Rant: The GD Foodies (con't. from 2000s Nostalgia thread)

[jim]

We had a group dinner (the one I have been trying to avoid) the other night with my boss and the other group leaders. A place called Eddie Merlot's (it's a chain I think). Service got screwed up (2 of the 6 dinners brought out were wrong), and despite the owners best efforts to appease my Indian colleague who picked the place and paid for it the night just went from bad (having to spend an evening with co-workers one of which was very pissed off and borderline caused a scene) to much worse (having to eat weird overpriced food with co-workers). I also learned more about one of the new guys, and I realized I dislike much more than I thought previously.

I just won't go to an expensive restaurant. I just like the more laid back places where you get some food and eat it and it's pretty good and that's it. That one jagoff I mentioned above actually taste tested a wine and did the weird things with his mouth and actually told the guy he didn't know and couldn't decide. What a tool. Just [expletive] drink it ass hole.

[tlombard]

I took a trip to visit my brother the other weekend in Pekin, IL and he told a similar story. Some higher ranking officers (he is in the Coast Guard) were in town and wanted to go to dinner. My brother and his wife didn't have much of a choice so they went. Apparently one of the guys actually had the nerve to do all of the normal wine snob tests to his glass of wine and then decided it wasn't acceptable and requested something else!!!

On another note, maybe this doesn't go along with 'foodies' directly but I saw today that Local Harvest sent an email to their mailing list asking for help. Apparently if they don't raise $120k in less than two weeks (by Feb 7) then they will have to shut down. They figured that since they have always been about community that it is OK to ask the community for help. I would feel a little more sympathetic to them if they didn't also mention in their letter that in the time they have been open (since maybe 2006?) and expanding, the owners have rarely taken a paycheck and now without help they will be forced to close. I know the main problem is the store in Kirkwood that completely bombed but it just seems stupid to me that if as an owner you were not making money from the existing locations to the point where you weren't getting paid... why did you keep expanding and take that risk?

Also, while they aren't asking directly for donations (either buy a gift card that will be worth what you spent plus 10% but you can't use it until 2015 or give them $100 in exchange for $10/month in credit at one of the cafes) if they were barely scraping by before the expansion, what reason is there to believe that they still won't go under? I find it kind of ironic that their main customer base (local food, sustainability, environmental protection, etc.) is one that I would think is hugely against corporate bailouts yet that is what they are essentially asking for from that same core customer group.

If they aren't able to stay open I will be sad for a friend who will lose her job there and I do shop there from time to time since they are so close to where I live but I won't be jumping on the bandwagon to save Local Harvest. I appreciate what they are doing and trying to do but the admission that they have not really been profitable (my interpretation) while they are asking for help just gives me the impression that they are doomed no matter what.

The Tin Can did the same thing with their expansion downtown and in Columbia, MO. They were in the perfect spot for their core demographic and got in over their heads moving to areas that didn't contain people looking for the same thing. Over priced can beer and decent food is a perfect fit for the crowd on Morganford (which is me from time to time). Not for a college town with well established locations that have been there for ages and broke college kids looking for the best bang for their buck.

[33anda3rd]

Here's one thing about Yelpers. They won't come out from under their little Yelp cover. Our place, we've had good results on Yelp--86% are 3-star or higher and almost 2/3 are five-star. But, like any business, we've gotten our one-star reviews from people who didn't have a good time. It's to be expected. It happens for all kinds of reasons. Food, service, had to wait, didn't like the space, whatever. In the last year I've messaged via Yelp each of our one-star reviewers. Along the lines of "I'm sorry we did not meet your expectations..." I always close with my email and my cell phone and I ask that they contact me to discuss their experience so that we can do better in the future. I received one reply. I invited the lady back in, comped her dinner and a bottle of wine for two, emailed her twice in the week after to follow up, and got no reply. Her deal was she came in with a reso during NRA week last summer (one of the busiest restaurant weeks of the year, it's basically Valentine's Day traffic for five straight days) and had to wait 10 minutes, so she walked out and wrote a one-star review. For her 10-minute wait she got ~$140 comped. If it's not obvious, our hope is she'll enjoy it, go back and update the Yelp review. She didn't. It was $140 down the drain--she's not coming back, she's not updating the review, and it's the closest we've ever come to recovering a guest off a poor Yelp review.

