The Local "Mid-list" Restaurant

N.B — I originally planned for this post to include reviews for Toast Paninoteca and Six Plates Wine Bar.  But as this post is already long and complicated, and your eyes are probably already glazing over, I think I'll leave that for another time. 

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There's a plethora of moderately priced restaurants out there that I never write about and rarely visit.  I refer to them collectively as T.J. McFlanafluckers: all the Chipotle Mexican Grills, Ruby Tuesdays, Fuddruckers, and Olive Gardens of the world.  These places are chain mid-list restaurants: they fit in-between (say) eating leftovers at home, and going out for dinner on a special occasion at a special restaurant. 

Between the low-end chain and the mid-list chain, a lot of mom-and-pop grills, home-town restaurants, greasy spoons, and interesting startups have just about been pounded out of existence.  Perhaps "good riddance" is the right thing to say about some of them, because they weren't uniformly good.  But some were: some offered different things; some made something in a way that was exactly right for you; perhaps some offered a comfortable niche, or the best damn coffee in town. 

There's a reason: money.  Money doesn't make the world go round; people do.  But those who subscribe to the belief tend to be those who drive business.  Those folks, for better or worse, have a lot to do with making the world go round.  The rest of us carefully husband our purchasing power; as we do, the folks with the lowest profit margins, or with the smallest cushions for adversity, are driven out.

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There are different ways to look at work, businesses, and their products.  One way I like is described in The Nature and Art of Workmanship by David Pye.  Pye writes mostly from the perspective of woodworking, but he draws two sets of distinctions, or continua, that I've found I can apply to damn near anything, and have informed the way I think about the world:

1. "workmanship of certainty" ↔ "workmanship of risk"
2. "regulated work" ↔ "free/rough work"

An example of "workmanship of certainty" might be a factory-made car, or a glass jar for canning: every step in production leads inexorably to a pre-determined, exact result.  Very little of the work product or raw materials are at risk during the process.

An example of "workmanship of risk" might be someone with a hammer and chisel, carving a chunk of stone into a statue, or a parent at home fixing dinner from scratch. 

An example of "regulated work" might again be a car, or a watch, or a beautiful, handmade, Windsor chair: every step, whether automated or not, has to be very precise, and results in a very exact product.

An example of "rough work" or "free work" might be cutting a tree down with an axe, or fingerpainting a mural on your wall at home. 

Please keep in mind that these distinctions are independent of mass production, or considerations of quality.  All of these things can be done well or badly, quickly or slowly.  But free and rough work, and workmanship of risk, tend to lead to diversity in the environment.  Both workmanship of certainty and highly regulated work tend to lead toward mass production and an erasure of diversity (generally speaking).

Also, while rough work is imprecise, it's not necessarily bad, and sometimes necessary.  Similarly, precise work is not necessarily good, or what's needed. 

Once I got these distinctions straight in my mind, my head exploded as I realized how they could be applied.  For instance:

• Why would Hollywood rather throw $150,000,000 at a blockbuster than $150,000 toward an independent film?
• Why do today's buildings all tend to look the same?
• Why do people eat at McDonald's?

Both people and businesses tend to be risk-averse.  Someone who wants to minimize risk, and is hungry, might want to eat at McDonald's: for a small amount of cash, they pretty much know what they're going to get, even if they're 10,000 miles from home. 

Someone who wants to sell a billion hamburgers in a year while minimizing risk might design a business like McDonald's or Burger King. 

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10 or 15 years ago, it seemed like there was a trend toward what were called mid-list restaurants: places that had prices and food in-between specialty destinations and sustenance.  They weren't all chains.  But where are they now?  There aren't many of them.  Most of the ones that are around tend to be the above-mentioned chains, specializing in packaging the optimum amount of salt and fat into a supposedly edible package with the least risk for themselves and least risk in choice for the consumer.  If they're not a chain, maybe they're forced to the low end: reducing prices, service, and choice, while retaining customers.  Or perhaps they're forced upward: charging more, while customizing more and offering more, better, or more specialized food. 

I do not think the mom-and-pop business is totally dead.  Neither is the mom-and-pop restaurant.  I do worry about them dying, because I see so few of them.  They are where a lot of creativity, ferment, and change is going to happen.  And most large businesses start as small businesses.  Some will survive, and some won't.  But in my mind — maybe because I'm easily bored, or maybe because I think too much — these places are crucial to my world.  They're real places, run by real people, with real food, local character, and local money.  They're constantly in danger of being smashed by (say) a new Subway or a new supermarket's "new" fried chicken, or maybe by being bought out or expanded beyond recognition.  They're worth my attention, and my money.  Maybe I'll occasionally get a bad meal, or a place that's closed when I want them to be open, or doesn't offer exactly what I want.  But what's the alternative? 

