Mom & Pop Shops (musing)

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]> looking for trouble wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

The closing of Second Avenue Deli got me thinking. The loss of Mom &
Pop type places (or them being driven out of business by huge
conglomerates) is just sad.

<snip for space>

Quoted message said:

We are losing a lot as these wonderful little places start fading
away. It makes me sad.

Jill

We still have a few left but they are dwindling quickly. We have Biener's
Hardware and they deliver and will hang around and give advice etc. on any
given project you might be working on. We have Al's Diner, Chuy's
(although the restaurant is so popular, he has expanded) and a few small
shops and restaurants I frequent. It is sad, the chains are taking over and
most of the time I avoid them as much as possible.

Michael

--
....Bacteria: The rear entrance to a cafeteria.

All gramatical errors and misspellings due to Ramsey the cyber kitten. He
now owns all keyboards and computing devices in the household and has the
final say on what is, or is not, posted.
Send email to dog30 at charter dot net

Michael 'Dog3' Lonergan said:

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]> looking for trouble wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

The closing of Second Avenue Deli got me thinking. The loss of Mom &
Pop type places (or them being driven out of business by huge
conglomerates) is just sad.

<snip for space>

Quoted message said:

We are losing a lot as these wonderful little places start fading
away. It makes me sad.

Jill

We still have a few left but they are dwindling quickly. We have
Biener's Hardware and they deliver and will hang around and give
advice etc. on any given project you might be working on. We have
Al's Diner, Chuy's (although the restaurant is so popular, he has
expanded)

Michael

Nothing wrong with a popular local place expanding. If they're that good,
more power to them 🙂 It's when they start selling franchises they lose
control of how things are run.

Jill

jmcquown said:

Used to be, not far from here, an old hardware store where you could go
and
buy what you needed without needing to hitch a ride on a forklift to get
from one end of the store to the other just to pick up some nails. These
little places have been run out of business by Home Depot and Lowes.

I've essentially given up on Home Depot. The last straw was going in once
for furnace filters, 20 x 25, probably the most common size. None in stock.
I talked to a manager and asked him how in this modern world with
computerized inventory control, could one EVER run out of this size furnace
filter. It's not like it is something esoteric. Since I mentioned it being
something like a (food) staple, he took that up as an explanation. See, we
had a snow storm two days before. I couldn't believe it... like there is a
big run on furnace filters in advance of a snow storm, like there is on milk
and bread! This was far from the first time I've gone in looking for
something completely commonplace, and have them be out of stock.

Now I direct almost all of my hardware needs at a little neighborhood store
that occupies the first floor of a series of rowhouses in the city. Amazing
that this little store almost always has what I need, while the humongous
Home Depot, the size of a football field, often doesn't. The fact that Home
Depot carries rice cookers, vacuum cleaners, and coat hangers now probably
has something to do with it. They do everything, but nothing well.

On restaurants, I try to go to the small, locally owned ones. There is so
much more variety there, and I know the staff isn't reading from some script
dreamed up some thousands of miles away, replicated cookie cutter style
throughout the nation. One of the more recent chains to come into my area is
Carrabba's Italian Grill... is that a southern Italian accent I detect (in
their commercials)... Naples, maybe? No, southern as in Houston, Texas!

I guess I'm more than a bit jaded on this topic. About 30 years ago a read
an indepth article on the conversion of Hot Shoppes restaurants over to
Phineas Prime Rib, and the extreme measures (at least for the time period)
Marriot corporate went to in scripting the entire dining experience. It has
only gotten worse since then.

--
( #wff_ng_7# at #verizon# period #net# )

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The closing of Second Avenue Deli got me thinking. The loss of Mom & Pop
type places (or them being driven out of business by huge conglomerates)
is
just sad.

I'm so tired of hearing about small shops that are being run out of business
because of the big box stores or the chains. Customers are free to go
wherever they want to go, and if they *decide* to shop at the big stores,
that's their choice; big stores don't come into town and drive the store
owners out with guns to their heads. If the little store has what the
customers want, they'll survive; if not, customers will shop elsewhere, even
if that means road trips to Sam's or Costco or buying online.

There was a local restaurant here that went out of business and their quotes
in the newspaper had to do with how the new chain restaurants drove them out
of business. We didn't avoid that place because there were chains in town,
we didn't go there because the food was lousy and the service wasn't much
better. There are other small restaurants that are thriving.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for the mom 'n pop shops. Heck, I AM a mom 'n
pop shop (not food related). But no matter how cute or quaint or whatever
you may be, if you can't drag customers in, you aren't going to stay in
business. Part of that is knowing what the customers want and what they'll
pay enough for so you can stay in business.