Unproductive, trying to reach out to these people, because as a whole they are unproductive. Is Yelp a vehicle for businesses to read reviews and get a feel for what their customers like and don't like, and how they can improve? To a small degree, sure, but they typically come from the 2- and 3-star reviews. But the people from what I've experienced don't want to be a part of helping a business get better so they can come back and have a better experience, they just want to crap on the business. The people who have one-starred us, I look at their Yelp profiles (stalker-y, I know) and almost to a person they are the same: about 60% one-star reviews, 40% five-star reviews, nothing in-between. They're hyperbolists incapable of giving a balanced assessment of their experience, it's either the worst or best thing and more often than not it's the worst thing. They're quicker to write that bad review than the good one. I'd wager if you wanted to find good information on a place via Yelp, after looking at the star rating, go read some of the 2, 3, 4 star reviews. That's where the individual opinions you want to read are, that will give you the best idea of what a place is about, warts and all.

[heyzeus]

GQ's Alan Richman coins term: "Egotarian Cuisine."

He's not exactly wrong. One of the places he mentions, Odd Duck, is baffling in its ingredient combos.

[redbirdjazzz]

The Tin Can did the same thing with their expansion downtown and in Columbia, MO. They were in the perfect spot for their core demographic and got in over their heads moving to areas that didn't contain people looking for the same thing. Over priced can beer and decent food is a perfect fit for the crowd on Morganford (which is me from time to time). Not for a college town with well established locations that have been there for ages and broke college kids looking for the best bang for their buck.

Tin Can was a perfect place for Columbia, but a really bad place for the particular location they chose for the exact reason you cite. Put it on the west or south side of town (or maybe into the quickly growing north), and they'd've had a decent shot. Not right across the street from the main campus quad.

[tlombard]

The Tin Can did the same thing with their expansion downtown and in Columbia, MO. They were in the perfect spot for their core demographic and got in over their heads moving to areas that didn't contain people looking for the same thing. Over priced can beer and decent food is a perfect fit for the crowd on Morganford (which is me from time to time). Not for a college town with well established locations that have been there for ages and broke college kids looking for the best bang for their buck.

Tin Can was a perfect place for Columbia, but a really bad place for the particular location they chose for the exact reason you cite. Put it on the west or south side of town (or maybe into the quickly growing north), and they'd've had a decent shot. Not right across the street from he main campus quad.

Yay, I wasn't completely wrong in my half baked assumptions!!! Honestly, I know nothing about Columbia. I'm shocked I didn't get put in my place by people who actually know the area. I never even knew where the location there was.

[tlombard]

A friend and co-worker of mine is over in India on business for two weeks and I used to think that is somewhere I would be interested in experiencing. Not anymore. He hates it. Apparently the cafeteria in our offices over there is vegetarian only and doesn't even have utensils available. And to make it even worse, there are literally bug zappers in the cafeteria that clearly are needed because there are dead bugs in them.

Someone is taking him to a Chili's this weekend and it sounds like that is going to be the highlight of his trip.

[lukethedrifter]

I would eat in that cafeteria.

[redbirdjazzz]

The Tin Can did the same thing with their expansion downtown and in Columbia, MO. They were in the perfect spot for their core demographic and got in over their heads moving to areas that didn't contain people looking for the same thing. Over priced can beer and decent food is a perfect fit for the crowd on Morganford (which is me from time to time). Not for a college town with well established locations that have been there for ages and broke college kids looking for the best bang for their buck.

Tin Can was a perfect place for Columbia, but a really bad place for the particular location they chose for the exact reason you cite. Put it on the west or south side of town (or maybe into the quickly growing north), and they'd've had a decent shot. Not right across the street from he main campus quad.

Yay, I wasn't completely wrong in my half baked assumptions!!! Honestly, I know nothing about Columbia. I'm shocked I didn't get put in my place by people who actually know the area. I never even knew where the location there was.

Columbia is quickly becoming a great place for food and beer (two more breweries are opening this year, making three, plus two brewpubs), and I think Tin Can would've had a good chance to make it if it hadn't been in a place where parking is horrible and almost everyone living in walking distance is a student. I think it's the third restaurant in that location to go out of business in the last 20 years.