[inglorian]

The article describes the new fast-casual restaurant style, which sounds a lot like a modern startup in its ethos:

>>Bill Kim’s [fast-casual] restaurant...“We’re going to serve really good, vibrant flavors. It’s going to be $15. [Customers are] going to be in and out. I’m not going to serve dessert or drinks..."

In other words, make what people want, make it really damn good, and strip away everything else. We know this works for startups, but I wonder if it will work as well for (higher-end) restaurants, which generally try to sell an atmosphere and experience.

[cschneid]

If you think about it, there's a class of restaurants that does something like this. What I'm thinking of is a local burrito place that is a little grungy, the employees quick and efficient (but not very polite), and with damn good food.

They've stripped everything that wasn't the core product, and they have a line out the door every day, all day. Even their branding has been word of mouth, I don't know if I've ever seen a real advertisement for them.

I'm sure this kind of restaurant exists in practically every city.

[catch23]

but sometimes even the really good authentic places do poorly because of location. I'm not sure how it would apply to internet startups. I have a friend who owns an authentic chinese restaurant in south beach florida. He says he makes most of his money selling fried rice by the 5-gallon bucket and lipton hot tea. There weren't enough residents in the area to appreciate high quality authentic chinese food (they don't normally serve kung pao chicken)

[cschneid]

The mexican place I was talking about is certainly not "authentic", but it's near a university, and serve delicious food (but not really mexican). I don't think slavish attention to old-world detail is the path to a successful restaurant, so much as just making something good and accessible. Think of it as usability. Sure their potato burrito isn't really very mexican at all (really, not at all), but it's good, adjustable spice level, and an easy word-of-mouth sales instrument.

[Mz]

For internet startups: Bad location = bad url?