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Restaurants are Collapsing Beneath the Weight of Consumer Expectation
Independent restaurants are collapsing beneath the weight of consumer expectation. The food and drinks must be good. The food must be creative. The cost must be “affordable” (you know I am disgusted by society’s notion of what they think they can afford—you’ll pay hundreds, even thousands, of dollars for a Taylor Swift concert ticket, but suddenly that pound of grass-fed beef is $3 more than conventional… I digress until later when I thoroughly lambast you, you disgust me, your false righteousness regarding money, using words like “afford”, a privilege in itself to be able to choose, the mere suggestion that you can’t “afford” repulses me because I see what you can afford—you take pictures of it with your iPhone and put it on Instagram—and you use it to cover up the bad decision you prefer not to face. “Afford”: I laugh at you, you disgust me, crying over your student loans… dear me the thought of you today is really provoking me, making me so irritable. I suppose my lambasting did not wait. You’re pathetic. I moved out here to the country on purpose. My chickens are good girls. And you are so bad.) Restaurants must have good service, and the environment must be pleasant. The food must arrive quickly, and the portion must be proportional to one’s perception of price. These expectations seem reasonable, and I don’t think have varied too considerably overtime, though within these expectations are further expectations, the likes of which have never hitherto been seen in the history of American Dining.
I’m going to give away the conclusion straight away: the consumer won’t pay what it costs, and big corporations are capitalizing on that in a way that only they can, in a way, like in every other industry, that destroys a normal business—you know, businesses run by a few sentient beings, like your neighbor, your cousin, a friend of a friend… how cute you’re such a little business-person I love that for you… our society crushes the independence that had once lifted it to its height (really, it wasn’t our independence but the food surplus created by Big Agriculture, though I’ll save that rant for another time). Proof of that are the expectations listed above that you completely drop when entering the corporate food sphere, which you do daily. You do not expect the food, the service, nor the environment to be good, although you may wish it. You only expect it to be cheap (and caloric), which it is, sometimes, but really, it tricks you by making some things absurdly cheap for a little while until suddenly you’ve formed the habit of going there every day and haven’t checked the changing cost that has become a sizeable percentage of your income—so you take it out on the grass-fed beef, the independent restaurant, the boutique clothing store… When going to a restaurant that isn’t a corporate chain, it would be reasonable to expect the opposite: good food, good service, good atmosphere, and not cheap. But you are unreasonable and crush the independence of your brothers and sisters because of it… not to mention global warming, inequality, and every other bad thing one can think of…all due to a consumerism that is diabolical to a good mode of living.
At any rate, I will proceed to break down the above subjects, beginning with “the food and drinks must be good”. In order to break into this notion I’ll need to objectify “good food”: let’s assume for the sake of argument that good food means the ingredients are fresh—Americans are real suckers for “fresh”, a tenant of this country’s food safety regulations that has utterly killed seasonal food preservation and led directly to the disconnect of our symbiosis with nature—that the ingredients are of good quality, and that they are prepared and cooked with technique and precision. I’ll address fresh and good quality together, as they must be taken that way. For example, one may have a fresh tomato that is hard as a rock, very white inside, and tastes like nothing… a consumer would not consider that tomato a quality ingredient in an independent restaurant, although he happily consumed something similar strewn onto his Subway chicken teriyaki sandwich for lunch. A good tomato is a ripe tomato, and a ripe tomato doesn’t travel well—it bruises and quickly rots. A good tomato cannot be refrigerated, because cold temperatures break down the cell membrane which results in a mushy and mealy texture, while also compromising flavor. Therefore, for a restaurant to have a good tomato it must be procured locally and in season, so the tomato only travels a short distance, thereby reducing the risks of bruising and spoiling. But, here, there is a process that must be undertaken by a local farmer, which reduces the “efficiency” of a tomato that is a product of Big Agriculture that relies on mechanization. This process involves a human being picking the tomatoes by hand, while assessing each tomato’s individual ripeness. This process is time consuming, and time means more money spent on labor. And you, dear consumer, also insist on me paying fair wages—the hypocrisy of it is perplexing to the point of utter madness. But, further, because a good tomato is a ripe tomato, the farmer must, obviously, wait until a tomato is ripe to pick it. But what if there are fewer orders than there are ripe tomatoes? A local farmer must, therefore, pay a significant cost for labor, and factor in a percentage for product loss, or mitigate loss by making more frequent deliveries, which costs more money in transportation. Big Agriculture eliminates these factors by the “efficiency” of mechanization, though, of course, the final product lacks any resemblance to something good.
