business

It’s cheap if your workplace pays for it

Eatertainment venues are more than destinations for date nights and office parties; far more than the rudimentary arcades and bowling alleys of eras past: Resting on three axes of pleasure (food, drink, and play), they offer a seamless, satisfying, and bonafide human “experience.” Sims and Smash Park operations director Kristin Kroeger, for example, emphasized to me that Smash Park’s true appeal lies not just in pickleball but in the brand’s combined activities, full bar, “scratch-made kitchen,” and premise of social interaction, all of which alchemize into a single “legendary experience.”

Source: What’s Fueling the Success of New-Wave Eatertainment? – Eater Twin Cities

In short, they want you to suffer FOMO if you’re not there when your friends are. Minneapolis is having a bit of a boom in these venues, with the unspoken addition that landlords absolutely love them:

  • Long lease times.
  • Humongous venue sizes. Smash Park in Roseville is 30K square feet. Puttshack in Southdale Center is 25K square feet. Puttery in Minneapolis is 70K square feet
  • A lot of them require parking, helping support mandatory parking minimums. Landlords would love to bring them back after they were abolished.

A lot of these venues are also 18+ or 21+. Children are not allowed. Considering the current political environment, in a couple years there will be no children to speak of so it’ll be a moot problem… until these venues can’t hire young employees:

The labor force is expected to increase by 8.9 million, or 5.5 percent, from 2020 to 2030. The labor force of people ages 16 to 24 is projected to shrink by 7.5 percent from 2020 to 2030. Among people age 75 years and older, the labor force is expected to grow by 96.5 percent over the next decade.

Number of people 75 and older in the labor force is expected to grow 96.5 percent by 2030

All in all. they qualify as Big Business. We know US economic policy hates small businesses— although holding small business as the best of capitalism is a mistake.

Eatertainment wants to replicate the experience of you hanging out with your friends at someone’s place, drinking and eating and playing games. But you get to pay for it.

Sitting in the dark watching the screen, somewhere

Will young people — trained during the pandemic to expect instant access to new movies like “Hamilton” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” — get into the habit of going to the movies like their parents and grandparents did? Generation Z forms a crucial audience: About 33 percent of moviegoers in the United States and Canada last year were under the age of 24, according to the Motion Picture Association.

Source: Hollywood’s Obituary, the Sequel. Now Streaming. – The New York Times

Millenials and Zoomers have a little problem though… we haven’t got any money to spend. Even if there is an economic boom we will not benefit from it unless there is systemic change at all levels of government, business and society.

The cost of a single movie at the theatre will get us an entire month of streaming. The math isn’t hard.

Go big or go broke

The coffee industry suffers because its largest workforce (baristas and service staff) are often employed by the least experienced in the industry. We make it very easy for people to start cafes simply because they want to, rather than expecting them or demanding they at least know the basics of what they do. I worry we continue to set the bar too low to enter the commercial roasting business. I’m all for people being passionate about their product. I’m also passionate about people investing their energies in developing their skills before they try and leverage them in return for people’s money.

Cafe Imports and Roast Profiles « jimseven.

This is one of the reasons why coffeshops have the biggest failure rates in the whole food service industry. People don’t know how to keep the quality in their products, from acquisition to final presentation for the patron.

In which reddit explains how a cab does business

I actually drove a cab for two years and I think I know what the problem might be.

Comment posted in the thread What company has forever lost your business? Why? and includes a nice list of companies that do not deserve your business:

  • Nestle – Exploitative business practices across the world – including child labor.
  • Walmart – The douchebags of Corporate America.
  • Ticketmaster – Practically monopolized ticket sales in the US.
  • AT&T – Bad service along with bad customer service.
  • Avis – Bad service along with bad customer service.
  • Time Warner – Bad service along with bad customer service.
  • Entertainment Arts – General assholery in the gaming industry.
  • Urban Outfitters – Support of homophobic organizations and media plagiarism.
  • Papa Johns – Actively dodging Obamacare.
  • BP – Business practices which led to the Deepwater Horizon spill haven’t changed.
  • American Airlines – Bad service along with bad customer service.
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