The first reason that was mentioned at the beginning of the discussion was feng shui.
Feng shui has been discussed in previous tweets. Feng Shui is the passing down of principles that are difficult to visualize in the form of mystical regulations. There are many feng shui explanations for restaurant closures, such as road rushes, doors that are too big, doors that are too small. And then there are the reasons why a fortune cat should be added. You can imagine that the solidified smile and uniform posture of the cat is an eternal reminder to both the owner and the customer, "Harmony begets wealth, harmony begets wealth". Bosses who keep this belief in mind at all times will certainly not speak coldly to their customers, and his business will get better and better. Southern restaurants often put the statue of Master Guan Er, probably for the same reason, but instead of reminding customers to smile, the recognition of loyalty, righteousness and faith is firmly instilled in the boss. Boss boss can seriously practice loyalty and righteousness letter, the boss of the restaurant can certainly go very far.
Feng Shui gives a sense of ceremony. And the existence of a sense of ritual shows that you have a minimum of respect for what you are doing. I tend to think that do not care at all about feng shui restaurant will surely die soon. If the owner of a restaurant can let the plants on the throne dry out without cleaning them up, he must be even more reluctant to clean up the other corners of the store. The whole store must be filthy. Customers can expect very little from such a restaurant. Soon they will have to close their doors.
The day before yesterday, I went fishing and passed by a noodle shop at lunchtime. It was a small town near Yuanjia Village, a noodle house that could not be more ordinary, two rows of six tables filled the hall, the area is only about half the size of the next store, but filled with people. The next door was almost empty. As soon as I walked in the door, my brother-in-law said it was nice and neat.
The front of the noodle shop does not have a feng shui thing like a cat, but the whole store is well organized, clean and comfortable. The noodles are served in a large stainless steel basin. A bite down, the noodles smooth and sinewy, flavored with sour openings, let me immediately appetite.
From the neatness of the store in a small way, you can tell the owner's respect for details and the level of care he puts into his small store. Such a store owner must naturally respect these things prescribed by Feng Shui. In fact, those provisions can only be the most basic bottom line.
So I don't think feng shui should be the reason why restaurants in the same place are dying one after another. I've seen many restaurants change owners, change decoration, and hire a Feng Shui master to close their doors in the end. So it is very likely that feng shui is not the reason for the closure.
Feng Shui is the most basic requirement of the restaurant's degree of care. If even the most basic requirements are not met, the closure is a matter of minutes. This kind of thing is not in our discussion.
Another reason could be that the management of the restaurant has problems.
The management of a restaurant, especially a small one, is just a game between the owner and the chef. Family restaurants where the owner and the chef are the same person are not part of our discussion.
The only person the owner needs to manage is the chef. The owner needs the chef, almost depends on the chef. How he can keep the chef happy for himself and still make money is all the owner has to do to manage the restaurant.
How do you ensure your own profitability and at the same time give the chef the profitability he expects? Finding that mutually acceptable balance in a very unstable system is a delicate and necessary task.
An overly stingy owner and an overly greedy chef are bound to fail in this process, because if either side pursues win-lose, the result is bound to be lose-lose, and if the owner focuses on making a lot of money for himself, the chef is hardly motivated at all, and is bound to walk away or fail to deliver. It's almost a matter of minutes before the restaurant closes down. If the chef only cares about his own money and seriously harms the owner's rights, the result is only likely to be fired and rolled away.
If the process of the boss chef both sides of the pursuit of win-win, then everyone has money to earn, the boss is happy, the chef hard, the restaurant business is not a problem.
The boss is like the king of the kingdom, and the chef is like the general who has the power of the whole country. The king can't personally lead the troops to war, only the general can. The general's military power is a protection and a threat to the king's power. Externally the general can keep the enemy out of the country, and internally the military power might be the end of the kingship. The orthodoxy of kingship may be a gap that generals dare not cross, but there are countless examples in history of how fragile the orthodoxy of kingship actually is.
This delicate balance is important at this time.
Both sides figure out what their expectations are, and the boss can get the chef what he wants when his expectations are met. Once both parties' expectations are met there is no big problem. It's a ****winning story.
It's dangerous for either the owner or the chef to try to upset that balance. Especially a small catering business. Because that balance is between two people. In fact, when the need to balance the object of more time will be easier, because there may be more opportunities to find the balance of the joint horizontal and vertical, for example, for the formal business or a larger restaurant, a clear shareholding structure, reasonable incentives, written rules, respect for the contract of the corporate culture will make the management easier.
