why must every moderately successful store in the UK be immediately turned into a chain?

CAN I GET TO THE VIETNAMESE GROCERY ACROSS YOUR STREET AND BE BACK AT WORK FOR 1 DO YOU THINK?

With the exception of my butcher (apart from their burgers, which are shockingly bad), the small shops remaining in the arcade near me sell vastly expensive produce of a much lower quality than Sainsburys. Doesn't mean I don't shop there but it's a depressing experience.

it's just amazing to me that anything besides a chain is "special and fancy" to you guys

Er, where did I say that? I said I realised that Pizza Express/Chain-Restaurants'R'Us wasn't special or fancy, that doesn't extrapolate to "but everything else is".

it's just amazing to me that anything besides a chain is "special and fancy" to you guys

-- Tracer Hand, Monday, November 5, 2007 12:03 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i'd argue that it's exactly because indies in the price-range of pizza express aren't (necessarily) special and fancy that people see no reason to go with the unknown.

i mean, i know and enjoy the pork buns at the vietnamese grocery across the street and they cost like £1.10 each, and they're delicious. not sure about the "hygiene" standards there of course, they might not be quite as diligent as the 17-year-olds who clean the pizza express bathrooms

well done for living somewhere with a vietnamese grocery: possibly this is not a universal experience in britain.

Noodle Vague, not hiring a personal jet to fly from Hull to London to get a pork bun is just a monetary issue.

Tracer, seriously, just tap out and say "I have no idea of what Britain is like outside of my limited experience of professional life in London", and end it there.

i would go to the dentist to fix my bad teeth but it's raining all the time

i went to a very nice grocery store in hull actually. they sold fantastic yams and thai goodies.

Why do so many people ride on these ghastly "buses"?

Or maybe I'll just form grand metanarratives about what life is like in America based on the short clips of my flatmate's Ugly Betty DVDs I've seen.

xxxp

It may well result in lower prices but increased power and market share for larger companies doesn't benefit people in the long run. Once the competition has been squeezed out the larger stores are in control of pricing. And are we really sure prices in chains are cheap? I think it is something of a myth - the prices in Tesco Express or Sainsburys Local are very high! And as for Little Chef I have no idea how people afford to eat there.

At the other end producers have fewer customers, just bigger customers with more economic weight. We may have more choice this way but I would argue the quality of the food we eat isn't so good - looking at the uniformity of the fruit and vegetables in supermarkets is less than appealing

Even if the supermarkets priced out every small shop in the country they wouldn't be able to go "right, let's triple prices" because of anti-cartel and monopoly laws.

The point being made here is that there is this system called capitalism that is rather popular with the yoot right now.

This is like when idiot football fans wonder why Chairmen are only in it for the money.

i agree with dom: we got to do something about these folks who just come to our country, steal our jobs, and diss our pizza express.

I would argue the quality of the food we eat isn't so good

i must go and ask my 93-year-old grandmother about the wonderful range of quality food available to her in in 1930s liverpool.

mark presumably these crappy, expensive butchers will not become even moderately successful and therefore will not become chains.

xpost ok ailsa, but i do get that impression a lot. i.e. "going out to eat in the UK is a big deal" - i.e. special, fancy - UNLESS you go to low-pressure, universally-acceptable chains.

isn't it amazing how self-identified lefties can get suddenly patriotic when someone besides them "criticizes" something about their country?? (i speak from experience, here)

^^^Me - accept it's not patriotism more frustration with people who want everything right all the time and don't want to pay for it and they want a tax rebate with that and free money and the sun to shine every day.

Meanwhile...

Hotel Chocolat seems to be expanding at quite a rate and I cannot believe they will be able to maintain quality...ahem...across the brand. I don't know why that is though.

I was discussing this the other day; comparing London to NYC and Chicago and even Orlando (on the north side, not down by Universal/Disneyland). London is much more chain dominated than these US cities Starbucks is easier to find in London than New York. i think we give into the chain values thing very easily here.

There are two questions here. Why do the brits love chains more than, say, the Italians?

Why does most people founding a retail business have 'chain' in the back of their mind when they do it?

One feeds off the other, of course. It comes down to the money. The culture of money is very much get as much as you can as fast as you can. Look at the expansion rates of Leon, Bodeans, or Masala zone. No one goes out to found the best rib restaurant in town and be satisfied with that and the money it brings in. I think people measure their success now, not by absolute sums of money, but by growth rates.

i do get that impression a lot. i.e. "going out to eat in the UK is a big deal" - i.e. special, fancy - UNLESS you go to low-pressure, universally-acceptable chains.

