Problems with local restaurant VRS chain

Here goes: we have lost many of the local restaurants in the past few years. The ones where loggers and trucker hang out for breakfast, Tourists on weekends. Someone will buy or rent one run it for a bit than it folds. What I find odd is in the bigger towns most of the chain restaurants seem to do quite well and make a go of it. Hard to find a local or mom pop place. But some chain ones folded for one reason or other (but not the big ones). Also many motels campgrounds etc had a restaurant attached and you guessed it they closed the restaurant. Some places went to like a take out fast food type only and some of them folded too. (I blame that on the country being littered with take outs) Wondering if this is the trend every where or its just management and area specific? Anyway give me your thoughts. AND YES THERE IS STILL SOME PRIVATE PLACES THAT YOU BEST HAVE A RESERVATION FOR!!!

Yes there are some but like farmers the little ones are getting pushed out.
My favorite bluff lake catfish farm in iowa.

Local town here in Iowa has at least 12 restaurants. One is a Runza, one is McDonald's, and one is a Pizza Hut. The rest are all, privately owned, mom and pop type restaurants and are busy all the time. Smaller town of about 5,000 to 6,000 population.

There are a few mom and pop places here. One in particular is so busy you can't get in at peak hours! Others have varying degrees of business, mostly because of location, service, food quality, etc.

But the big chain restaurants greatly out number the independents. The main reason is being able to afford the prime real estate, advertising, tourist business, and they do have a following of loyal customers. People are creatures of habit, they like the familiar, know what they will get when they go there.

Myself, I prefer the mom and pop locations. Mainly because I prefer my money to stay local, not pay a CEO in Hong Kong! I also like to be recognized as a loyal customer, where I can get to know the people and they know me. But they have to earn my business, if the service is bad or the attitude is "take it or leave it", I leave it!

But, I've seen many small restaurants fail. Usually it's their own fault! Poor management resulting in poor service, resulting in poor sales. Too many times I see a place get off to a great start, then get complacent. Turn the business over to incompetent employees, and it doesn't take long to get a bad reputation.

What is really strange is some survive for years in spite of doing everything wrong! Usually they were established back when property was affordable and they have low overhead. Still, some are really bad!

Even the chains have bad ones, there is a TGI Fridays here... Horrible!!! How it stays in business is unbelievable! It must depend solely on one time customers.

Most of the restaurants in this town. Are located along the major highway that goes by the town.So they depend on the travelers to stay in business. Most locals won't go near them because the service is so bad. One has been voted the worst in the nation.I blame that on being a small town so everyone is related to someone in town. So no one gets fired for doing a lousy job.We do have the city cafe where most of the locals hang out. But if smoking bothers you. Don't go near the place.

Small locally owned restaurants are risky to travelers. Most folks like to know what they are getting before they order. So, if you go to the big chain outfits, they generally get consistency. A burger at the big chain outfits will be about the same taste and quality wherever you get it. That is not to say it is great food, but at least you know beforehand what you will get. Locally owned places will have local recipes, usually locally grown produce, and even family recipes that have been handed down for generations. Some are really outstanding while some are not fit to eat. Telling the difference is a gamble at best most of the time.
As a result, most folks from out of town will stay with the big chains rather than take a chance on a bad meal. Sad but true.

Local politics.