I used to have a retail shop, and I got really tired of customers coming in
to tell me about the big sales elsewhere. When they needed advice or
service, they came to me first, but when they bought things, they went
online or they shopped for sales, and I couldn't blame them for wanting to
save money. Heck, if I could get something at retail that was cheaper than
what my distributors had, I'd shop there too.

So I wised up, realized I was never going to be able to compete on price for
retail goods, dumped the retail, and now I'm doing service only. And making
more money than I ever did (with less hassle) than when I was carrying all
that inventory. Two years later, I still get calls from people who crawl out
of the woodwork looking for my "store," and they tell me that they loved my
little store and it's too bad it's gone. But if they hadn't noticed I was
out of retail for 2 years, they certainly weren't keeping me in business.

D.Currie said:

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The closing of Second Avenue Deli got me thinking. The loss of Mom & Pop
type places (or them being driven out of business by huge conglomerates)
is
just sad.

I'm so tired of hearing about small shops that are being run out of business
because of the big box stores or the chains. Customers are free to go
wherever they want to go, and if they *decide* to shop at the big stores,
that's their choice; big stores don't come into town and drive the store
owners out with guns to their heads. If the little store has what the
customers want, they'll survive; if not, customers will shop elsewhere, even
if that means road trips to Sam's or Costco or buying online.

The small local stores were responsible for their own demise; the big
box stores never would have been successful had the small stores
continued to give service, kept stock up to snuff, and held prices
below the greedy [censored] only-show-in-town range as they once did. I
happen to like the Home Depots, Lowes, Ace, and others. There is still
a small hardware store in town here, but I don't go there nor do most
of the towns people, the old guy who owns it is a miserable [censored].

And nowadays as much as possible I do my shopping on line... surfing
from store to store is far easier and costs a lot less than driving all
over town... and shopping on line it's extrememly rare I have to
settle, they almost always have exactly what I'm looking for, right
size, right color, and plenty of choices, often too many choices... and
the price shopping for the best deal is already done.

Sheldon.

Michael "Dog3" Lonergan wrote:

[Hardware stores]

Quoted message said:

We still have a few left but they are dwindling quickly. We have
Biener's Hardware and they deliver and will hang around and give
advice etc. on any given project you might be working on.

Around north county (St. Louis) Handyman Hardware fills that niche.
They're going great guns even with new Lowes and Home Depots in the
area. It's the place to go if you need to talk to someone who knows
something.

Quoted message said:

We have
Al's Diner, Chuy's (although the restaurant is so popular, he has
expanded) and a few small shops and restaurants I frequent.

I don't know about Chuy's, it seems as though the patronage was well
off the last few Saturdays we were there, and they aren't open at all
on Sunday anymore. Also dropped draft beer, which is darned annoying
when the bottles run $3+.

Brian

"Michael "Dog3" Lonergan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

We still have a few left but they are dwindling quickly. We have Biener's
Hardware and they deliver and will hang around and give advice etc. on any
given project you might be working on. We have Al's Diner, Chuy's
(although the restaurant is so popular, he has expanded)

Obviously not part of the Chuy's chain... http://www.chuys.com/, since those
locations are only in TX.

Mary

jmcquown)WROTE:
The closing of Second Avenue Deli got me thinking. The loss of Mom & Pop
type places (or them being driven out of business by huge conglomerates)
is just sad. When John and I travel we purposely seek out the small
diners to eat. We won't eat at Waffle House or IHOP. We try to avoid
places like Applebee's and Chili's. We want a place with some history,
not a franchise. The Mom & Pop's aren't always great but sometimes they
are really wonderful!
Used to be, not far from here, an old hardware store where you could go
and buy what you needed without needing to hitch a ride on a forklift to
get from one end of the store to the other just to pick up some nails.
These little places have been run out of business by Home Depot and
Lowes.
There's a huge benefit to the Mom & Pop type places. They get to know
you. They greet you by name when you walk in the door, rather than
having a blank-faced "greeter" (aka WalMart) handing you a shopping
cart. And there may only be one cash register, or perhaps two, but there
aren't 12 checkout lanes with only 2 open.
Earlier this morning I was down at the little store down the street.
They know me there. I bought a number of items including (OB Food:
bacon, milk and some rice). If I'd had 54 cents I could have given him
exact change but I didn't so I started to pull a larger bill out of my
wallet. He said, "No, no, this is fine. Have a good day!" When do you
ever find them doing that at some place run by a big chain or at a
franchise? Never.
We are losing a lot as these wonderful little places start fading away.
It makes me sad.
Jill--------------------------------------------------
RESPONSE: Well put and SO true.
A number of family owned business's in our area - metro Detroit- have or
are going to shut their doors forever that have been around for decades.
Only a few small hardware stores are left now, Damman's Hardware that
was always mentioned on Tim Allen's series Home Improvement are closing
@ the end of month.
Family owned restaurants that were around since I came to Michigan in
Dec. 1980 are dropping like flies also.
Meijers & Lowes are only 2 miles from me but are so huge my feet are
swollen time I check out plus using a cane doesn't help.
I rather drive out of my way further down the road to shop at a smaller
more friendly business but the way it looks that is coming to an end
fast.
PS- I don't do WalMart regardless.

