aqueueaqueue 2y agoYou need like always to read some of the reviews and judge. If sceptical look at the users histories (e.g. I seen perfect 5 star reviews in Google then seen the users were bots even though the comments sounded ok) Depends on the stakes too: anniversary dinner or grabbing a coffee in a different part of town?
- gaiagraphia 2y agoA great way to detect who buys ikea furniture!
- imgabe 2y agoMy only rule is that restaurants in hotels are usually mediocre to bad, which fits with your theory. If they have some built-in customer base they don’t have to work as hard at being good.
- ghaff 2y agoIt does vary. Some are more independent of the hotel than others. And the rule of thumb probably tends to be less true outside of the US.
- xobs 2y agoI remember reading an article that had the theory that Thai restaurants in hotels were usually very authentic under the assumption that the parents were immigrants who wanted the child to inherit the business, but the kid wanted to run a restaurant instead. It would certainly explain why you get Thai restaurants attached to random hotels in the middle of nowhere, at least.
- dole 2y agoThe Thai government practices gastro-diplomacy, they have a program where you set a Thai restaurant up in a foreign country, you can pick from three different packages for size or fanciness of restaurant. It's why you see a lot of the same decorations and similarities between differently owned Thai restaurants, or occasionally a family will own a number in a metro area.
- drjasonharrison 2y ago/s missing?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- flocciput 2y ago> The Department of Export Promotion of the Thai Ministry of Commerce offers potential restaurateurs plans for three different "master restaurant" types—from fast food to elegant—which investors can choose as a prefabricated restaurant plan. from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culinary_diplomacy#Thailand https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culinary_diplomacy#Thailand
- janalsncm 2y agoThe formal terminology is “selection induced negative correlation”. If a quality score is the sum of two factors, those two factors will tend to be negatively correlated. Mathematically a trivial example is the equation 1=x+y, where 1 represents some cutoff and could be any value. Clearly x and y are inversely correlated.
- fermisea 2y agoAlso a type of collider bias in causal inference, which generates all sorts of Simpsons paradoxes
- morsecodist 2y agoTotally agree but I would expand location into convenience. For example, I find restaurants that don't take reservations or have limited hours are often better. In my head I have a category for reliable restaurants to go to when you are planning something with people and you want to make sure to have a consistent, predictable experience and restaurants that are worth waiting for or going at a weird time.
- MichaelDickens 2y agoBased on the empirical evidence from OP, this seems correct. But there's a theoretical argument for why "good location" and "actually good" should be positively correlated: 1. Good locations are more expensive. 2. People are willing to pay more for better food. 3. Therefore (all else equal), better restaurants earn more revenue. 4. Therefore, better restaurants have a higher willingness-to-pay on rent. 5. Therefore, better restaurants will outbid worse restaurants for good locations.
- MattGaiser 2y agoYou lost me at point 4. Why would more revenue mean a higher willingness to pay rent unless it made them more profit?
- gamedever 2y agoA restaurant that has more money can afford more rent. A restaurant that doesn't have more money can't afford it. So, everything else being equal, better restaurants, making more money, are more likely to rent places that cost more since. Seems pretty straight forward. it's no different than saying people with higher income, overall, rent/buy housing that costs more.
- morsecodist 2y agoThis falls apart a bit if providing better food costs more. Restaurants with better food may earn more revenue all else being equal but their costs may be higher. People are willing to pay more for the same quality of food in a better location. It makes sense for a the restaurant with worse food to outbid a restaurant with better food because the location is more important to them and they are allocating more money towards towards rent rather than food quality so they have more to spend.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> People are willing to pay more for the same quality of food in a better location If they know. West Coast bagels have been almost consistently garbage until very, very recently because the people willing to pay up for a great bagel weren't able to pick out those that were freshly boiled. Combine that with the economics of bagels prohibiting boiling and baking to order (hmm...) and you wind up with the necessity of toasting old (but not stale) bagels.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoOn location, consider discriminating by repeating versus non-repeating flow. Repeat flow tends to encourage good food. If you fuck up the food, you go out of business. Non-repeating flow encourages tourist traps. I'd be curious about the article's study being re-run with a dummy variable for predominantly commuter versus tourist train stations.
- hot_gril 2y agoI used to try random restaurants that don't look good, then I realized that they usually are in fact not good.
- gamedever 2y agogood location = higher rent = food better attract people I'm not saying that holds up, only that it's not clear to me that "good location" = skimping on actually being good. To go the other extreme, I guess all the best restaurants in the USA are in Wyoming since they arguably have worst locations (low population density = low traffic) so they must have to concentrate on food. Yea, ... no.