Turning a Failing Business (Restaurant) Around

[dpapathanasiou]

http://www.businessweek.com/print/smallbiz/content/nov2008/sb20081125_143469.htm

[kqr2]

Scott Adams' (of Dilbert fame) experience on trying to turn around a restaurant he owns in the SF Bay Area.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/business/11dilbert.html

http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/my_restaurant_update/

I borrowed a trick from the Internet. I love sites such as Digg.com and Reddit.com where users rank their favorite web stories. I rearranged our lunch menu the same way, ranking our dishes by popularity and calling out the ranking with the menu format.

[petercooper]

Ridiculously short summary: Different markets respond to different techniques.

This is as true in taking a restaurant from NYC to the boonies as it is in shifting (or porting) a Web app from B2C to B2B.

Part of getting a business advantage is to realize this and to take advantage of your competitors who don't realize it ;-)

[ojbyrne → petercooper]

I also got the feeling that the first restaurant could have been world class and made huge dollars, but they just didn't try hard enough (or something). The second one sounds decidedly mediocre.

[Spyckie]

mmm... Anyone thought he skimped on the details a bit? I think it would be much more useful if it went in depth about the problems rather than just saying "I was too arrogant".