"MareCat" <[email hidden]> looking for trouble wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

"Michael "Dog3" Lonergan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

We still have a few left but they are dwindling quickly. We have
Biener's Hardware and they deliver and will hang around and give
advice etc. on any given project you might be working on. We have
Al's Diner, Chuy's (although the restaurant is so popular, he has
expanded)

Obviously not part of the Chuy's chain... http://www.chuys.com/, since
those locations are only in TX.

Mary

The full name of the restaurant is Chuy Arzolas. Sorry 'bout that. We
just call it Chuy's. Brian is right about them. The yuppie types are
taking the place over. So far the food has been decent but we'll see.
Methinks the family is going for the bucks these days instead of
authenticity.

Michael

--
HUMPTY DUMPTY sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the kings' horses
And all the kings' men
Had scrambled eggs
For breakfast again

Michael 'Dog3' Lonergan said:

--
HUMPTY DUMPTY sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the kings' horses
And all the kings' men
Had scrambled eggs
For breakfast again

Wouldn't that be scrambled egg (singular)? <yolk, yolk, yolk....>

One time on Usenet said:

Michael 'Dog3' Lonergan said:

--
HUMPTY DUMPTY sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the kings' horses
And all the kings' men
Had scrambled eggs
For breakfast again

Wouldn't that be scrambled egg (singular)? <yolk, yolk, yolk....>

<groan!> Heh, good one, Sheldon... :-)

--
Jani in WA (S'mee)
~ mom, Trollop, novice cook ~

"Sheldon" <[email hidden]> looking for trouble wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Michael 'Dog3' Lonergan said:

--
HUMPTY DUMPTY sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the kings' horses
And all the kings' men
Had scrambled eggs
For breakfast again

Wouldn't that be scrambled egg (singular)? <yolk, yolk, yolk....>

Lol... too bad he didn't fall in boiling water. Coulda' been hard boiled.

Michael

--
HUMPTY DUMPTY sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the kings' horses
And all the kings' men
Had scrambled eggs
For breakfast again

jmcquown said:

The closing of Second Avenue Deli got me thinking. The loss of Mom & Pop
type places (or them being driven out of business by huge conglomerates) is
just sad. When John and I travel we purposely seek out the small diners to
eat. We won't eat at Waffle House or IHOP. We try to avoid places like
Applebee's and Chili's. We want a place with some history, not a franchise.
The Mom & Pop's aren't always great but sometimes they are really wonderful!

I know that folks like to wax lyrical about small restaurants
( usually in small towns )
I had some of the lousiest, overpriced, "questionable" meals
at "Mom & Pop" joints.
Overall... probably more "bummers" than "winners"

I hate to say it, but, give me a "chain store" ( even Mickey Dee's )
The food is predicatable, the prices predictable....
They have sturdy rules about cleanliness, food suppliers,
and food preperation...

If you've ever had food poisoning in the midst of a road trip....
you know what I'm talking about.

<rj>

D.Currie said:

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The closing of Second Avenue Deli got me thinking. The loss of Mom & Pop
type places (or them being driven out of business by huge conglomerates)
is
just sad.

I'm so tired of hearing about small shops that are being run out of business
because of the big box stores or the chains. Customers are free to go
wherever they want to go, and if they *decide* to shop at the big stores,
that's their choice; big stores don't come into town and drive the store
owners out with guns to their heads.

True, they have much more powerfull weapons than that. Outfits with deep
pockets such as wally can set their prices wherever they want to
insure the competition is flattened.