An independent restaurant is likely to pay around $4 per pound for one of these good tomatoes. Factoring in the restaurant industry standard food cost—without, at this moment, breaking down why that is a standard—of 30%, the restaurant needs to charge $13.30 per pound of tomato, which equates to 1-2 slicing tomatoes. Perhaps a more familiar way to discuss this is through a tomato and mozzarella salad:
Good mozzarella, which I would procure locally from Caputo Brothers (Spring Grove, Pennsylvania), a good tomato (Karma Farm, Baltimore County, Maryland), good olive oil (Georgia Olive Farms, Lakeland, GA), good merlot vinegar (Keepwell, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), sea salt (Henlopen Sea Salt, Lewes, Delaware), and basil (perhaps also procured from Karma Farm, though I typically spread a more comprehensive order across varying farms)… the total cost of this salad, the only factor here being the ingredients themselves, is $5.34 (yes, that includes the cost of every ingredient including salt). Therefore, in order to maintain a 30% cost of goods, which is required to maintain the basic functioning of the business, the restaurant must charge $18 for the tomato and mozzarella salad. There is no arguing for or against this information—it, simply, is the cost. Whether or not a consumer wishes to pay $18 for a tomato and mozzarella salad or spend a near equivalent at Popeyes to receive 8 pieces of fried chicken, coleslaw, French fries, a biscuit, and a medium drink, instead, is up to them. The perceived disparity as seen by the American consumer is obvious, as the consumer most often correlates value with quantity, especially in terms of food.Perhaps, forgetting nearly every word I’ve just said, one would suggest the restaurant procure cheaper ingredients… Yes, it could risk degrading the quality of its food at the expense of its owner’s integrity, life goals, and, quite possibly, the business itself. Yes, the independent restaurant could choose to become mediocre, and it often does.
Of course, within the notion of good food there is also the requirement that it is prepared in a sufficient way as to lift the ingredients as opposed to degrade them. This takes technique and precision, which requires knowledge and training. So, not only does this fall under the labor category, but it falls under the skilled labor category. Mechanized fast food requires unskilled labor. How much would you insist I pay my cooks? How much should I pay my chef? Should I offer them health benefits? The left refuses to recognize the basic consequences of increasing the “livable” wages: all salaries must go up. On its face, this seems like a nice, pleasant thing to happen. But for an independent restaurant that is already paying above the legal livable wage in order that its employees feel confidant and dignified in their occupation, that means they must increase that payrate despite not seeing any increase in sales. The money must come from somewhere, so in response to both the legal requirement and societal pressure, the independent restaurant is forced to raise its already high prices in order to increase its payrate. That’s the cost of doing business, you say. If you can’t pay you shouldn’t be in business, you say. Yes, this is true, but how do you think a business pays? It’s the consumer that pays…
Today, there is an unprecedented labor shortage within the restaurant industry, mostly due to the labor shift directly caused by Covid-19. Consequently, restaurants have been forced to raise the payrate to remain competitive, while the pool of talented cooks has decreased. The decrease in talent is directly related to a decrease in quality of the restaurant.
So, already, only having had evaluated one of the above expectations, the independent restaurant faces a diabolical dilemma. Using the tomato and mozzarella salad to continue this thought experiment:
Creativity. I’ll cut right to it. The American consumer doesn’t want creativity, they want the capitalized version of it: appropriated, popularized, trending. Today, that is ethnic food. But, actually, it’s always been ethnic food. Today, “creativity”, or “ethinic”, often means something “Asian”, although the tomato and mozzarella salad is also ethnic… though that salad has become, perhaps, boring. So, we seek ways in which to reinvent, or invigorate. Enter this godforsaken trend: balsamic reduction. What really perplexes me here is that good balsamic vinegar, made in Modena, Italy, where it’s from, and aged for the correct amount of time, is balsamic reduction. You see, the good people of Modena don’t need to boil down balsamic in order to make it taste good, because it already is good, because they value the tradition of making it, because by doing so they retain the value of their community, therefore their identity. This is the essence of the Italian born Slow Food movement. The result of reducing bad balsamic is essentially a sweet and sour sauce—we’ve turned it into what we seek in trending “Asian” cuisine: it is the “Italian” version of Teriyaki.
