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But on a larger scale, it helps Ferran Adrià make money, even thought the restaurant loses cash, he ends up making money by being highly respected, in part for

by dabent 17y ago

But on a larger scale, it helps Ferran Adrià make money, even thought the restaurant loses cash, he ends up making money by being highly respected, in part for elBulli. It's kind of like the New York Yankees. I've heard they lose money as a team because they rather inefficiently just throw large sums of money at top players to win the World Series. So much money even sell-out crowds and post season ticket sales don't cover costs. But the owner of the team ends up making money off of other Yankees-related properties.

ewjordan 17y ago
But on a larger scale, it helps Ferran Adrià make money, even thought the restaurant loses cash, he ends up making money by being highly respected, in part for elBulli. I totally agree that the restaurant's existence probably helps Adrià make money, even if on the books it's a loss. But I have no idea whether all of the strange things about it contribute to the success - it's only open a few months a year, only takes reservations on one day per year, doesn't try to push down the costs of supplies, etc. The simple fact that they book an entire season of reservations in one day indicates to me that regardless of the cost structure, they are not charging anywhere near what the market would be happy to support, and that's a business change that could be made without any reflection whatsoever on Adrià's talent, so it shouldn't have any impact on the second order benefits. Artists of all sorts tend to be poor at running businesses because of an inability to figure out which inefficiencies actually help and which ones hurt. They stubbornly assume that all of them are important, and F-U if you don't like it. I don't see any particular business genius happening at elBulli, what I see is an artist that in this case can get away with being a diva because of a truly extreme case of talent that pays off in other ways. And again, that's fine, great, even, if you can do it. PG couldn't work on Arc at such a leisurely pace and with such a perfectionist attitude without other successes to support him while he "burns money" on it, and when everything finally comes out the other end, we may all be far better off for the fact that he is able to do it that way. My main point, however, was that there's no lesson to be learned here unless you're already an industry unto yourself without your business. Very few people are lucky enough to be in that situation, and once you're there, you probably don't need any advice from anyone, as long as you don't really mess up, you'll always be able to pay the bills one way or another.

by dabent 17y ago

ewjordan 17y ago

But on a larger scale, it helps Ferran Adrià make money, even thought the restaurant loses cash, he ends up making money by being highly respected, in part for elBulli. I totally agree that the restaurant's existence probably helps Adrià make money, even if on the books it's a loss. But I have no idea whether all of the strange things about it contribute to the success - it's only open a few months a year, only takes reservations on one day per year, doesn't try to push down the costs of supplies, etc. The simple fact that they book an entire season of reservations in one day indicates to me that regardless of the cost structure, they are not charging anywhere near what the market would be happy to support, and that's a business change that could be made without any reflection whatsoever on Adrià's talent, so it shouldn't have any impact on the second order benefits. Artists of all sorts tend to be poor at running businesses because of an inability to figure out which inefficiencies actually help and which ones hurt. They stubbornly assume that all of them are important, and F-U if you don't like it. I don't see any particular business genius happening at elBulli, what I see is an artist that in this case can get away with being a diva because of a truly extreme case of talent that pays off in other ways. And again, that's fine, great, even, if you can do it. PG couldn't work on Arc at such a leisurely pace and with such a perfectionist attitude without other successes to support him while he "burns money" on it, and when everything finally comes out the other end, we may all be far better off for the fact that he is able to do it that way. My main point, however, was that there's no lesson to be learned here unless you're already an industry unto yourself without your business. Very few people are lucky enough to be in that situation, and once you're there, you probably don't need any advice from anyone, as long as you don't really mess up, you'll always be able to pay the bills one way or another.