I'm in Asia, but grew up on the East coast, and a team in NYC. We have a couple thousand restaurant customers, similar to the profile of Tock's customers (just +12 timezones away). The traditional restaurant business model was being broken across APAC before Covid-19, disrupted on all fronts.
Same factors affecting/disrupting restaurateurs here as in the US.
"The industry wants to get back to doing what they do best" here as well, but it's is less likely than ever that will be viable. With respect, a difficult truth spoken in love is more helpful than advocacy.
The traditional restaurant business model most trained chefs have learned, and most restauranteurs are used to, is very likely now permanently broken. 'Great food & good service in a comfortable establishment' isn’t sufficient to operate successfully for many (many) restaurants. Generating a sustainable operating margin is going to require restauranteurs to experimenting with business models and operating structures/processes they are not yet comfortable with.
I appreciate the response! It's a fair point, but I just don't think that new business models will be able to be employed across the spectrum of restaurants, and it's depressing to think that the only ones that will survive are the mid- and top-tier establishments that have the know-how and investor money, plus an employee set that can execute successfully on new territory such as delivery/takeout, grocery, etc. As far as near-term survival goes, maybe that is who will persevere, and perhaps it'll be due to innovative operating structures, but to me, that represents a new norm where restaurants are only for the moderately rich. And that sucks.
While it might seem unrealistic, I prefer to hope for changes such as massive decreases in rent, less powerful landlords, and medicare for all, to make operating a restaurant business more feasible on the other end. I also do believe that while many restaurants will be forced to close down completely, in a year+ from now when we have a vaccine and society begins to reconstruct itself, plenty of small businesses, many of them immigrant-run, will start to pop up again, operating within the traditional model that's been around for so long. Just my take.
I'm in Asia, but grew up on the East coast, and a team in NYC. We have a couple thousand restaurant customers, similar to the profile of Tock's customers (just +12 timezones away). The traditional restaurant business model was being broken across APAC before Covid-19, disrupted on all fronts.
Same factors affecting/disrupting restaurateurs here as in the US.
"The industry wants to get back to doing what they do best" here as well, but it's is less likely than ever that will be viable. With respect, a difficult truth spoken in love is more helpful than advocacy.
The traditional restaurant business model most trained chefs have learned, and most restauranteurs are used to, is very likely now permanently broken. 'Great food & good service in a comfortable establishment' isn’t sufficient to operate successfully for many (many) restaurants. Generating a sustainable operating margin is going to require restauranteurs to experimenting with business models and operating structures/processes they are not yet comfortable with.
I appreciate the response! It's a fair point, but I just don't think that new business models will be able to be employed across the spectrum of restaurants, and it's depressing to think that the only ones that will survive are the mid- and top-tier establishments that have the know-how and investor money, plus an employee set that can execute successfully on new territory such as delivery/takeout, grocery, etc. As far as near-term survival goes, maybe that is who will persevere, and perhaps it'll be due to innovative operating structures, but to me, that represents a new norm where restaurants are only for the moderately rich. And that sucks.
While it might seem unrealistic, I prefer to hope for changes such as massive decreases in rent, less powerful landlords, and medicare for all, to make operating a restaurant business more feasible on the other end. I also do believe that while many restaurants will be forced to close down completely, in a year+ from now when we have a vaccine and society begins to reconstruct itself, plenty of small businesses, many of them immigrant-run, will start to pop up again, operating within the traditional model that's been around for so long. Just my take.