Also perplexing: the foods that are trending all have a way of being the same. Is there a difference between the consumer’s bastardization of balsamic, teriyaki, or ketchup? Not really. The American consumer wants sweet, sour, savory and salty all at the same, and as much of it as they can get in a single bite. This is called umami, kind of, though this term, also, has been thoroughly appropriated and bastardized. Principles of umami involve building flavor, which would involve months, or perhaps years, of fermenting and ageing something like soy sauce or balsamic, making a stock over the course of a week with layers of animal bones and vegetables and mushrooms, and adding, very deliberately, these ingredients in certain ways to achieve this. Instead, we make a syrup with science derived sugar, and add xanthan gum and other such science derived thickeners and stabilizers. So, we’ve taken an ingredient from a very specific place in the world that was created in response to, often, hunger and/or a missing and vital nutritional requirement of the body, reduced it to commodify it, and entered it into the market, and called it “Asian”. But I digress because in talking about appropriation, especially in space where it isn’t the main subject, is to reduce it, thus the people affected by it, and I in no small part wish to be a part of reducing someone’s identity, an identity that was created, harnessed, cherished for years, decades, centuries… that is not the point of my words, in fact, just the opposite. I have nothing but apologies for the wonderful people whose ancient foodways have been appropriated by the American Consumer aiding and abetting their destruction.
Now, reentering the space of the tomato and mozzarella salad in terms of creativity… Often real creativity means restraint, it means having honor. The ingredients of the tomato and mozzarella salad listed above, which act as the recipe, are simple. I did not offer a balsamic reduction, or any ingredients procured from all over the globe. My creativity resides in equal parts in my willingness to source all my ingredients from within the place in which I live (that is to say, also, made by members of my community), and the restraint to allow them their rightful place on the plate. The resulting flavors are pure, and immediately complex because of their simplicity. One can taste the earth that they came from—the French word terroir—as opposed to the palate capturing dopamine slave driver: high fructose corn syrup. Why are we allowing our bodies to be so easily duped, manipulated, taken advantage of by silencing the very thing that our species has evolved far more successfully than any other on earth: our cerebral cortex, our consciousness. The American Consumer has willfully surrendered its higher consciousness for a meal at Panda Express.
Unfortunately, the creativity the American consumer seeks is often at odds with the actual creativity being delivered by independent restaurants, as I’ve alluded to above, because the people running the place have souls. Their goals aren’t to get rich, but to make a living while doing what they love. Their restaurant is a normal business, not a capitalistic mega-cesspool getting filthy rich by selling commodified and appropriated poison they heated up in the microwave. Of course, there does exist a small market for the creative, independent restaurant, and that market is in large, sophisticated cities, and mostly ones with a Michelin Guide. I know there are independent, creative restaurants in cities without the Michelin Guide—in fact, I own one—but in such places the input is often grotesquely higher than the output. Further, while I’m offering accommodations, I need to be clear that when I say independent, creative restaurants I’m not referring to the lowly yet lovely neighborhood pub. While they may not be in the money printing business like the Cheesecake Factory, the output outweighs the input. Also, note that the subject here, really, is independent restaurants with vision, not ones lost in the status quo of mediocrity.
