Eataly impressions??? (Chicago, Westmont: real estate, middle school, square footage)

[MichiVegas]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

I personally could care less about "nutella bars", but nutella itself is a delicious product from northern Italy. I've never heard someone call it crappy before now. All the Italians I know view it as a necessity.

Well you can go to your local Walmart and grab a tub of Nutella for probably 2% of the price of Eataly.

I actually spent a year in Italy as an undergraduate (Florence), and it didn't seem to be particularly popular. There are lots of better hazelnut spreads in Italy, but Nutella and Eataly probably have some "licensing agreement" where Nutella is "the official processed spread of Eataly" or something.

Just because something is from Italy doesn't mean it's automatically good, BTW. Italy has some horrible grocery stores, pizza in Northern Italy is routinely awful, and Asian and other ethnic foods tend to be mediocre to bad, even in Rome.

[nearnorth]

Originally Posted by MassVt

I can only imagine what some nouveau-phony restaurant would do with a timeless American classic:

Butter du Peanut/Jellie au Grape---A sumptous spread of layered peanuts dutifully harvested from Georgia farms ( Skippy), combined with a generous sampling of our finest grape extract from the vineyards of California ( Welch), luxuriously crafted upon whole slices of white bread from the fields of Kansas ( Wonder). Lovingly preserved in cellophane wrapping. Our signature dish----$10.00.

This was the funniest thing I've seen on this forum in a long time. Bravo.

[nearnorth]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

nutella itself is a delicious product from northern Italy. .

...that you can find at any grocery store in North America, in the isle with all the other jars of delicious mass-produced sugary crap.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

I personally could care less about "nutella bars", but nutella itself is a delicious product from northern Italy. I've never heard someone call it crappy before now. All the Italians I know view it as a necessity.

Agreed. I have a jar of it in my pantry and wouldn't go to Eataly to get some unless they had something utterly amazing there or I was already there and a piece of whatever was pretty cheap.

I find it humerous that people are complaining about price in here at this particular location. What do you expect? 1) It's a business, of course they have to mark up prices otherwise they wouldn't stay in business and would end up losing money. 2) It was a $28 million rehab project and it's 63,000 sq feet in Streeterville.

Pretend they're paying $4/sq ft in rent for 63,000 sq ft..that's a quarter million in rent per month. Now say they have 250 workers on payroll (I think that's about right) and 200 are making $9/hour for an average of 32 hours/week. That's another $230,000 - $288,000 per month. Then you have to figure in those other 50 people who probably make a lot more and you may be looking at hundreds of thousands more because a few of these people, like the ones mainly in charge are probably pulling in a decent salary. Plus utilities and what not and you are probably looking at near $1 million in rent per month.

So doing the math here, if the rent+utilities+wages = $1 million/month, then 50,000 customers per month have to spend an average of $20 just to break even. This is not counting the $28 million rehab project, which could have been paid for with a loan (which would be subjected to interest) and if it was mainly cash from the company, then they surely want to make that money back anyway. You get what you pay for, it's an expensive operation and there's a reason why they have so much imported **** you can't get anywhere else, as well as kitschy type of stuff like a nutella bar - it sets them apart from other business and it's possibly an opportunity to make money, especially for the tourist who doesn't want to buy an entire jar of nutella and sit in their hotel room after buying a bag of pretzels or an entire loaf of bread.

I wouldn't go to the Nutella bar, but there are reasons why they'd have **** like that.

[baileyvpotter]

Originally Posted by MassVt

I can only imagine what some nouveau-phony restaurant would do with a timeless American classic:

Butter du Peanut/Jellie au Grape---A sumptous spread of layered peanuts dutifully harvested from Georgia farms ( Skippy), combined with a generous sampling of our finest grape extract from the vineyards of California ( Welch), luxuriously crafted upon whole slices of white bread from the fields of Kansas ( Wonder). Lovingly preserved in cellophane wrapping. Our signature dish----$10.00.

lol and gave me a big haha.

