Posts: 6,695
Threads: 0
Joined: Mar 2011
Reputation:
146
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 05:29 PM
A lot of these chains have eliminated cook / food prep positions across the board to reduce labor and moved to partially/fully prepared frozen, cheap, quick fry products to reduce costs as well. For profits. Extremely unhealthy and I'm proud to admit I rarely ever dine out anyway. No sympathy from me.
Vice-Captain - #TeamWaitAndSee
Posts: 4,842
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2014
Reputation:
93
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 05:34 PM
Is that why they taste so bad? They're using partially frozen crap?
Posts: 2,331
Threads: 0
Joined: Nov 2015
Reputation:
12
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 05:43 PM
Could also be that Millenials are concentrating in cities / college towns which typically have fewer chains than shopping malls in the burbs.
Posts: 1,704
Threads: 0
Joined: Dec 2012
Reputation:
44
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 05:46 PM
Quote: (06-04-2017 05:22 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:
I'm thinking that at least one of these chains (Chili's, Applebees, BW3s, TGIF) is going bankrupt in the next 5 years. And I for one can't wait.
El oh el, your sudden schadenfreude caught me off-guard.
My impression of Chili's, Applebees, and TGIF is that their target market has been and is middle-class nuclear families with bourgeois values, a target market that has shrunk relatively-speaking over the past few decades, and maybe even absolute-wise.
Among singles, some misogynistic jerks on the internet started discouraging buying appetizers for girls, and that toxic masculinist idea may have seeped through and poisoned the populace.
TGIF has bailed me out a few times in Santiago, DR, speed-walking from my hotel to TGIF to order something quick in-between dates. In Barranquilla, there was also one on my block one trip, where one time I took two girls for a post-threesome snack and beer.
#NoSingleMoms
#NoHymenNoDiamond
#DontWantDaughters
Posts: 1,111
Threads: 0
Joined: May 2011
Reputation:
14
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 05:57 PM
At least inside the DC Beltway, it isn't just chains. All casual dining is suffering. I live in North Arlington and there are more and more empty store fronts where casual restaurants used to be. In many cases, nothing is replacing them and the property has been vacant for years. In Georgetown, there are no more public nightclubs. While some of that may be due to nightlife shifting farther east into DC as it gentrifies, the capacity opening up is not enough to replace what's gone.
Here is my 4 part theory for why this is happening:
1. There are just too many restaurants (though that may be DC only). At least in DC, casual restaurants have simply over expanded.
2. The fixed costs that restaurants have to pass on to customers has gone up a lot. When I go to other places in the US that cost much less than DC, restaurants aren't that much cheaper. I'm guessing that a lot of it has to do with insurance related to the serving of alcohol as opposed to food costs. My reasoning why food costs are not the issue is as follows: When I went to the McDonald's (fast food w/no alcohol)
in Charlotte, NC across the street from what I assume is its high end mall (it had a Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom's), the cost of 2 egg mcmuffins plus a small orange juice was nearly $4 less than in DC near the White House, hence my theory about alcohol insurance being the issue.
3. Tinder has destroyed going out to meet girls and first dates. Much of the revenue from these places came from guys trying to meet girls. If the girls are staying home and just using Tinder, the guys aren't going to bother coming out and buying food and drinks. Plus, the knowledge has spread that taking a girl to a restaurant for a first date has a low rate of return.
4. (DC only): as has been well documented here, the girls in DC over the last 10 years have become extremely ugly. When the great recession hit, it permanently crippled the BS non-profits hot chicks liked working at. Combined with reason #3, there is just no reason for a guy inside the DC Beltway to go out to casual restaurants very much.
Posts: 7,562
Threads: 0
Joined: May 2013
Reputation:
83
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 05:58 PM
I don't remember the last time I ate at one of those restaurants.
The boomers in power should be shitting themselves right now in fear. The millenial generation is set up to destroy the current crop of large corporate chain restaurants.
