Save Bistro Elan

http://paulgraham.com/saveelan.html

by revorad • 15 years ago

79 31 15 years ago

paulgraham.com

rbanffy4• 15 years ago

Would there be a way for those regulars to pool their resources into a non-profit that would keep the place alive?

ltamake• 15 years ago

Was thinking about this. Sort of a "donation fund" to save the restaurant.

rbanffy4• 15 years ago

Maybe there is already a non-profit willing to preserve such things. I don't live nearby (in fact, I live in another country) so I can't really say how meaningful the restaurant is to the history of Palo Alto (I'll take pg's word) and its preservation may really interest some already existing entity.

thisuser• 15 years ago

The logical conclusion of the intuition to save this restaurant from rentiers is that all of the FIRE industries should be owned by the community that enables them, not private hands of a few psychopaths.

shii2• 15 years ago

Psychopaths?

aarghh• 15 years ago

This is Kepler's all over again.

rbanffy4• 15 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%27s_Books

thaumaturgy3• 15 years ago

...wait, you mean cool startups that are getting lots of help & attention & funding actually need a place to eat? Gee, it's a shame nobody's as interested in providing support to those businesses (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2609076).

It's unlikely that this business can be saved; if they're anything like most such small shops, they've been struggling for a long time without any of the kind of support that sexy YC startups receive. They likely have razor-thin margins and not a lot of money in the bank; getting their rent raised on them is just the straw breaking their back. They'll "pivot", but only as much as their meager resources will allow.

I've seen way too many good small businesses just completely fall over lately, but since they don't offer the kind of investment opportunity that the next Google does, nobody cares.

...unless it happens to be their favorite little sandwich shop.

dstein2• 15 years ago

How long until pg starts up FoodCombinator to help restaurant entrepreneurs disrupt the food industry?

shii2• 15 years ago

How does the food industry need disruption? Payment processing and things like that are one thing, smaller parts like menu ordering, recommendations, etc are things already being tackled all over the place...but how else would you disrupt the restaurant system? Genuinely interested in the topic and opinions.

shawnee_• 15 years ago

It's not the food industry that needs disrupted; it's the real estate industry. The small ethnic dining establishments operated by first or second generation immigrants tend to be easy targets for real estate scum. The landlords suck up all their profit; the immigrants just do what they do best: work hard without complaining.

tzs2• 15 years ago

I once spent some time thinking about a way to help restaurant entrepreneurs (and make some money off of them). I didn't think of the analogy to YCombinator, but it is kind of the same idea. Here's my idea.

You build a restaurant, with a special kitchen. The kitchen is split into 4 or so separate work area, each fully equipped and with room for a chef and his assistants to work. There is one shared pantry and shared big walk in refrigerator. Each of the separate work areas has its own smaller pantry and fridge.

Each of the separate work areas is run by a separate chef, who leases the spot from you. There is a single menu, with a section for each chef's dishes, and the menu makes sure to prominently name the chefs.

You handle front of house. You also handle the wine, and maybe you also run a bar. You also keep the shared pantry and fridge stocked with all the ingredients that should be found in any fine restaurant's kitchen. (The individual chefs deal with stocking any speciality ingredients they need). Decor, advertising, and basically everything else other than composing the menu and cooking the food is handled by you.

The chefs set the prices in their section of the menu. You handle all the money, calculating each chef's share and paying them. You deal with the accounting, taxes, and all that.

The idea here is that a young, talented chef who doesn't yet have the resources to go out and open a restaurant can lease a spot in your food incubator, where all he has to worry about is covering 1/4th of a menu with fine food and building up a following. When he's well known and people are coming in just to eat his food, he can go off and start his own restaurant (perhaps with an investment from you--you've had a chance to see how he is as a chef, and to see at least some of his management skills by watching him manage his assistants).

Note also that this is a good place for the diners. When you are going out with someone, and you want Italian and they want Mexican, why argue about it? Go to the food incubator and one of you can order from the Italian chef's part of the menu and one from the Mexican chef's part of the menu. Think of it as essentially the fine dining or gourmet equivalent of the food court.

The beauty of this is that there are ALWAYS going to be young chefs who want to get out from being an anonymous sous chef at someone else's restaurant and move up to their own place, and so there should always be chefs eager to lease a spot at your food incubator to get that started. If they succeed, great! If they fail, there's someone else to take their place--and since you are making your money out of leasing space to them, you make money in either case. (On top of what you are getting for the wine and bar).

kmfrk• 15 years ago

We'll probably have to retire terms like "eat your own dog food", though.

rbanffy4• 15 years ago

I am not familiar with restaurant prices in California, but theirs seem low. Can't a raise in prices compensate for the rent? Would that make them less competitive compared to surrounding places? For how long until those places have to raise prices too?

http://www.bistroelan.com/Bistro_Elan/Dinner_menu.html

Also, can they expand and start serving dinner at the Birch St location, partly subsidizing the operation at the California Avenue place?

dagw2• 15 years ago

On the one hand I get that losing your favorite restaurant kind of sucks, but on the other hand is it really worthwhile to artificially keep alive a company that cannot survive on its own. Also if the place is as good as pg seems to indicate then the people involved will no doubt find a new kitchen to call home and will be serving the food you love in short order. I mean my favorite Japanese place has closed down twice in recent times, but the head chef, and the reason the places where awesome, is still cooking.

pg• 15 years ago

It's doing fine as a business. The landlord is trying to take advantage of them by raising the rent dramatically. Restaurants aren't very mobile.

dagw2• 15 years ago

Restaurants aren't very mobile.

Depends on what defines a restaurant, is it the building or the people. While the building itself isn't mobile, the people who run the restaurant certainly are. If the manager, head chef, sous chef, maitre d', and a few other key people where to close up shop at their current location and set up a new place serving the same food a couple of blocks down the road, wouldn't that count as mobile. Sure it will cost a bit of cash upfront, but if they can negotiate a better deal on the rent, they'll quickly make that back.

aaronblohowiak2• 15 years ago

For a tastier and more intimate (literally mom and pop) experience, I prefer le petit bistro on el camino.

djm• 15 years ago

There are probably quite a few regulars at Bistro Elan who could buy the building and become their new landlord

PG: Have you considered buying it yourself? I'm assuming that you are one of those regulars and can probably afford it. You said the business was doing well in another comment so I assume they could continue paying you rent at their current rate.

staunch• 15 years ago

Maybe some of the PayPal Mafia could "take care" of the problem. I mean, ya know, buy the building or something.

Save Bistro Elan

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