[giancarlostoro]

You don't need a ton of creativity for a good restaurant if you have good staff, and upkeep. I'll take a boring well maintained and staffed restaurant over an overpriced "creative" restaurant where the waiters are terrible and the chef is even worse.

[trashb]

This assumes the market is not oversaturated. It does not work if there are only a couple of people trying to find a place to eat in a street with 30 similar well maintained and staffed restaurants.

Correct me if I'm wrong but, you may be thinking of restaurants where their defining factor is "having a very creative atmosphere", which will not suit all customers. However it is a differentiating factor which will serve a big audience that is under served in a location filled with "boring well maintained and staffed restaurant".

In my view the creativity comes in in finding solutions to a problem, in a oversaturated market the problem may be "how do I persuade customers to come to my restaurant instead of my competitor?". And following that question may be (in the restaurant example) "what can I offer that is under served in the current market?" The solution to that may be "a biker cafe" or "an overpriced "creative" restaurant where the waiters are terrible and the chef is even worse" (perhaps even rude on purpose).

Additionally I assume you want the restaurant to grow. If you want the restaurant to just survive the bar is lower and you may be able to do that by doing the same everyone else is doing as long as you meet the minimum.

[pixl97]

And you'll still probably get beat by a restaurant in a better location or one with better marketing

[giancarlostoro]

I can't remember the last time I ate anywhere because of an ad. I eat out a lot too, used to uber eats nearly every single day. I wont reorder at places that mess up my order, but consistent quality I reward. Chick Fil A gives me the best service out of any fast-food restaurant, so they earn my repeat business.

[boplicity]

People almost never admit it when they respond to an ad. Even when they very clearly do.

Don't underestimate the effectiveness of advertising, or its ability to influence you.

[Jensson]

You don't even see ads for local restaurants, you just go there because its close or a friend recommended it. How could you get influenced by something that doesn't exist? Their marketing is just the storefront, people go there since they are interested in this new place.

[giancarlostoro]

They definitely spend on ads but I worked at Red Lobster a few years ago, I definitely remember TV ads. Now and then I get a food ad for a place I'll never go to and never do. Uber Eats is trickier because I just look at the map for whats closest to me.

[boplicity]

Google Ads, especially Google Maps, has tons of paid ads for local restaurants. So does Uber Eats and similar ilk.

I particularly despise these ads in Maps because the ad often obscures the search result I'm looking for -- and I end up accidentally clicking on an advertisement for some other restaurant than the one I was looking up.

[giancarlostoro]

I distinctively remember when ads have worked on me to buy something. Sometimes I blacklist a brand if an ad is deceptive and makes me click on something, but I don't watch TV much if at all, and the streaming services I do use I pay to have ads removed.

[pixl97]

You remember when you remember an ad works on you, of course that is a tautology, you don't remember when you don't realize an ad worked on you but did.

[Jensson]

But the argument is that now you have AI for chef, staff and upkeep so its only the recipe writer left. I don't agree with that argument but that is the dream these corporations are selling.