Did someone say "picatta"?
Posted on 03/04/2013 11:31:50 AM PST by Kaslin
High gasoline prices coupled with 2% payroll tax hikes is going to take a bite out of restaurant sales this year. For some chains the slump has already started.
Consider Darden Restaurants, the owner of Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steak House. Darden Restaurant Traffic is down an average 4.5, with Red Lobster leading the pack down 7.5%.
Smaller Plates, Cheaper Items at Olive Garden
At Olive Garden, Smaller, Cheaper Plates are on the way, along with new uniforms including a more contemporary black button-down shirt and black slacks.
Don't worry, endless breadsticks remain.
Olive Garden is also creating a new logo and toning down its the "Old World Style" Tuscan stonework and wooden archways that have been a signature part of Olive Garden restaurants since 2000.
Saturation Everywhere
The main problem is saturation. I see endless miles of restaurants on strips nearby. Those restaurants include Steak & Shake, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Pizza Hut, Subway, China Express, Chili's, Chipotle, Panera, and other chains intermixed with some local eateries.
If the problem is saturation (and it is), spending money on architecture style changes, creating a new logo, and the new uniform changes is a waste of money, especially the architectural revisions.
People want good food, fast friendly service, and good value.
To pick up market share, restaurants need to lower prices, not make logo changes. And lower prices will take a bite out of earnings. One final point: as soon as restaurants stop expanding (and they will), the hiring will stop with it.
Those who thought Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was not serious in his pledge to defeat deflation (and destroy the Yen in the process) need think again.
Haruhiko Kuroda (Abe's nominee to head Japan's central bank) pledges to do Whatever Needed to Combat Japan Deflation.
Haruhiko Kuroda, nominated to be the next Bank of Japan governor, said that a central bank under his leadership would do whatever is needed to combat 15 years of deflation.Mother of all Pyrrhic Victories
“I would like to make my stance clear that we will do whatever we can do,” Kuroda, the president of the Asian Development Bank, said in a confirmation hearing in the parliament in Tokyo today.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s nomination of Kuroda has raised expectations for more aggressive monetary easing to revive the world’s third-biggest economy after Masaaki Shirakawa exits the job on March 19. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan, the largest party in the upper house, has signaled it will back Kuroda, easing his passage through a split parliament.
Kuroda said in an interview this month that falling prices exacerbate real debt burdens, and give an incentive to companies and households to postpone spending. Consumer prices excluding fresh food fell 0.2 percent in January. The price gauge hasn’t advanced 2 percent -- the central bank’s new target -- for any year since 1997, when a national sales tax was increased.
Smarter former restaurant customers preparing for bond collapse, skyrocketing interest rates, “haircuts” for both bond investors and pensioners, repudiation of debt, huge downward currency adjustments, being laid off, foreclosures, etc. The USA won’t be able to afford pork for most government and government-linked employees then.
Sorry, I’m just in the mood to gross you people out with the illegal aliens serving and handling your food.
I just wish we had one good restaurant! LOL.
Closest good Mexican restaurant is in Clinton, so I get there once a year.
I don’t know how some people consider Olive Garden “real” Italian food????
I went once with my daughter to our Olive garden, but we left because I couldn’t decide what to order
Go to ‘ In and Out” Burger
We have a place like that here.
Funny thing is they buy mainly local produce and meat (in season) so you have an old Mexican man and an old Iowan of Norwegian stock trying to discuss prices.
I have seen it a few times. It seems to end with them both having a beer and laughing.
I think the only thing I would enjoy would be the soup,salad and the fake breadsticks...LOL
I'm sure they meant to say "coupled with the restoration of President Obama's 2% payroll tax reduction in advance of the 2010 election..."
-PJ
I'll second that. I went a couple weeks ago for a coworker's birthday. It's her favorite restaurant. I hadn't been in one in more than a decade. Portions were tiny, prices exhorbitant, quality lousy.
We have learned to make some really good salsa and pico de gallo with fresh ingredients via the Mexican groceries here. Our problem is finding good chips that compare to restaurant style chips. The grocery that caters to the Mexican population sells ok chips that we heat, but they are just not the same.
I am surprised there are no Mexican restaurants there. Everywhere we have lived, we have found decent Mexican places. It has been so long since I was in your area that I can’t think of ANY restaurants much less good ones.
I miss the veal piccatta
Salad bowl and pasta figioli suits my diet and my taste
Nice strategy! :-)
Did someone say "picatta"?
As in Richard m. Nixon?
I recommend flour tortilla chips. Only place I’ve had them.......caballo blanco sacramento
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