Eataly impressions??? (landlord, restaurant, club)

[chet everett]

Wow, I think if so many folks of different view agree on the flakiness of the ampersand mindset lots of these places are living on borrowed time...

The failure of Fox and Obel certainly was influenced by some differences in how how residential and office uses develeoped in that neighborhood vs more tourist oriented uses. I do think that the Eatly people are much more focused on the tourist set, for better or worse...

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Wow, I think if so many folks of different view agree on the flakiness of the ampersand mindset lots of these places are living on borrowed time...

I do agree that the proliferation of "&" in the name of bars/restaurants is stupid. It certainly won't stop me from going to a place IF it is good.

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

I do agree that the proliferation of "&" in the name of bars/restaurants is stupid. It certainly won't stop me from going to a place IF it is good.

Very true. Actually I think the ampersand thing has been over for awhile now - I can't think of any that have opened in the last year (at least in the area Chet is talking about), and there were maybe a dozen at most during the peak of the trend.

Originally Posted by chet everett

The failure of Fox and Obel certainly was influenced by some differences in how how residential and office uses develeoped in that neighborhood vs more tourist oriented uses. I do think that the Eatly people are much more focused on the tourist set, for better or worse...

Fox and Obel failed for one reason - they changed owners and completely fell apart. The store was a complete wreck for the last 4 or 5 years. They couldn't even keep the shelves fully stocked.

[chet everett]

Less about people not going because of the name vs difficulty in promoting / marketing a place due to the name confusion...

The folks that allegedly hire "branding consultancies" end up being worse off when the sameness of these concepts blur together and people's "word of mouth" recommendations / criticisms end up with all swirled together hopelessly.



It is way way way oversimplified to say that Fox and Obel would have been fine it it did not change hands -- look at the dramatic mess that Dominicks deal was / is -- the patriach died, heirs literally had a tax bill they could not pay, grocery business that has faced unprecedented changes in valuation due to national consolidation issues, huge new competition from Target, WalMart, Costco, Sams Club, Trade Joes and others. Big shifts in awareness of both specialty foods on high end and value prices on the other. Tech changes in coupon / customer loyalty, payment methods, in store promotions... Don't forget labor changes with workforce issues / organized labor. Oh and huge shifts in what fuel costs added to all the transportation / logistics... The investment that someone made in Fox and Obel originally was predicated on a very different set of assumptions and when the new owners got involved the situation shifted. No doubt the money that the current Roundy's chairman is willing spend on more "Fresh Markets" has a lot to do with his knowledge of what sorts of higher margin goods can be sold in some of the former Dominicks stores that he probably was involved with prior to the disastrous Safeway sale...

The Pete's thing is also a very different experience than the "genericness" of superstores and other national retailers. All those higher margins on prepared food also come with some VERY short self life -- if the hot bar and carry out food does not sell it ends up in the trash and so will investor returns.

[Vlajos]

Eataly Closed Monday to Recover From Overwhelming Weekend Crowds - River North - DNAinfo.com Chicago

Wow, my wife talked about going this weekend. I'm glad my opinion prevailed on this one....

[Chicago60614]

My BF and I stopped in on Friday around 3pm hoping maybe we'd get in between the lunch and after-work crowds to check it out. We didn't eat anything on-site and probably won't, but I wanted him to check it out since we love Italy and it is a decent place to at least see quality grocery options, the sauces, spices, oils, etc under one roof. The place was PACKED. Like overwhelming. We did grab a few things though, and it's somewhere I might go a few times a year to get some grocery items.

Mostly geared towards tourists though I'm sure or just people checking out the novelty and ease of it all under one roof.

I hope they're taking this closure to update some signage letting people know what's served where and also to move things around to create better people flow.

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by chet everett

It is way way way oversimplified to say that Fox and Obel would have been fine it it did not change hands

No. I'm saying they would have been OK if they hadn't sucked so bad. They started out great but for whatever reasons the new ownership did a horrible job of running the place. It went from a decent high end market to a dump - visible bugs in the prepped food area, empty shelves, expired items, etc...

Outside forces certainly didn't help it, but it turned into an overpriced dump.

[MassVt]

"Artisan pork jowls" ??

That's just precious..

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by MassVt

"Artisan pork jowls" ??

That's just precious..

Only to Chet. I've had some fine pork cheeks home cooked by some family friends in Catalunya, Spain. Very down to earth and fantastic of course.

[nearnorth]

The ampersand naming trend is getting obnoxious for sure. Though, as with any naming trend, some of the places are top notch and some are awful, with everything in between.

I found the proliferation of one-syllable all-lowercase establishment names a few years back to be just as annoying. At least the ampersands haven't become quite as widespread as those yet, though they're headed there.