Before addressing the myriad list of arguments you are already huffing at me, let me first finish laying out the remainder of my argument: Restaurants must have good service, and the environment must be pleasant. The food must arrive quickly, and the portion must be proportional to one’s perception of price:
Good service means staff that are trained in the ways of the restaurant to facilitate the consumer’s enjoyment of their food, drinks, and company without distraction. A distraction would include food or drinks that are untimely, a server who is incapable of answering basic questions regarding the menu or tenants of the restaurant—i.e. where does my food come from?—a restaurant that is uncomfortable due to issues of uncleanliness, broken furniture, a broken lock on the bathroom door, etc. Without harping on this too much, the conclusion obviously returns to labor—a well trained staff are the direct result of extensive training, obviously, which takes more time and requires more structure developed by upper level management, like instructional classes that teach about the food and beverages and where they came from and how they were developed, in addition to hands-on training where staff learn how to make the food and beverages. More, upper-level management must also be trained on how to further develope the ethos of the restaurant, including new dishes and drinks, new sources of interesting ingredients, and pushing the boundaries of current supplier relationships, all in order to keep the restaurant’s customer base engaged. And, lastly, maintain a pleasant environment:
I briefly discussed this above by mentioning cleanliness, suitable furniture, an operational bathroom lock… Of course, those are some aspects of basic utility that are required to maintain a pleasant environment, but, more importantly for an independent restaurant, is the design, the feeling a consumer has when spending time within its walls. For an independent restaurant to achieve this, that feeling must transcend the reality of their consumerism. In essence, an independent restaurant must offer an aesthetic and operate in such a way as to hide the reality that it is, in fact, a business—to make the consumer feel they are not engaged in a transaction, but, instead, an experience unconstrained by money or time. Insert the ubiquitous consumers(but we call them “guests”—the horror) who grossly overstay their welcome thus delaying the next reservation and become utterly shocked when the bill arrives, as if they had no previous notion that the activity they were engaged in required payment, nor that others were in line behind them. Here, you see, is the dichotomy—the independent restaurant has done such a thoroughly smashing job of transcending the reality of the American consumer, that it’s caused its own failure.
Next, and lastly, is the portion size (and strength of an alcoholic beverage), which I will quickly offer one point: offering a larger portion size in order to make you feel that you are getting a good value only means the restaurant must charge more—again, the money must come from somewhere, and that somewhere is you. Further, relating portion size to value is a fatal error of humankind—you are fat and diseased, you need to eat less (oh, come off it. It’s true, you know it. And I, admittedly, am among you in the category of eating too much, though I’m happy to at least acknowledge my sins by paying their true cost). You want more of those good tomatoes and good mozzarella, an extra side of that good olive oil? Ante up, Big Boy!
At the beginning of this diatribe, I was certain I’d present a structured and compelling argument related to the difficulties of the independent restaurant as caused by the aggrandized expectations of the American consumer. I’m not so certain now that this has even remotely stayed course. In fact, I’ve missed a substantial variety of further distressors to the industry—like how quickly the consumer wants their food—which, frankly, I’ve lost the bandwidth to address. When I began these musings some years ago, I was confident that a well-structured argument with sound facts would compel change. But that doesn’t work—there are always more facts and facts and facts that aren’t facts at all but a collection of data sourced in unreliable ways with an often predetermined conclusion. Anyone and everyone will then use this data to conjure up their defense.
But that’s just it: I began with the mistaken notion that I was making an argument. I am not making an argument. I’m offering perspective, not solutions. And here is a very important point to make, the point to come away with that transcends the cacophony of the above diatribe: the American consumer has espoused and been ensconced within the idea of “solution”, as if all we need to do to continue our nice little consumer lives is to solve the things causing the trouble—an amazing capitalistic mindset. And, in order to do just that, all we need to do is break the problem down. But that isn’t, at all, how nature works. But, you say, we’re not talking about nature, we’re talking about restaurants. This is precisely the point: we pretend as if we are separate from nature, as if it had nothing to do with our daily lives, as if it were only a force to be contained as related to storms, or drought. When we realize we are nature, evolving and changing rhythmically with the ebb and flow of the tide, we will live with the crash of the wave, instead of trying to stop it or modify it to fit our consumer structure. When we return to our natural symbiosis we will all thrive together.
This idea will require a significant amount of further theorizing in order to carry it forward, which I will endeavor to accomplish henceforth. First, however, I’ll let the above set sail to navigate the treacherous and shark infested waters of The World Wide Web.