And good riddance! They're absolutely disgusting and over priced. I'd rather eat at Mcdonalds if in a rush or better yet go to some fancy hipster joint where at least I know the food is good if over priced. Nine times out of ten i'll go to a grocery store and just buy food there.
I'm hopeful for the future that we'll see a return to slow eating and cooking as well as more emphasis based on quality ingredients.
Heck, i'm also thinking we may see the return of people who buy goods once and repair indefinitely. I'm already starting to see it with clothes. Maybe household goods and cars will be next.
On an unrelated note, the declining birth rates coupled with stagnating incomes of the next generations should be of massive concern to everyone with significant amounts of money and assets. This will force the cost of assets back down and immensely lower the velocity of money. All of this in my opinion is a good thing. It will starve the wall street beast and put it back in its place.
Posts: 6,695
Threads: 0
Joined: Mar 2011
Reputation:
146
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 06:24 PM
Quote: (06-04-2017 05:34 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:
Is that why they taste so bad? They're using partially frozen crap?
I can't speak for every restaurant out there but it is a common trend amongst fast-food chains.
The food often tastes worse because the product is typically lower quality and isn't made soup to nuts... or rather, from start to finish in-house. When you purchase / bring in ready-to-eat or partially prepared products they've lost nutrients and the customer suffers. Not having to produce it themselves lowers labor costs, which means less jobs.
Burger patties, french fries, breaded chicken, all those breaded appetizers... high fat, low nutrient content and all often delivered through the back of the building... frozen, in a large percentage of the fast-food chain industry. Most desserts come in frozen. Thaw and serve. Less than half this stuff is getting produced in the kitchen, it's just being finished.
Vice-Captain - #TeamWaitAndSee
Posts: 169
Threads: 0
Joined: Sep 2016
Reputation:
7
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 06:25 PM
More importantly, where is the 3rd W in Buffalo Wild Wings?
Never cross streams.
Posts: 2,164
Threads: 0
Joined: Nov 2012
Reputation:
85
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 06:26 PM
Without a doubt these TGIF/Applebees chains are much unhealthier than your fast food joint. Portions are much bigger & ingredients denser not to mention the flavor is bland.
Good riddance
Posts: 1,351
Threads: 0
Joined: Jan 2012
Reputation:
16
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 06:28 PM
Why is it called BW3?
I don't understand why these chains just can't partner with a service like grubhub, or make their own platform, so people can order online and schedule deliveries. The first of those restaurants to do that is going post record revenue the quarter they start it.
Blue Apron keeps sending discount cards to sign up and if I knew it would quicken the demise of those restaurants I'd do it.
This great news! Let Applebee's, Outback, et al burn! They overextended themselves, the sell high calorie, agri-business crap that raises your chances of obesity and host of other illnesses. And the minimum wage hike movement is only going to accelerate their destruction.
Quote: (08-18-2016 12:05 PM)dicknixon72 Wrote:
...and nothing quite surprises me anymore. If I looked out my showroom window and saw a fully-nude woman force-fucking an alligator with a strap-on while snorting xanex on the roof of her rental car with her three children locked inside with the windows rolled up, I wouldn't be entirely amazed.
Posts: 2,442
Threads: 0
Joined: Dec 2013
Reputation:
35
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 06:29 PM
Actual footage from Applebees headquarters:
“There is no global anthem, no global currency, no certificate of global citizenship. We pledge allegiance to one flag, and that flag is the American flag!” -DJT
Posts: 208
Threads: 0
Joined: Apr 2014
Reputation:
4
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 06:31 PM
My reason for not going to the aforementioned restaurants is different than all reasons yet listed. They attract a certain element/class of people I want no part of.
However, there is a chain that made it's way up to IL from FL -thank you btw. Miller's Ale House. It's the only chain restaurant I will give my money too. Ice cold beer, great assortment, and damn good food.
Posts: 2,442
Threads: 0
Joined: Dec 2013
Reputation:
35
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 06:35 PM
Quote: (06-04-2017 06:31 PM)Monty_Brogan Wrote:
My reason for not going to the aforementioned restaurants is different than all reasons yet listed. They attract a certain element/class of people I want no part of.
