9/10 restaurants don’t make it past the first year because corporations easily outcompete. I’m not saying to justify subsistence wages but because the system is exploitative that small businesses can’t afford to pay a living wage unless corporations do to.
Corporations have economies of scale which means cheaper food that restaurants cannot compete with. You aren't going to compete on price as a mom and pop shop, at least not generally.
The most successful and popular corporate chains are fast food that don't rely on tipping. Most tipping based corporate chains are failing and slowly getting churned out of existence, with perhaps a few exceptions.
That’s a good point but I think the corporate sit down restaurants are struggling just bc changing consumer preferences, not necessarily a function of their business model vs small
I think a lot of it has to do with how corporations are incentivized to enshittify themselves once they hit their cap, as that's the only way to keep up the facade of infinite growth. People go to a sit down restaurant expecting something a bit fancier, though, and if it's just some crap that was microwaved in a plastic bag and shoved on a plate anyway, of course people are going to lose interest. At least fast food isn't lying about their quality.
Seems like we've basically shortened the lifespan of a "successful" business to like 20-30 years (only about 5-10 of which are worth going to for the customer), and the "fast casual dining" businesses are now in private equity hospice.
7.0k
u/[deleted] Aug 28 '24 edited Aug 28 '24
I genuinely feel like moving to the US just to open a restaurant and pay my staff a living wage
Edit: This is probably the most controversial comment I ever posted.