Definitely a thin marginal business, in my late 60’s I’ve seen so many restaurants I loved disappear without a clue as to why. Most patrons can’t figure out why their favs disappear, they, we, are clueless to all (and more) variables that live alongside restaurant owners. So we see by this piece that survival margins for great eats are not uniquely based on a single margin but rather this is a business of too many variables or differently existing marginals to attain for survival.

It’s like survivors in this game, many times bigger chains, survive through customer churn meaning the chain is about 95% dubious marketing and less than 5% delivery on promises, aka experience a worse living through marketing. Visit most chains and quality of experience is all over the place, depending again on any restaurant’s or franchisee’s variables of existence, salient variables like to name an important one, who the heck is in charge and running the unit, learned experienced intelligence or some other any old means to an end?

People just don’t understand all that can go wrong with the restaurant business, thanks for pointing some of this out. The clientele seems always amazed when their favorite eating place disappears, that is because those patrons are visiting with blinders on.

(just one problem facet issue are our tax laws coupled with gratuities, sorry, it’s time for a real wage for real work)