Tripp's.
Chili's.
Wendy's.
KFC.

No, they're not bad, in one sense.  But in another, they're stultifying. 

Do you really want to shop just at Wal-Mart for the rest of your life?  How about eating there, or someplace like it?

Think about it. 

Comments

[Kira]

...so are you recommending that we go out and support the non-chain places that are interesting and good? I'm all for that! I saw that concept work amazingly well in Clermont-Ferrand (where Alex's family lives in France). The vast majority of the restaurants are NOT chains *gasp!* and so are interesting in their own right. But they have a different mentality from us. We seem to love familiarity. Our country is big, we have to move around, but when we do move, damnit, at least there's a Chili's, a Target, and a Home Depot when we get there to make it feel like home! They, on the other hand, love small, independent stores. Of course there are a few chains here and there, but the big draw is the tiny store around the corner. I like that. It's way more interesting.

The only two fast food hamburger style restaurants I saw there were McDs and Quicks (I think that one is a Belgian chain). KFC tried, and they died except a few places in southern France. Pizza Hut was largely driven off too. The people there make sure that they support these interesting places to eat, these tiny holes in the wall (that still have atmosphere, though, because they are very aesthetically oriented), and so they don't disappear.

What do you make of places that aren't chains but are all spinoffs of each other and owned by the same folks?

[Joe Eater]

Maybe I'm doing a little recommending, but I'm also pointing out part of the economics and some other dynamics of the situation. I don't actually think that chains like Wal-Mart or McDonald's are necessarily evil, especially with respect to the person who's shopping there because they really need to save that extra five cents.

The David Pye book I talk about: I wish there were some way to get everyone I know to read it. He does a much better job than I explaining the situation with no moral overtones (I didn't really try to do that). It's clear that the world isn't going to get along without, say, major car manufacturers or huge food companies. But he does a really good job of pointing out the differences between their production and the production of a single individual: workmanship of risk, in other words. He also points out really well how workmanship of certainty, when coupled with mass production, is just, well, boring.

Chains: the line between a chain and a single store is not so clear. If the guys who own Pop's here in Durham open another Pop's on the other side of town, does that mean it's a chain? What about if they open one in Los Angeles? What about when they opened Rue Cler: did that make them a chain? I had an IM conversation today with Varmint (of VarmintBites) about a Mexican restaurant in Raleigh that looks exactly like a chain, except it isn't. What the hell do you make of that? They're trying to draw customers who would go someplace like Taco Bell or McDonald's, but have never heard of their place before. Weird.

[Miles]

I love eating at the unique, risk/free-work-side places, but I think you have a great point about how those places are driven toward either more certainty/regulation, or higher prices, and that means I get priced out of alot of restaurants that I would typically support enthusiastically. It makes a huge difference in my dining budget when you go from $20-30 (Elmo's) for my wife and I, to $30-40+ (Pop's). Don't get me wrong--Elmo's is one of my favorites--but there's a big difference on that spectrum you are talking about.

[Fritz]

The strangest chain style place I have eaten in lately was the Red Robin over near New Hope Commons.
I had gone over to pick up a book at Barnes and Noble and hunger pangs got the best of me.
I had a rather large cheeseburger nothing special but sitting in that place made me dizzy. Ballons everywhere flipped out colors strange posters everywhere wierd. wierd ..wierd...

[Varmint]

Actually, the Mexican restaurant that I ended up visiting (and I'm NOT talking about the birrieria) wasn't like a Taco Bell, but more like an El Rodeo, which are omnipresent and blandly uniform. It was packed because it was exactly like El Rodeo and 2/3 of the other Mexican joints around her.

[Joe Eater]

Miles: I'd prefer to take my chances at places that look like non-chains too. But low prices can be on either side: chains and other restaurant groupings get to exploit some economies of scale that single restaurants don't. So it's kind of a crapshoot WRT prices.

Locally, Pop's is an interesting case: When they opened back in the 90s, they seemed more like a mid-list restaurant. I think one of the ways they've survived is by crawling to the top of the heap, and being able to charge more because of it. When I started eating there, entrees ran from $7 to $12. Now it's more like $14 to $20. There's 10 or 12 years of inflation to factor in, but it still seems like they've gone from middle tier to upper tier in terms of pricing. But it's still worth it to me (and apparently a lot of other people).

Fritz: Haven't tried them yet. I might get the nerve up to go in one day. :)

Varmint: Thanks for the clarification on the Mexican place.