why must every moderately successful store in the UK be immediately turned into a chain?

it shows how far gone you are

Assimilated is the word, I think

what does conscience have to do with this? it's unethical to expand your business if you believe it is something good and you know that people enjoy it?

there are probably loads of moderately successful shops that do not branch out. but you will never hear about them because there's only one?

-- ken c, Monday, November 5, 2007 1:09 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

this is the thing. hard to compare a chain with a single restaurant. if the single restaurant is conveniently situated for your needs, great.

wagamama are the nips. mark. english people love haggis.

haha i am so wrong. wagamama dude was totally from hong kong

¦)

but then pizza express dude was from peterborough. go figure!

Is there anyone here whose FAVOURITE place to go out to eat (not some £100 a head restaurant, somewhere reasonable) is a chain restaurant?

-- Mark C, Monday, 5 November 2007 12:54 (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://www.buddiesrestaurants.com/

what does conscience have to do with this? it's unethical to expand your business if you believe it is something good and you know that people enjoy it?

sorry ken, should have included the /sarcasm tag after that post.

you should have included the /italkshite tag after your post.

you're saying everyone who runs a successful business has no conscience.

or are you saying that no business ever delivers something good for anybody.

in that case, close all shops?

what makes a shop with one branch more ethical than two?

if you cannot answer that, then you have just talked shite.

I can't answer that!

jesus ken, i just told you it was sarcasm. wtf?

oh! sorry

i thought you said "sorry ken, you should have put the 'sarcasm' tag on" which had a totally different meaning!

i like wagamamma's because there are few other japanese restaurants near me which do katsu don (though there's a killer place just by piccadilly circus). i like bodean's because there are few other american barbecue places near me. i don't understand the attraction of masala zone in london, where there are tonnes of great independent indian restaurants. and my favourite italian restaurant, presto, was dirt cheap and delicious but closed like four or five years ago, i think, though the aurora is nice, when i can remember where it is.

Yo Sushi is good because you can go there after you've been to Lucky Voice, assuming we're talking about the Yo Sushi on Poland Street.

The "yay chain restaurants for bringing affordable dining out for the working classes" is flawed because in many cases independent restaurants are not significantly more expensive than chains. But I'm enjoying the "hooray global capitalism for saving the working classes' precious pennies" doublethink at work here.

how many 'masala zones' are there in london anyway?

The "yay chain restaurants for bringing affordable dining out for the working classes" is flawed because in many cases independent restaurants are not significantly more expensive than chains.

indeed but people don't want to take a punt, as has been said repeatedly; they know what they're getting, as said repeatedly. it hasn't been established that cheap indie places even have better ingredients. IT'S JUST LIKE WITH POP VS INDIE REALLY.

And the answer to the original thread question is that, more often than not, they are backed up with private equity/venture capital/seed capital money rather than old-fashioned bank loans and investors be wanting to grow the business as quickly as possible.

i had a domino's last night :D

One of the best restaurants I've ever been to was a run-down Italian place in central London called the 'Centrale'. You could grab a huge plate of delicious pasta (with chilli sauce/other toppings) for about three quid. We were taken there by a wonderful, worldly-wise teacher of mine, and we ate superb food for extremely low prices. It had a reputation of being homeless-friendly; tramps would often come every few days, having saved up their takings, and it would serve them without prejudice. When it closed down a few years ago I was greatly saddened. I think Dom would have adored it (not least because he'd have been able to natter along with the charming owners in their native tongue).

My point? Some independent places are not only cheaper, but they're necessary.

But I had a lovely chatter with a beautiful girl who worked at a KFC. Which was also very homeless-friendly, so in a way it's not what type of shop it is it's the people in it, innit.

That Centrale place was nice though.. (near old compton street??)