However, there is a chain that made it's way up to IL from FL -thank you btw. Miller's Ale House. It's the only chain restaurant I will give my money too. Ice cold beer, great assortment, and damn good food.
Alehouse is legit. I basically lived there in college. Hot broads working too.
“There is no global anthem, no global currency, no certificate of global citizenship. We pledge allegiance to one flag, and that flag is the American flag!” -DJT
Posts: 2,816
Threads: 0
Joined: Jun 2013
Reputation:
55
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 06:38 PM
Crappy food, cheesy marketing, places where their parents forced them to eat when they were hipster teenagers. These terrible chains need to learn to adapt or die, just like Pepsi, Coke and all of the other egregiously horrible food companies. Combine that with a cost and health conscious public, is it really that hard for these pencil necks to figure it out?
Posts: 1,295
Threads: 0
Joined: Mar 2015
Reputation:
28
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 07:22 PM
No reason to go these places anymore when you got places like Shake Shack and Chipotle. Cheaper, better quality and tastes better. Cheap hipster places in gentrifying areas and brewpubs are killings these guys too. No one wants to pay a fat ass waitress 20% only to take an order either.
Posts: 5,392
Threads: 0
Joined: May 2013
Reputation:
27
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 07:37 PM
Quote:Quote:
Somewhere on the top floor of Chili's HQ, the vice-president of sales is pouring himself his fifth shot of bourbon for the day. It's Sunday, and it's only the afternoon, but he doesn't care. The room's barely lit, and no one else is in on the weekend anyway. He looks down at sheet of sales numbers, and it's covered in red ink. Everything's down. Stores are closing everywhere. He's tried every promotion he can think of, and nothing's bringing the numbers up. He lets his gaze linger for a moment before leaping out of his chair in fury, ripping a dart out of the holder on his desk and flinging it as hard as he can into the dartboard on the wall...
Damn, this story was almost going to approach TLOZ levels, but it didn't quite make it. It's missing some corn-fed all-American sluts,
ripe for the taking...
If only you knew how bad things really are.
Posts: 576
Threads: 0
Joined: Mar 2016
Reputation:
2
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 07:45 PM
Quote: (06-04-2017 05:57 PM)beta_plus Wrote:
2. The fixed costs that restaurants have to pass on to customers has gone up a lot. When I go to other places in the US that cost much less than DC, restaurants aren't that much cheaper. I'm guessing that a lot of it has to do with insurance related to the serving of alcohol as opposed to food costs. My reasoning why food costs are not the issue is as follows: When I went to the McDonald's (fast food w/no alcohol) in Charlotte, NC across the street from what I assume is its high end mall (it had a Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom's), the cost of 2 egg mcmuffins plus a small orange juice was nearly $4 less than in DC near the White House, hence my theory about alcohol insurance being the issue.
Let me guess, South Park? I would agree with you that things are cheaper down here, but it is not likely just alcohol insurance. As there is most likely more regulations for serving alcohol due to the ABC laws being more stringent, I tend to think that would even out a bit. In general things tend to be cheaper compared to DC even in the more affluent areas of the state. At least that has been my experience when I have visited DC land.
"Stop playing by 1950's rules when everyone else is playing by 1984."
- Leonard D Neubache
Posts: 3,448
Threads: 0
Joined: Feb 2013
Reputation:
35
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 08:23 PM
The food sucks
Almost everything in their menu is something you can find frozen. The rest you can make yourself and the meal will taste just as good.
Final point..the service sucks as well.
A man is only as faithful as his options-Chris Rock
Posts: 84
Threads: 0
Joined: May 2017
Chain Restaurants Losing Money, Blaming Millenials
06-04-2017, 08:35 PM
If they want hipster/SWPL business all they need to do is start introducing intentionally strange "concept food", like Mandarin lasagna or something like that.