-- Tracer Hand, Monday, November 5, 2007 12:16 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

that's kind of about right -- proper restaurants require booking and shit.

eating out was a big deal when i was growing up, and as dom will attest, i'm fairly middle-class.

dom i have been to bishop's stortford, that was enough for me

i haven't been to orlando, new york, or chicago, but damn, this culture of money is some bad shit and must be stopped.

Maybe we should nuke 'em all.

And their mewling brats too.

I've been to all three places.

I have no point to make, just wanted to say that.

money, capitalism, it's just none of it working out really.

Did I say that.

I think there has been a change in the culture of money over the last 10-20 years, which is interesting to note, whether it is wrong or right.

Further question - does the rise in chains contribute to the concentration of wealth and the decline in social mobility over the same period?

No.

i must go and ask my 93-year-old grandmother about the wonderful range of quality food available to her in in 1930s liverpool.

This doesn't mean the food that is in our shops and restaurants is of a good quality. It may be a different issue - but the spraying and coloring and storage of today's food isn't something I think is good for our health

yeah, going out to eat was a big deal when i was little too - even if it was to taco bell - going out is always fun, an event

I was quite astounded by some documentary recently that claimed Long life milk, GM crops and so on were more green, because of the economies of scale implicit in being able to store absolutely tons of it for long periods.

I mean, yeah I know what they are saying, but then...

it's an interesting question re social mobility. devil's advocate: running a shop you hand on to your kids isn't doing much for social mobility. (a lot of local shops are franchises now, i suppose.) but working up through the ranks of tescos could be.

xpost

Well, most of the "evidence" to the contrary is bullshit so yeah why not?

The kind of unique and independent eaterie we should be encouraging:

http://edwinmak.com/?p=260

In the US it seems obesity is something that strikes the poorer sections of society. Given that we are agreed that supermarkets bring greater choice at lower prices, is this something of a surprise?

So we should keep the peasants away from discount cakes for their own protection.

I just wasn't sure if we were supposed to be blaming poor people for being overweight, or whether the increased access to better foods at lower costs was helping them

I think we should blame them for being overweight and for eating awful frozen food in poorly designed restaurants.

i have attempted to eat at enis's but didn't have enough time to stay and sit and wait for the incredibly slow service - instead i got fish and chips to go at "fishcoteque" - but yeah it feels like a portal to another dimension

noodle i don't know wtf this thread has to do with "poor people"

or "peasants" as you say

In the US it seems obesity is something that strikes the poorer sections of society. Given that we are agreed that supermarkets bring greater choice at lower prices, is this something of a surprise?

-- cedar, Monday, November 5, 2007 12:32 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

wow.

i think sometimes it's nice to attribute human agency to poor folks.

I was responding to cedar's post about "poor fatteys".

If you don't see how criticising chain restaurants and cheap food might have class implications, you really are being disingenuous tho.

Criticising it in the way you did, specifically. Like it's just a question of bad taste.

The chain restaurant phenomenon isn't restricted to the bottom end of the market, we have chicken Cottage up through, Nandos, Pizza Express, Giraffe and Bodeans all the way through to Conran or Gordon Ramsey's portfolio of restaurants.

Damn, now I'm hungry.

Actually I agree re:human agency.

So why do lower income groups in the US have higher rates of obesity?

wagamama is pretty good but i agree with the thrust of what tracer says in this thread.

the rich ones seem pretty fat too, to be fair.

xpost

xpost

So am I and I think I am going to cycle of for a non-chain chinese bun, but last time I did this I was diverted by the chain Bodeans, it could happen again especially as today is a day for burnt ends.

In America, streets are paved with cheese.

noodle vague in what way is wagamama "cheap"?????

Posh dirty chicken

The start of this thread is awesome. It really sorts the good from the bad and the ugly.

^^solid, substantive argument, like it.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40871000/jpg/_40871308_cleese.jpg

i mean, i know and enjoy the pork buns at the vietnamese grocery across the street and they cost like £1.10 each, and they're delicious. not sure about the "hygiene" standards there of course, they might not be quite as diligent as the 17-year-olds who clean the pizza express bathrooms

basically what i am saying, is that you are all unimaginative, lazy bastards.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, November 5, 2007 12:07 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^with classic shit like this, how could we compete?

RIP

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/22/casual-dining-crunch-jamies-italian-strada-byron-struggling

“I ate in the Liverpool Jamie’s two months ago and it was possibly the worst meal I’ve ever had. It was appalling. I ordered what was supposed to be sausage ragout. It looked like boiled tomatoes with overcooked pasta, and it tasted the same.”

quelle fucking surprise. His recipes are 90% garbage when you don't cut corners with them.

i'd be up for reading a full interview with this guy ranting about horrible chain restaurants.

Reaction to Tracer's original post itt pretty unfair imo.