We have a restaurant, not housing bubble. (Boston, Brockton: unemployment rate, landlord)

[mdovell]

I mentioned this a while ago on that thread about if we have a housing bubble.

There's a perfect storm of a higher amount of cost from higher rents, low unemployment rate, intense competition due to reviews, higher labor costs etc

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business...JRL/story.html

No I'm all for eating out and I have family that does ruin restaurants but if you can't manage the costs effectively enough it makes it harder to plan going forward.

Startup restaurants are nice but they still require significant training for staff and cooks and hostess. I was in Hartford and went to a restaurant I'll never go to again because frankly they just didn't know how to do basic service. When you serve as somebody you should tell them up front what foods are not available. I picked one menu item they're all out of it I asked for a second one they're out of that too. One close to me I tried using a discount that I received from restaurants.com and then they proceeded to tell me that I should have to print it out because they don't take the app version..

I'll give new restaurants a try but I'm not somebody that's going to go there the first night I want to see the reviews myself and give it a good 6 months.

[Beachcomber4]

Interesting observations.
For years we paid premium prices for mediocre food here on Cape. The quality has improved and I believe that is in part due to the level of competition and the proliferation of review sites. Still, it's tough to find good help. We tend to dine out less in summer because of that.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business...merica/530955/

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by mdovell

I mentioned this a while ago on that thread about if we have a housing bubble.

There's a perfect storm of a higher amount of cost from higher rents, low unemployment rate, intense competition due to reviews, higher labor costs etc

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business...JRL/story.html

I read this earlier and agreed with the remark in the article about "market correction." I don't think it's a full on bubble. I think you have two things happening here right now (and in many places):

1) There's an influx of wealth in Boston. These people can mostly both afford the expensive housing, and afford a meal out. Housing prices in Boston are rising (so are wages and incomes in the area), but they've been pretty high for some time. I don't think people are suddenly eating out less as a result. The people who are eating out less have likely not been eating out much for some time. If anything, you could make the case that the increase in wealthy residents, and the influx of residents in general is having a positive impact on demand.

2) Dining out is becoming a bigger part of people's lives, and as such, a bigger part of people's budgets. The number of restaurants have increased because the demand for restaurants have increased. The recent, small dip is (as the article described it), a market correction.

Restaurants are a gamble and the survival rate has always been low. They won't all be winners - even the ones driven be top tier chefs. The market will adjust and you'll see new restaurants coming down the pipeline soon. If you've ever tried to get a table between 6:30 - 9pm around here, you can see that supply has not met demand. There's more room for restaurants here.

[turf3]

What does your family do to ruin them?

[mdovell]

You pretty much have four key things: quality of the food, value for what's bought, customer service and atmosphere. Yes you can have take out and avoid a bit of that but it depends.

I've heard from some resturants near me that things like GrubHub are good but they charge higher fees to restaurants for delivery.

Everyone has to eat. Food is an easy sell but it has to be more specific. It wasn't that long ago that drug stores didn't even have milk and box stores didn't have candy. There's a difference between cooking food and making it presentable.

With the family member that runs a few restaurants he focuses on lunch and dinner. Says there's no money for breakfast. There's no problem with demand for restaurants. But it's a supply issue.

If a landlord has a empty building converting to a restaurant might make sense. I've seen buildings made over and sometimes it works quite well. But if you don't follow up.

In Brockton Christos was the Greek Salad king. Dukakis used to rave about it. Well the trouble is they never kept up with the times. There was no problem with the food. The food was great. But the decor never changed and the regular patrons got older. It ended up being a place that a 60 year old was called a "kid". Instead of having a sports game on it could have been reruns of soap operas. I'm not saying you turn everything into a theme restaurant or bar but it isn't that bad to tweak things now and then.

The thing is that the real money in property is more likely to be residential. The student population pretty much assures demand.