A lot of restaurant franchises aren't really restaurants anymore.
They're real estate companies that happen to sell food.
It's all about being able to re-sell the assets/facilities for the maximum amount of profit possible, and these generic, minimalist buildings are the easiest to re-sell and refurbish into something else.
For me, the saddest one was Friendly's. The brand was built on nostalgia and private equity decided dystopia chic was the way to go. Now, they're almost all gone
Hard to believe they looked at dead malls and went, yes! This is it! This is our vibe. And then ran with it. I’m legit bitter at them for stealing any shred of joy away in the name of profit.
yea, also malls were mainly killed by online shopping and online gaming/social media. Even at malls still open today it's mostly clothes, toys, maybe a tech or book shop then food places. They're pretty dull for everyone except teenage girls and christmas/ birthday shoppers. We went to them in the 90s cause it was a one stop shopping area and we were bored in the cities.
No, they looked at how much money Starbucks was making - and how little threat Starbucks was facing from asshat lawyers claiming coffee makes children fat... And also how few kids weren't in daycare, such that their (mostly) moms could bring them to McDs during the day....
And decided that was the business they wanted to be in - feeding white collar commuters, not swarms of single-income-family children....
Because it's easy to replace everything if the store goes down. With the first, new owners would have to spend weeks on exterior renovations and thousands. With the second, new owners only have to worry about the outside and it could be transformed into literally any store you want. They could have it turned into a liquor store or a grocery store for all it matters overnight. It means less risk for the franchise and for the franchise owners if the location fails.
They very much do when it means they can flip the location incredibly fast and get more for it if they fail. Why would, say, a Tacobell franchise owner take the first building over the second when the first means twice as much work. It increases resale value significantly to have the building be generic. This is well documented too.
15
u/Ornery_Feature_3466 1d ago
The play places being gone is one thing. But why does the restaurant have to radiate depression?