Restaurants are businesses and like all businesses some make it and some don't. Don't know why unless you do a post mortem on each one. Sometimes it poor management, sometimes it's economic conditions (town got smaller and there wasn't enough folks using the restaurant to keep it profitable), some of it is competition and in smaller towns and cities it might be other businesses that had a lot to do with the restaurants success closed and they fell right behind them. To explain the last one, say if you're in a really small town and the locals come to town to buy groceries and tend to eat while they're in town, if the grocery store closes or changes and folks don't go there to buy groceries they might start eating at the restaurant near the grocery store they now use. Another example is the restaurant may count on a trade or group of employees from a particular business to stay open, say like the Chik-Fil-A across the street from the Ford assembly plant in Atlanta, I'm guessing when the plant closed the restaurant suffered. If they count on truck traffic they may encounter problems with a change in the economy, if the loggers or log haulers hang out there a drop in lumber prices or a drop in building or an EPA action preventing tree harvest (darn spotted owls) will slow down the lumber industry, those that count on lumber dollars to stay open will have less lumber dollars. Some restaurants are closing over labor issues, shortage of affordable labor, employer mandates like health insurance and handouts from the government that reduce the motivation of those lower skilled entry level employees that the service industries count on. Some of it is many younger folks just aren't willing to put in the hours it takes to run a stand alone store. I work on an egg arm just out side a city of less than 500 people. There is a restaurant in that city, on of the things they do is we get food deliveries from them Monday through Friday, you go to the front office, order off the sheet and pay the office administrator the money and about 11:30 AM the guy who owns this restaurant shows up in his mini van full of take out boxes with the day's orders. If you go into the restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night you'll see 150-200 people go through the store, that's 25-30 percent of the city they're in. And yes I imagine of Friday's he's there at 6:00 or 7:00 to start the day and probably doesn't leave until after 10 PM.

Chain restaurants- same problems the advantage they have is good stores can subsidize operation of marginal stores and in effect some smaller stores that are doing well will have their metrics compared to bigger stores. The smaller store's net profit may be low but if they're doing well the return on investment may be higher than some of the chain's larger stores. Also consider smaller chain stores that are run well are often looked at as farms for new talent and chains will use them to train and develop new managers. There can be variability in chains is was talking with one of the managers of a local big box electronic retailer and he was sating the profit generated on sales in their store , with a home market of about 45,000 people was about twice average and three times what their store in the state's capital is. This all changed in the last 3 years when they got a new General Manager and they went from the bottom of the barrel to the top.

There has been a large number of chain restaurants were the entire chain has folded and that can be from any number of reasons already discussed and add on that maybe the concept missed, got old or fell out of favor. With a chain people from out of town maybe more willing to stop and eat as the perception is the chain store is a known quantity, this works when they are doing well but one food safety incident at one store can taint the reputation of the entire chain add in the fact if a chain store is not doing well sometimes the chain will close a store that is marginally viable to preserve their reputation or if the store's leadership team was decent to use the talent to prop up other stores with greater potential.

Restaurants are a tough business it's about the food and the service and the staff and the location and any one of those factors can sink a restaurant pretty darn quick.

RR I don't see that as cause in my area at all. In fact just the opposite as tax revenue and employment is lost.

Very good Wisbaker and I have seen two chains basically fail. I think they were on shaky ground to start with.

I wonder if that's due to advertising punch in on g p s and what comes up usually chain restaurant sometimes if you look for a local there usually closed

I agree.

When I was on the road doing real estate inspections, I found Casey's food agreed with me, and just about every town in eastern Nebraska, western Iowa and Northern Kansas has a Casey's.

So I stuck to Casey's food almost exclusively, 'cause I knew I could eat it and not get a gut ache ten miles down the road or out in the middle of nowhere.

Bingo! Fear of the unknown. Mediocre but familiar beats unknown almost every time.

I don't mean government politics,I mean community politics. One clan starts something with another one,they won't come in anymore,somebody else runs their mouth and takes sides. Trust me,it happens.

Many local restaurants don't cook their food, they just heat it up. They buy prepackaged stuff, even their soups, and it tastes like prepackaged stuff. Then they don't change to oil in the deep frier so everything tastes the same. So why not not just heat the "stuff" up yourself at home and save the trip.

Too few little local diners have a decent salad.

That Sysco truck is stopping for a reason.

There is easily over 50 eating places within 10 miles of my farm and every one of them has a line on Friday and Saturday night so some are doing good.

Not a huge factor here rr but you always had this crowd hangs here and that crowd there. Same for bars, golf courses etc.

