Metaphor HyperExtension Warning: This post will involve
an early bird beating a gift horse in the mouth with a
worm in the hand not two in the bush.
With that said it is time to talk about The Elk. The explosion of local restaurants in Spokane in the last two years there has been something that I feel all of the businesses have in common. They are all off the mark.
The Elk is a much loved establishment that rides against the receding tide of business that is the standard in our industry. One of the dirty secrets of the business is that restaurants start with high sales and go down from there. The mark of a successful restaurant is how slow the decline is. In order to better illustrate why I feel this way I am going to bring in today's bicycle metaphor.
The Elk is a not a fancy bicycle, it is a workhorse, a touring bike. Built without expensive frills, designed to operate efficiently with little our no maintenance day in and day out. The Elk is built for comfort and reliability not for speed. Lots of fancy racing bikes will fly past The ELK cruiser but as time passes those rockets lose there appeal. During foul weather the Racing bikes sit at home unused, The Elk with it's fenders and wide tires handles the variety of conditions without concern.
The Elk is not old and broken down, in fact over the years many nice quality parts have been added to it, new seat, new wheels, some clipless pedals but at it's core it is still the same bike.
Many people have seen The Elk riding around town, day in and day out putting in the mileage. They want to be like The Elk. At the bike shop you don't see many Elk bikes you see row after row of fancy 14 pound carbon fiber Tour de France edition Super Bikes. Surely this would be a better choice than The Elk Model, it has twice as many gears, the latest frame geometry and eliptical chainrings. And when that bike hits the street it goes flying. Whizzing here and there and grabbing lots of headlines winning this race and that. Meanwhile The Elk keeps going, quietly making the daily commute without complications and without any hype.
So do you see where I am going with this? The non-cycling version is this: over and over again I have been in conversations with people where they say "we want to do something like The Elk". yet nothing like the Elk has come along. The problem is that in every case, the owners make it nicer than it needs to be. I understand how it sneaks up on them. When you are taking the huge gamble of opening a new restaurant you want to make sure that people like you. You become consumed with this desire to impress people. Every detail of the place is decided from the point of view of how people will react. "What does this salt shaker say about us? " Piece by piece, the owners choose components a little nicer than they need, worried about not being nice enough. In the meantime the overhead is getting bigger so the price point has to rise to meet it and without warning somehow that pub has creeped closer to fine dining. The kind of place that you go for a birthday or anniversary but not after a bike ride or gardening all day.
Am I wrong?
With that said it is time to talk about The Elk. The explosion of local restaurants in Spokane in the last two years there has been something that I feel all of the businesses have in common. They are all off the mark.
The Elk is a much loved establishment that rides against the receding tide of business that is the standard in our industry. One of the dirty secrets of the business is that restaurants start with high sales and go down from there. The mark of a successful restaurant is how slow the decline is. In order to better illustrate why I feel this way I am going to bring in today's bicycle metaphor.
The Elk is a not a fancy bicycle, it is a workhorse, a touring bike. Built without expensive frills, designed to operate efficiently with little our no maintenance day in and day out. The Elk is built for comfort and reliability not for speed. Lots of fancy racing bikes will fly past The ELK cruiser but as time passes those rockets lose there appeal. During foul weather the Racing bikes sit at home unused, The Elk with it's fenders and wide tires handles the variety of conditions without concern.
The Elk is not old and broken down, in fact over the years many nice quality parts have been added to it, new seat, new wheels, some clipless pedals but at it's core it is still the same bike.
Many people have seen The Elk riding around town, day in and day out putting in the mileage. They want to be like The Elk. At the bike shop you don't see many Elk bikes you see row after row of fancy 14 pound carbon fiber Tour de France edition Super Bikes. Surely this would be a better choice than The Elk Model, it has twice as many gears, the latest frame geometry and eliptical chainrings. And when that bike hits the street it goes flying. Whizzing here and there and grabbing lots of headlines winning this race and that. Meanwhile The Elk keeps going, quietly making the daily commute without complications and without any hype.
So do you see where I am going with this? The non-cycling version is this: over and over again I have been in conversations with people where they say "we want to do something like The Elk". yet nothing like the Elk has come along. The problem is that in every case, the owners make it nicer than it needs to be. I understand how it sneaks up on them. When you are taking the huge gamble of opening a new restaurant you want to make sure that people like you. You become consumed with this desire to impress people. Every detail of the place is decided from the point of view of how people will react. "What does this salt shaker say about us? " Piece by piece, the owners choose components a little nicer than they need, worried about not being nice enough. In the meantime the overhead is getting bigger so the price point has to rise to meet it and without warning somehow that pub has creeped closer to fine dining. The kind of place that you go for a birthday or anniversary but not after a bike ride or gardening all day.
Am I wrong?