

Lessons learned from the restaurant across the street - vsloo
http://blog.reamaze.com/2012/10/lessons-learned-from-restaurant/

======
greggman
Hijacking this thread but...

"Plentiful for the cost" is an oxymoron to "great restaurant"

Okay maybe that's a little bit flippant but seriously, judging a restaurant
based on quantity of food for cost is apparently a very American thing and one
of the reasons food is so bad here in general

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767920562> had a chapter on how different
cultures think about food. Having lived in a different one for several years
that valued flavor over quantity I wish there was some way to influence
America's culture more in that direction. It might also help our obesity
issues. I'd much rather have a small scoop of unique and delicious ice cream
than the tubs that some of the most popular American chains dish out

~~~
Dylanlacey
Assisting with hijack, I'm not sure it's only an American thing... Trawl
Urbanspoon for Australia and you'll find plenty of restaurants (particularly
fine dining) reviewed with a bitch about how much they cost compared to
quantity delivered.

Non-hijack: I'm not convinced that this restaurant has a "strategy" that
involves being under the radar. Indeed, their marketing appears to go as far
as telling people who walk past that it's open. They don't even appear to have
a name. That's not being a tricksy "invite only" place, it's just not having
any branding. At all.

------
MasterScrat
Relevant: <http://xkcd.com/993/>

~~~
minikomi
That's basically Muji(rushi Ryouhin)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muji>

The name literally means Unmarked Good stuff.

~~~
snogglethorpe
I think this doesn't quite fit what Muji actually does; their products often
lack obvious "forward" branding (of the sort that too often gets fetishized),
but are definitely "branded" in the store, and often on the products as well
... (e.g. notepads / pens / etc come with obvious labels that are possible to
remove, but people typically don't bother). There are certain attributes
associated with Muji products, and that's why people shop there.

A much closer fit (for the xkcd strip) is the short-lived early-'80s "generic
products" fad in the U.S. You'd get stuff like beer in plain white cans with
"BEER" written on them, on ordinary supermarket shelves.

I wonder if the xkcd guy knew about that, or whether it's just convergent
evolution ... :]

------
mashmac2
Corner of Williams and Saratoga in San Jose!

I've thought about visiting that restaurant, but always wondered if it would
be a disaster. I guess it's time to pay a visit...

------
squarecat
This isn't an entirely unique scenario, as there are other establishments not
unlike this one that, once they achieved critical mass in awareness, simply
gained intolerably long waits.

This could be viewed as either an inability or unwillingness to scale.
("Inability" could be inherent in the effort, as in there is just not a
feasible means to scale effectively.)

