I think you are putting too much blame on the customer and ignore the toxic environment restaurants have created on their own. There are so many fees, add-ons etc in addition to the “regular” price that it feels often very deceptive from owners/employees and their expectations of still getting 25% tips on all of that. Very often now you have 5-7% fees and have often got a disapproving look when you are not paying more than 20% tip. So you are more or less have a 33% price increase by restaurants from their printed prices. Yes. restaurants work on tight margins but if your business plan is to squeeze every penny out of your customer you might have created a non-sufficient business plan and perhaps such a restaurant (like every other company in other fields) isn’t meant to stick around
All due respect, have you been to 88 Club?
As a big fan of Mei Lin’s it is not good dare I say medicore. Not to mention extremely expensive.
This is not some mom and pop shop that Bill is “taking down”. This is a place in the middle of Beverly Hills that really has 0 creativity or the boldness and flavors we are used to from Mei.
In many ways, I will take Bill’s reviews more seriously after he wrote I agreed with nearly 100% for the most part.
Again, have you been there?
I’m sorry but that is not restaurants “creating a toxic environment.” Literally have not visited a restaurant this year that has those fees, because a ton of them have done away with them or opened without them after consumer backlash. Now they are charging what they have to to survive, and we sre saying restaurants are too expensive. And yes, I do put a lot of blame on the customer–the fact that our ecosystem supports “food vigilantism” in the form of takedown merchants at the same rate as one of the most well known food critics in America, and at more than double the rate of the best homegrown chef of his generation, should tell you a lot about how restaurants is being consumed, and where the appetite is. Again, all I am saying is I am tired of people crying when good places close when we are not playing a part in providing an environment for them to stay open.
Than LA is different than SF - I can’t remember the last time a restaurant here didn’t have extra fees
But that would mean that you don’t think many restaurants are mismanaged - and I guess that’s where we are disagreeing. I think the very large majority of restaurant closures have nothing to do with the “bad” customer but simply bad business background of many restaurant owners
I have, actually! And I think if that is your retort you are missing my point.
Back to the subject at hand. Birdie G’s. A good restaurant from one of the best chefs of his generation. And when it closes, please do look back at the comments–zero comments about the food, several about the area, parking, the space, “toxic environments that restaurants have created.” It’s an extremely entitled viewpoint, and until something changes, we will have fewer and fewer compelling places to eat. Has that not been the pattern in LA for years now? How’d we go from being the toast of the food world ten years ago to where we are now? People started cooking worse food? Please.
I worked in restaurants for nearly 20 years, 15 in kitchens. The idea that I am unaware that many restaurants are mismanaged is a little crazy. But they’ve always been, everywhere. Places are closing by the dozen NOW, in LA. So what has changed. I would argue a lot about the climate has.
There are structural factors and secular trends, but I know that doesn’t fit into your Calvinist worldview of sinful diners.
I don’t think you can blame the public for Birdie G closing except in the sense that a restaurant in that location with 180 seats would need to be unrealistically popular to survive.
Don’t think I missed your point! Expensive restaurants should be given way less lee-way with reviews . Even Birdie G’s is significantly less pricey than 88 club.
I have asked people to acknowledge that they play a role in the restaurant ecosystem and do better by restaurants if they want to keep good restaurants. Call it whatever you want.
I don’t think so but the economic situation has actually deteriorated over last 5-6 years (even under Biden the situation wasn’t by far all rosy with many indicators not showing in the right directions for certain sub-types of industries) and the last 6 months really accelerating the bad situation in a really horrible one. And I don’t think that we have even started to see the full extent of the impact of a really bad economy on the restaurant scene anywhere in the US
I think a lot of people have enjoyed benefiting from the food/restaurant bubble of the last so many years and encouraged it to grow while having very little stake in the consequences of said bubble popping
Reminds me in a way of comedians talking about various boom times and down turns over the years.
LA is a vast sprawling metropolis with terrible public transportation. It does seem like there are less closings of well established highly acclaimed restaurants in SF, NY and Chicago but I’m not as in the know in these cities. The other major cities are much less spread out.
People on the board are from LA, OC, IE and the valley. We post about all these great restaurants but it’s not realistic to visit many of these places frequently from a logistics standpoint not even taking into account finances. When I lived on Robertson and Pico I’d very rarely go west of the 405 or to anywhere east DTLA. Now that I live in the OC 90% of my dining budget is spent within 20 min drive of my house.
Many of the other factors like economy, difficult parking, added fees just add to the difficulty of maintaining a successful restaurant. It’s tough out there and some of the recent/upcoming economic data does not look promising.
Perhaps in the last few days, but I did write about my experience there:
It was sufficiently off-putting (esp for the price) that I actually wrote to management about it, after I wrote my review (I didn’t reference my post in my e-mail to management). Management responded kindly, but I have had little interest in taking them up on their offer b/c of the other, non-food issues mentioned (like the area) and b/c I’m worried that the next experience might be a repeat of the first.
I must’ve just been an off-day when I went, b/c, TBH, just based on that one experience, I have been completely baffled by everyone else’s repeatedly splendid meals there.
I went twice: first time I loved, second time was still pretty good but service wasn’t great.
They just could never find out their “signatures”. People read about their lamb dish which I loved.. and then it just vanished.
Would have loved to keep going, but there was an insecurity with the food they were putting out imo and of course that massive space that required a semi-drive to get to. It’s a shame, very much of one of a kind restaurant.
I play a part in the restaurant ecosystem but I am, by most measures, poorer thanks to inflation from the last few years and salaries staying flat. I’m not special in that regard — I think a lot of diners are a lot worse off financially than they used to be, in relative and absolute terms. My industry is particularly hard hit right now (not film/tv) and so our corporate cards are also poorer, in a meaningful sense.
I also want to support the restaurant industry but at this point, it’s about apportioning a shrinking budget to a select few places. There’s plenty of toxicity in food media in general, but I think honest reviews are helpful for everyone.
It really does seem like for Birdie G’s, the large size (180 seats) and lack of parking were contributing factors.
Everybody is poorer (including restaurant staff, for whom restaurant food prices also need to increase to keep afloat)
I think LA geography also plays a big part
I believe the public is learning how to cook more .And going out to eat less . More comfortable to stay home not dealing with traffic, etc. .. But sometimes you just want to be served.
Did I blame the public for Birdie G’s closing? Or have people gotten defensive over me arguing that just maybe diners play a role in creating these unfavorable conditions? At nearly every turn people have blamed restaurants themselves. Only one person has even acknowledged being a part of the ecosystem in which restaurants operate. I don’t see how that doesn’t prove my point.
Birdie G’s is literally just on the other side of an E line stop. Less than a 5 minute walk. That is what I took the time I went there when they opened (My Yoga teacher was a server there).
No doubt that there are many things to blame including just general changes in dining habits. I remember when Sawtelle had just as many boutiques than restaurants. Then folks started shopping online. A lot of young people who work with me now are not as enamored at eating out like the group I mentored 10 years ago, be it a money thing, a diet thing or time thing. You see this in retail, in car buying, even home buying. A lot of people now are just willingly opting out.
I do put a lot of blame on the customer … I am tired of people crying when good places close when we are not playing a part in providing an environment for them to stay open.