Assuming it's the same place.. the lady (presumably the owner) was very charmingly angry. and shouted at us a lot, but in an adorable way

Yeah, I think it was near (or on) the circus (Cambridge Circus?) where Shaftesbury Avenue joins Charing Cross Road. [/rickety geography]

The lady was indeed like that. She was also very sympathetic (if amused) when I succumbed to temptation, and the goads of my friends, and placed one of the very small, very red chillis in my mouth, and crunched down. Not overly distressed by the immediate effect, I repeated the process with a second. Sadly, my hubris was to be punished roughly 8 seconds later with a sensation I can only describe as 'internalised hell'. It took, I believe, five glasses of water before it even became normal 'hot-food' pain.

savin' the thread, one post at a time.

glad I'm not interested in food

lol scottish?

what are you interested in?

xpost

do you live on vitamin pills, RJG?

I'm not british/scottish

indeed but people don't want to take a punt, as has been said repeatedly; they know what they're getting, as said repeatedly

This has all probably been said already but the thing is, how do new chains get off the ground in the first place? I'm not sure if folks are somehow afraid of local food places or if it's the vibe of being just another anonymous customer that going into a chain brings or whether maybe people like to feel that they're somehow participating in this big exciting global machine, but I do get the feeling that people are more comfortable taking that punt with a chain restaurant. Is that right?

Yeah, I think it was near (or on) the circus (Cambridge Circus?) where Shaftesbury Avenue joins Charing Cross Road.

there is a pizza hut there. also an all bar one.

One reason for the success of chains in the UK is I believe due to land ownership. On the continent shopkeepers and so on tend to own their premises and hand them down, in the UK a lot of commerical / retail land is owned by landlords who can push rents to levels which only the chains can afford. I'm not sure when these landowners rose to power though.

Also The Pub.

xxpost: and a pub called 'the cambridge' and a couple of theatres. just beyond is lloyd's no.1 bar, which is a wetherspoons.

speaking of which, FUCKING WETHERSPOONS

^^^the real enemy

town vs gown

BAN LOUIS JAGGER, Spoonys is king

haha, like the regal isn't fucking chock full of cambridge students every saturday (xpost)

wetherspoons is very homeless friendly

going back upthread a bit:

i guess there is still something a little unsettling about other people making your food, hidden from view. i talked to a cab driver once (in manhattan) who said that he never ate in restaurants, EVER, because you don't know who's making your food and what they've just done with their hands

yes. i guess there is still something a little unsettling about other people making your underpants, hidden from view. i talked to a tinfoil-hat-wearing maniac once who said he never wore underpants because you don't know who's making them and whether or not they've wanked furiously into the vat of dye.

:/

as for the discussion in general ... i dunno, i'm becoming more and more worn down by shrill middle-class metropolitan posturing about how we all have to get back to little shops selling home-grown organic plums for two days a year etc, although a lot of this is down to a rash of articles i've subbed recently on said subject. it has become a kneejerk response on my part, i admit, but noodle vague, dom and others are OTFM above: this is absolutely and totally a class issue.

fine: if you've got the time and the cash to do all yr shopping at independent shops and avoid the multiples -- good on you. you're doing a decent thing. me -- and i'm as much of a middle-class wank as they get -- i leave the flat at 8am and don't get home till 9pm. i work one sunday in three, and spend many of my saturdays on arran helping mrs F look after her dad. with all this in mind, the 24-hour tesco is a fucking godsend, and i ain't gonna feel guilty about using it.

as for restaurants (whence this discussion came): as i said on the pizza thread, i fucking hate and despise pizza hut and would rather eat dom's spunk spread on an old boot. however: that's my opinion, and i'm not going to look down on some harassed mum taking her kids in for a child-/family-friendly meal, because -- hey! -- preferring the food from the wee bistro round the corner doesn't make me some superior life-form.

won't somebody think of the children

dom's spunk was so much better before it got sold out to this new scarf and blazer branded franchise

i was about to post that, only not ironically, because i'm told that having kids isn't entirely uncommon and, having grown up with parents, i can recall that maybe on top of everything that entails, maybe going to separate city-centre venues to buy foods each day wasn't an option as open to them as it is to young urban professional types.

xpost

Now if we're going to take as read that other countries in the world that aren't Britain contain parents with young children, people that work long hours and workers on low incomes, none of this is adequately explaining why there are so many chain stores and restaurants in the UK in relation to other countries.