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>You are right of course. However, stationary restaurants tend to have an inherent monopoly for a location and have little incentive to innovate and deliver a d
by ssharp 13y ago
>You are right of course. However, stationary restaurants tend to have an inherent monopoly for a location and have little incentive to innovate and deliver a decent product.
I disagree with this. The failure rate for restaurants is extraordinarily high. Competition for market share is high. That's incentive to innovate and deliver a good product, especially in dense cities like New York.
I think why food trucks are able to innovate as much as they can is not because of their lack of monopoly but rather their lack of overhead. It's easy to try out concepts, see if they stick, and iterate as necessary. You can't do that in a traditional restaurant where you have lots of staff, rent, utilities, a larger menu, and furnishings/decorations.
I definitely agree that allowing for food trucks improves quality of life for those with access to them, but I'm not willing to attribute their success to breaking up restaurant monopolies.
- bgilroy26 13y agoI think you're right. It isn't the stationary restaurants who are uncompetitive, it is the landlords. I think increasing the supply of "prepared food selling space" should give low-end stationary restaurants more leverage in their rent negotiations. High end restaurants and food trucks do not compete, so it isn't a big deal for them.
- drcode 13y agoI think you're basically right, using the framing of "low overhead" is probably a better way to think of it. But I'm sure you'd still agree that food trucks disrupt existing interests (whether you use the word "monopoly" or not) and that on the whole this is probably a positive thing.