Yes on salad many places took salad bar out due to labor and sanitation.

(quoted from post at 08:31:01 05/17/16) There are a few mom and pop places here. One in particular is so busy you can't get in at peak hours! Others have varying degrees of business, mostly because of location, service, food quality, etc.

But the big chain restaurants greatly out number the independents. The main reason is being able to afford the prime real estate, advertising, tourist business, and they do have a following of loyal customers. People are creatures of habit, they like the familiar, know what they will get when they go there.

Myself, I prefer the mom and pop locations. Mainly because I prefer my money to stay local, not pay a CEO in Hong Kong! I also like to be recognized as a loyal customer, where I can get to know the people and they know me. But they have to earn my business, if the service is bad or the attitude is "take it or leave it", I leave it!

But, I've seen many small restaurants fail. Usually it's their own fault! Poor management resulting in poor service, resulting in poor sales. Too many times I see a place get off to a great start, then get complacent. Turn the business over to incompetent employees, and it doesn't take long to get a bad reputation.

What is really strange is some survive for years in spite of doing everything wrong! Usually they were established back when property was affordable and they have low overhead. Still, some are really bad!

Even the chains have bad ones, there is a TGI Fridays here... Horrible!!! How it stays in business is unbelievable! It must depend solely on one time customers.

Click to expand...

I have family in the restaurant business. Money talks, and pretty darn loud. The indies really have trouble competing against the big guys. The chains get the best locations, the best equipment, and the best employees. But what really counts is money for ads, promotions, and stability that money supplies. And the chains can buy food much cheaper than the indies. They can have daily deliveries, giving them fresher food.

And anywhere somebody is making a buck, there is some corporation that is planning on moving into the market. The big guys simply suck all the oxygen out of the room.

When there's only one restaurant in town,it's a factor. The trouble gets started mostly by people that ain't from around here,who hang around and start to think they're local. They don't know what they really can and can't get away with saying or doing,and the next thing you know,nobody comes in anymore and the place reopens with a new owner.

We had an old lady here who knew how to run a mom and pop restaurant. When she retired she got bored. So she started buying failing one and got them going again then would sell then. Part of the sale agreement was her staying on and helping out the first 6 months. The buyers who followed her business model have been doing OK. The ones that don't have failed. Mostly trying to skimp on quality and quantity. We have a lot of older folks here who may not finish a plate but they expect that plate to be full! They also demand that the food be decent. We have a new one in town now. The owner (little rich kid) doesn't open till 8AM and only does breakfast and lunch. Can't figure out why business isn't very good. Heck the folks who would eat there have to be at work at 8. Mom and dad set him up. So he's still in business.

Rick

Restaurants are a high risk business. One larger issue with the Mom and Pop type of place is the younger generation does not stop in them much. My youngest eats at whatever fast food place is handy. He is the "norm" for the younger people. Also many towns are ghost towns during the day. So you have a breakfast/lunch trade and then nothing for several hours Then a small supper trade other than on weekends.

A Very good family friend ran a local Mom an Pop for forty years. Good food and good service. She quit because all she was doing the last few years was handle money. She said she did not loose money but was making below minimum wage for herself. So she quit and now helps out a local gatoring place a few days each week. She says she is making more money will zero headaches.

Most restaurants in our town (45,000 pop.) do pretty well. I suspect being near to a large city with good jobs has something to do with it.

A number of mom and pop type places have opened very recently and they get a good initial crowd and seem to be holding their own. We especially like an "Asian fusion" (their words) place that opened in the same spot another favorite left due to a lease dispute (that couple has come back to town after being gone a couple of years with a new place and concept). There are several small places that have been around for 30 - 40 yrs. and are still busy. The chain places have also done well and have set national records for sales the first several months they are open. The town was a bit starved for good restaurants. One of our favorite steak places was going to build a location near the mall but it never happened, never heard why. We are close enough to another location so we just go there.