I was not referring to this specific restaurant more from what I am hearing from other restaurants, particularly LA. But journalists never dig deep these days.
Yep. I was recently listening to a restaurant podcast out of Buenos Aires. Same issues.
CD’s? Wow.
I don’t see restaurants going anywhere…that said, it’s a cyclic industry just like most of them. The downside is that it’s unlikely that you can make enough money to sustain yourself until the next upcycle.
I’ll add that we’ve just finished the year and I’m doing a bit of reflecting and while I’ve had a fair number of wonderful meals, I also spent an obnoxious amount of $ (for me). I’d like to rein that in.
Yeah it is wild. I am a big vinyl collector and frequent record stores. Used vinyl has gone up dramatically over the past few years. Something like Michael Jackson thriller that used to sell for $2-3 now sells for $20-30 and much more if it is in excellent condition. Whereas you can get a CD for $2-3 and shipping is cheap.
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If so, curious to what you would attribute the decreased spend? Inflation is real but the well-off also feel very good about their stock portfolios, and many categories of discretionary spending remain really strong, travel for example. My gut, pun intended, would be GLP-1 drugs, since that constituency seemingly would tend to overlap heavily (again, forgive me) with fine dining clientele.
Jonathan
From what I have heard GLP-1 ones and the alcohol is evil craze is absolutely hurting restaurants as average checks are declining. Beyond that most consumers are hurting especially in LA due to the strikes.
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I just came across this:
Weight-loss Drugs Aren’t Just Changing Waistlines | Bain & Company
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I recently sold my CD collection to a second-hand record shop in Stuttgart. It was hard to part with those CDs, many of which I bought at Waterloo Records and Other Music over the years.
But back to the topic at hand, it is hard to believe that students in Trier seem disinclined to work at a high minimum wage in a cool restaurant that is only open four days a week from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Other Music! One of the coolest record stores ever. If you have not seen documentary on it, I highly recommend it.
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When I lived in NYC from 2000 to 2001, I would go to Other Music all the time and continued going there until it closed in 2016.
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Really?
I’m stunned.
I posted about my foray into the music industry 30 years ago in a different thread. When I was much younger and dating my wife (who was also in the industry) we amassed a collection of at least 8-9k CD’s. We got married and bought an apt in NYC and had this massive collection. Then a few years later we carted that collection to NJ where we bought a house. They sat in boxes in a guest bedroom for a year or so…eventually I sold them to a company called ipodmeister that gave us cash and also ripped all of that music to some high capacity CD type of storage. So instead of 8-9k of CD’s I had like 50 high capacity CD’s. The funny thing is that I took the time to upload all of that music to an early iteration of iTunes. And then Apple Music came out and made all of that obsolete.
Another funny story about my time in the industry…I was living in Chicago attending grad school and working in the industry in my spare time. My girlfriend (now wife) was a senior in college in Maryland. I would send her a box of 50 CD’s (that would otherwise be thrown in the garbage) and tell her to go to the local used music store and sell them. I didn’t care what she got for them, but they were usually current or in demand discs so she’d often get $5/disc which gave her $250 to buy a plane ticket to Chicago and paid for a dinner.
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Thanks for the link. I heard about the Other Music documentary before it was released.
As for that cool restaurant, I’m referring to Yong Yong.
Tipping fatigue.
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To contextualize the headline, what the article goes on to relay is a decline from a peak 2021 tipping level of 19.9%, to 19.3% last year. Further, 38% of consumers reported tipping restaurant servers 20% or more in 2024, down from 56% of consumers in 2021. For me, while notable, this doesn’t seem to sync well with a narrative of how hard consumers’ budgets are being hit.
Jonathan
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Thank you for this clarification … tipping was so different in the covid times, how silly to compare.
whereupon a classic WB tipping debate breaks-out in the Comments section
As stated by many, the economics of a restaurant are generally terrible. Very high risk for low reward. I’ve never considered investing when “offered”. I’m a little amazed anyone goes into the business at the high end, but there seems to be a never ending supply of hopefuls. I suppose that is good for me as a consumer.
As a consumer, I’ll let normal economics play out and feel no need to provide additional support beyond patronage for those I like and the price/value proposition. I don’t feel anything additional will alter the ultimate outcome of success or failure. Most will likely sink, but that is the market. Again, I’m surprised people jump into it.