Management problems are everywhere, but they don't explain why stores in the same location are dying one after another. Management problems shouldn't be the essential cause we're looking for.
There are three determinants of whether a restaurant will succeed: location, location, location. If the location is bad, all your efforts will be in vain, or you will need to pay more than others, and you will only get half the result with twice the effort.
Before XL's departure, our group often went to a noodle house on South Unity Road near Science and Technology Road. That noodle house is almost a regular canteen for our group, and we went back there every day for a few years to eat noodles. The restaurant next door to the noodle shop changed from one to another. When I was a student, the school cafeteria always gave people the feeling of "fading out of a bird", and the back street of the school was full of small restaurants for students to eat. The best of these restaurants were always crowded. Only when these stores are full of students go back to choose other restaurants.
The restaurant next door is your competition. If your restaurant is next to Hai Di Lao, I'm sorry, you're in the wrong place. This is the competition. If you're under a big tree, you can't grow grass.
But those two streets are full of restaurants. It's the collective aggregation effect of these restaurants that makes diners go there on their own initiative. At this point the competition becomes a thing is a good thing. The benefit of clustering is that more people will come here when they think of eating.
Having a big restaurant tree on the side will undoubtedly have a huge impact on the neighboring restaurants, but having a whole street full of restaurants will bring a good advertising effect to attract more people to come.
The whole street is an industry. If an industry is on the rise, there will be more talent and money coming in, but of course the competition in this industry will be fierce. One of the most obvious benefits of this industry is that you get paid a lot of money, but of course there can be 996.
The importance of location for a restaurant is like choosing a job. If you get into a company or industry that is on the rise, you can always get twice as much for half the effort. It's like the internet IT industry.
If you are the only restaurant on a street, you may be a monopoly, lying earn, or maybe the street is simply no one to eat. Otherwise how can you only one restaurant. There are many reasons why there are no other restaurants, such as there is simply not a large flow of people, there is no reasonable conversion rate, the street is very strict smoke restrictions, the surrounding environment is simply not suitable for food and beverage.
If you notice that all the other cars are traveling against traffic, chances are you are.
So competition might be a factor. Just like the domestic internet industry with BAT, all competition with them became uncontested. In such a competitive environment, newcomers have almost no chance to compete, or be acquired, or be knocked across. So if a restaurant is bordered by competitors with excellent operations, such as Haidilao, the survival of that restaurant is undoubtedly very challenged.
So competition between neighbors may be a factor.
Sunk costs are costs incurred in the past, such as time, effort, and money, which are costs that have already been incurred and are not recoverable.
Could there be other reasons beyond the possible reasons of competition and location? For example, the landlord? Landlords are actually a big factor in a restaurant's business. A good landlord understands the importance of mutual courtesy, harmony and win-win, but there are other landlords who will ask for a rent increase when your restaurant is on the right track to start making money. Such landlords often force restaurateurs to deal with the impact of sunk costs, such as time, experience, store renovation costs, and so on.
It is said that Mahatma Gandhi was once riding on a train when a shoe accidentally fell off the train. While many people felt sorry for Gandhi, Gandhi also threw another shoe down. In this way a lucky person passing by the railroad might pick up both shoes. When the second shoe was thrown down actually Gandhi did not have any additional loss, but the person who picked up the shoe might have a windfall.
This is a perfect example of how to treat sunk costs. Having a shoe tuned under the train brings about a loss of a pair of shoes, which is a sunk cost and is irretrievable. One's loss is already there, and whether or not one keeps the other shoe has no bearing on the outcome. The best decision at this point is to forget about sunk costs and do what is worth doing, like helping others. There is a proverb in the Western world that expresses the same idea: "Don't cry over spilt milk.
The best thing to do when you have a bad landlord is to forget about the sunk costs and change your restaurant location as soon as possible. Don't feel sorry for the costs you've already paid, and don't let the sunk costs affect your decision-making. Lost has been lost, including renovation, including time, including energy all have paid the sunk costs have been lost. This time should be timely stop loss is the best choice.
The obsession with sunk costs is the most important reason why many people are not willing to make a new choice to stop in time.
Running a restaurant is the same as running our lives. May we all run our businesses well!