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There’s a very interesting and common restaurant business paradigm that I have observed living in Ajijic over the last few years. It has become quite a trend which new restaurant owners like to copy -- a business plan with an unusual twist – an unfairly maligned final step known as “going out of business”.
What is this paradigm? Here are the steps for this popular business model:
1) Open up a restaurant. Hire really nice, efficient staff. Serve generous portions of good, fresh food. Keep prices reasonable.
2) Wait three months until you have acquired a large, happy, loyal clientele.
3) Fire the really nice, efficient staff and replace them with either rude or just plain disinterested staff. Serve half portions with canned or frozen substitutes. Double prices.
4) Go out of business.
5) Rinse and repeat.
I could list over a dozen of these failed restaurants – or rather, successful restaurants if they are following the above business model. There are several which are still here but will soon follow in their competitors’ footsteps because they are just oh so close to accomplishing Step 4.
Baguette’s was a good example. Nice, relaxed atmosphere, friendly service, and decent inexpensive food. And then “Mr. X” took it over. Mr. X wanted to make a lot of money real fast. He was a smart business man, after all. Mr. X decided that the old nachos, made with fresh tortilla chips, real melted cheese, jalapenos and guacamole, were spoiling his customers. Those people and their fancy, high falootin’ needs! Mr. X could make a lot more money if he replaced that with wholesale stale Doritos and partially melted lumps of Velveeta. And forget the guacamole! What would his customers expect next? Diamonds sprinkled on top? Oh yes, and replace those regular size wine glasses with barbie doll goblets. Who would notice? And then as Mr. X surveyed his empty restaurant day after day after day, reflecting on the odd aroma he was detecting from having his head so far up his posterior, his quaint little restaurant quietly went out of business.
Then there is a place that is still up and running. The owner is currently only halfway through Step 3. So that it remains anonymous, I’ll use my expert secret code skills and refer to this restaurant as Shmel Shmjardin. A formerly delightful place where I used to spend my pesos at least three times a week. Here are some positive qualities that it still possesses: It’s in an awesome location, and their food is edible and reasonably priced. Here WAS the most important quality they possessed: One of the friendliest, most efficient wait staff ever. This was the reason my friends and I patronized this restaurant so frequently. But I could see all along that there was a problem with all this. Some people think high class means being aloof and condescending. It is an interesting phenomenon that many people believe all over the world. Thank goodness the owners came around and realized that we don’t want to eat in some folksy place where people annoy you by greeting you effusively and making sure you are happy with your meal. How pedestrian. What we really want is to be treated like crap. And so the original wait staff, all of whom showed an extreme lack of class by the ridiculously friendly and efficient way in which they behaved, was fi... uh, were abruptly allowed to not work there any more. And now the restaurant is filled with a delightfully aloof, and occasionally rude (you pay extra for that) staff who is totally indifferent to your petty desires, such as asking for mayonnaise on the side, or, say, wanting some silverware.
And so I say to the owners of Shmel Shmjardin, “Shmgood shmluck!” Sadly, I will not be returning to your restaurant, and neither will many other people I know. It’s too high class for us. Enjoy reaching Step 4 of the most popular business paradigm in town!
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