2d ago

Household economy for muricans:

64 comments

I mean they are 100000% right about restaurants over charging for shit, the rest of that price difference sure as shit isn't going to labor
- a bunch goes to rent, gotta
  so we can have cheaper restaurants and fair wages
  
  It's actually wild how much speculation has driven up rent for businesses. I've seen pretty popular spots just get crushed by it. Petit beoug getting gobbled up by the bigger fish
  
  It's baffling more people support this system. A lot of popular shops all over my state have closed not because they weren't making money, but because they could no longer afford to rent the buildings they were in. After closing, they've sat empty for years. Landlords would rather make $0 each month than charge less rent.
  Of course, liberals and other chuds will blame nonsense like crime, immigrants, minimum wage, and so on before they blame any actual reasons.
  
  Chuds pat themselves on the back for being soooo brave to have the courage^TM to say that if all homeless people and minorities get genocided, that would solve the housing crisis?
  But the nanosecond anyone calls out landlords being greedy you’re either called a naive kid at best or you get lectured by the same people who just advocated genocide on how it’s not nice to tell landlords they have enough.
  
  It’s crazy! Like, even if for some reason we want to keep the whole landlord thing going, there are guardrails you could put up to prevent them from rotting out the cores of our cities.
  Like, make it so the current tenant gets the right to keep paying the current rate until the landlord finds someone who’s willing to pay the higher one. If someone wants it, great, fine, you can close the old business and let the new tenant open. But if you can’t find a new tenant for the higher rent, don’t let the building literally rot instead.
  
  Hmmm someone should write a book on the petty bourgeois and how they aspire to become bourgeois but are more likely to fall back down into the proletariat.
  damn shame nobody's written on this very interesting and relevant topic.
  
  I find it incredibly funny that even American forefather Adam Smith knew landlords were a blight
  
  And the businesses that bought the buildings they're in get bought by private equity and then driven out of business by renting their buildings back from their parent company.
  
  That’s my main “small business chud” talking point, ridiculous rents that drive up the base cost for absolutely everything and drive small businesses out.
  A co-workers wife has had a used bookstore for a few years, had low rent negotiated with this cool old Chinese man. He passed away, the property was sold, and their rent is jumping so much she’ll have to close.
  I foresaw this happening to them when they confided in me how precarious their business was and even then how much of what they made went towards rent despite them paying half “market value.” She doesn’t even pay herself a Salary, they just barely break even. When I asked them about it at the time it was just some nebulous future problem for them.
  
  I've tried to tell people that the demand and supply for these sort of buildings exists basically entirely uncoupled from the local conditions which are basically entirely a non-factor since more and more they're all just in some portfolio of commercial infrastructure fond where expected rent earnings over the next 40 years justify never lowering the rent because then all those earning projections just blow up. What's 2 years of no rent against 38 years of getting only half? But I'm usually assured that this multi decade spanning issue will surely see a market correction and dump all the rent prices, give it a year or two - tops.
  
  One thing to keep in mind is that often when you see vacant storefronts, what is actually happening is that the owner of the building is redeveloping it. Businesses have multi-year leases. If you want to redevelop a commercial building, you have to either pay a fortune to buy everyone out of their leases or slowly wait a few years for the building to empty out.
  You might ask why they don't offer month-to-month leases in the meantime, but there's little demand for that. If a bank is lending you money to start a restaurant, they want to see a long-term lease agreement. They're not going to lend you hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase and install a restaurant's worth of equipment in a place with a month-to-month lease. There are very few businesses that would be interested in such short-term leases. And the few that are willing aren't worth the effort for the pennies that you could get out of them. The only real rental customers for buildings that are slowly being emptied are seasonal retailers like Halloween stores.
- I know for sure the boss is still ripping me off, that's wage labor. But profit per item at a restaurant is surprisingly low. Like 20%, generally that's made up with drinks that are much higher margin. Food costs on their own are no joke. Getting bulk from a supplier isn't that much cheaper than retail and often it's the same price. Especially if you want not shitty ingredients. Labor cost can be hard to figure item by item cause sometimes one item taking more time and being harder to do prep for means someone could be doing 2 or 3 different things instead with that time and a bunch of other shit but cooks get paid fuck all, so it's for sure where they try to save as much as possible. Then there's rent and utilities. Electric and water bills are really really high, we've got a propane pizza oven kept on all day at 640 degrees, Lotta gas getting used there. Add rent on top of that. My boss could still stand to make way less to no money off my labor but restaurant overhead is a lot. I've done the costing work at a few places and when all is factored in the profit margin is lower than most things that get sold. It's made up for in volume and drink sales.
  
  From my experience in BOH/inventory, food cost (or material input, for anyone reading this who's unfamiliar with the restaurant industry) ranges from 15% to 45%.
  Any restaurant that owns its own property and has a steady flow of guests is going to be making bank. Also, any restaurant that doesn't rely on made-to-order meals is going to be more viable; this is why buffets exist.
  
  Not many restaurants own their own property or have a steady flow unless they're fast food places or chains. That's also a pretty big range. If you go to culinary school you're taught than an averaged out across all items margin is generally around 20-25%. Buffets are more viable cause they save on labor cost tho. When you're making food yo order you're still taking from larger pre prepped supplies. I'd also have to imagine a buffet would have a lot more waste, holding food at serving temperatures means it's not sellable after a couple hours and you can't cool and then reheat it the next day. That stuff gets trashed. Any time I've done buffet style shit was for catering and there was always a shitload of leftovers.

64 comments