Originally Posted by Vlajos

I personally could care less about "nutella bars", but nutella itself is a delicious product from northern Italy. I've never heard someone call it crappy before now. All the Italians I know view it as a necessity.

Husbands huge Italian family from southern Italy didn't (exception may be young adults).

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

Jesus Christ, how in the Hell can anyone who knows the story not be angry and jaded?

Little kids that have all their needs met by someone else can't be jaded but anyone that see how things really work...

The sick thing with this Eatly place is that, as the math above shows, they have to basically have a ridiculous mark up on pretty much everything just to break even. It is not really that different than the going to a Wrigley Field and paying $9 for a beer or being at a theme park in Gurnee and paying $12 for bowl of chips with cheezy sauce on top. Sure, Batali and his partners won't serve too much utter crap but the reason they do stuff like Nutella® is becauase the company probably will sell it to 'em for WalMart prices unlike some artisinal hazelnut and cocoa spread which some flakey actress has discovered in the hills of Abruzzo... https://play.google.com/store/books/...d=MKTAD0930BO1

It is also a safe bet that the gift pack business is where their real mark-ups are going to keep their accounts in the black. No doubt convenience at inflated prices will be a big draw close to Boul Mich while "the WalMart of the interwebs" massively undercuts such prices -- Sapori Traditional Panforte di Siena - 12.35 oz.: Amazon.com: Grocery & Gourmet Food vs Abruzzo Gift Packet

[emathias]

Originally Posted by MassVt

I'm going to assume that your co-workers had PB&J before, but I'm not sure; maybe you had some special ingredients..
...

Well, a lot of them weren't born here, and a fair number had actually never had one before. But I kept it simple - no fancy gourmet varieties, just basics - although I did buy one loaf of gluten-free bread to accommodate a celiac coworker.

[Chicago60614]

I'm surprised at how many people on here loathe the place, even if they haven't been there. I mean it just is what it is, a bunch of Italian food and little food stands/mini restaurants under one roof. Obviously it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea and you don't have to go there. That said I don't think Chicago is going to suffer because it's here or we should be alarmed or ashamed. If anything I think the city is better off just having it here than if they'd decided to open their second store in the USA somewhere else.

They had 120,000 people through the doors the first week, and everyone I saw when I was there looked fairly happy. A lot of obvious tourists. At least they're giving the city sales taxes and regardless of if everyone on here hates the place, it will be a destination for many visitors.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Chicago60614

I'm surprised at how many people on here loathe the place, even if they haven't been there.

This is what I have a big problem with. I'll look on Yelp and people will write reviews for things they've never even been to which aren't big chains like McDonald's. There was once a review for Grammwich, in which some people arrived 10 minutes before opening, and left because it wasn't open, even though the hours were clearly posted on the door. So they gave them 1 star for it.

It's just stupidity in its finest form. It's the same thing as people who will talk about a city and had even never even been there or were in one very small area for two days. It's offensive to any sort of intelligence to talk about something you've never truly experienced and act like you have.

[Gr8fulsammi]

Originally Posted by MassVt

I can only imagine what some nouveau-phony restaurant would do with a timeless American classic:

Butter du Peanut/Jellie au Grape---A sumptous spread of layered peanuts dutifully harvested from Georgia farms ( Skippy), combined with a generous sampling of our finest grape extract from the vineyards of California ( Welch), luxuriously crafted upon whole slices of white bread from the fields of Kansas ( Wonder). Lovingly preserved in cellophane wrapping. Our signature dish----$10.00.

This made me crack up so hard I had to respond. I havent been yet, and glad to see the different experiences to give me an idea of what to expect. I saw it on the news, and I immediately thought "another tourist trap that will go bust in 2 years.". I hate to be negative, but I think this was too much square footage for Italian fare/ingredients/Nutella, etc. I believe most Chicagoans will go to check out something new, and not go back. I will probably go to check out the cheeses and selection of olive oils, but nothing more.