If the little store has what the

Quoted message said:

customers want, they'll survive; if not, customers will shop elsewhere, even
if that means road trips to Sam's or Costco or buying online.

There was a local restaurant here that went out of business and their quotes
in the newspaper had to do with how the new chain restaurants drove them out
of business. We didn't avoid that place because there were chains in town,
we didn't go there because the food was lousy and the service wasn't much
better. There are other small restaurants that are thriving.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for the mom 'n pop shops. Heck, I AM a mom 'n
pop shop (not food related). But no matter how cute or quaint or whatever
you may be, if you can't drag customers in, you aren't going to stay in
business. Part of that is knowing what the customers want and what they'll
pay enough for so you can stay in business.

I used to have a retail shop, and I got really tired of customers coming in
to tell me about the big sales elsewhere. When they needed advice or
service, they came to me first, but when they bought things, they went
online or they shopped for sales, and I couldn't blame them for wanting to
save money. Heck, if I could get something at retail that was cheaper than
what my distributors had, I'd shop there too.

So I wised up, realized I was never going to be able to compete on price for
retail goods, dumped the retail, and now I'm doing service only. And making
more money than I ever did (with less hassle) than when I was carrying all
that inventory. Two years later, I still get calls from people who crawl out
of the woodwork looking for my "store," and they tell me that they loved my
little store and it's too bad it's gone. But if they hadn't noticed I was
out of retail for 2 years, they certainly weren't keeping me in business.

RJ said:

jmcquown said:

The closing of Second Avenue Deli got me thinking. The loss of Mom
& Pop type places (or them being driven out of business by huge
conglomerates) is just sad. When John and I travel we purposely
seek out the small diners to eat. The Mom & Pop's aren't
always great but sometimes they are really wonderful!

I know that folks like to wax lyrical about small restaurants
( usually in small towns )
I had some of the lousiest, overpriced, "questionable" meals
at "Mom & Pop" joints.
Overall... probably more "bummers" than "winners"

Sorry you've had that experience. John and I do quite a bit of travelling
for his art shows and we usually find the food is better and the price
cheaper than a meal at a fast food joint.

Quoted message said:

I hate to say it, but, give me a "chain store" ( even Mickey Dee's )
The food is predicatable, the prices predictable....
They have sturdy rules about cleanliness, food suppliers,
and food preperation...

To each his/her own. It's easy enough to get recommendations from locals,
which is what we do. They don't usually say "Oh, go to Bob's. The place is
filty but the food is good!" 😉

Quoted message said:

If you've ever had food poisoning in the midst of a road trip....
you know what I'm talking about.

<rj>

Has never happened (knock on wood) in the last couple of years of travelling
around. I *did* get food poisoning after eating at a Back Yard Burger
locally.

Jill

RJ said:

On Fri, 6 Jan 2006 08:44:09 -0600, "jmcquown" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The closing of Second Avenue Deli got me thinking. The loss of Mom & Pop
type places (or them being driven out of business by huge conglomerates) is
just sad. When John and I travel we purposely seek out the small diners to
eat. We won't eat at Waffle House or IHOP. We try to avoid places like
Applebee's and Chili's. We want a place with some history, not a franchise.
The Mom & Pop's aren't always great but sometimes they are really wonderful!

I know that folks like to wax lyrical about small restaurants
( usually in small towns )
I had some of the lousiest, overpriced, "questionable" meals
at "Mom & Pop" joints.
Overall... probably more "bummers" than "winners"

I hate to say it, but, give me a "chain store" ( even Mickey Dee's )
The food is predicatable, the prices predictable....
They have sturdy rules about cleanliness, food suppliers,
and food preperation...

If you've ever had food poisoning in the midst of a road trip....
you know what I'm talking about.

<rj>

I travel a lot and make it a habit to not eat at places that I can eat at when
I am home (with the exception of starbucks). I've found a lot of gems along
the way. and I've rarely gotten sick from what I've eaten regardless of chain
or mom/pop status.

Of course this isn't true of everyone, but my feeling is why would I go so far
to eat the same things I can eat at home.

FWIW, I have a coworker who keeps going to the same Applebees and keeps
getting sick. I keep telling him not to go, but he never listens.

--
..:Heather:.
www.velvet-c.com
Step off, beyotches, I'm the roflpimp!

RJ said:

I hate to say it, but, give me a "chain store" ( even Mickey Dee's )
The food is predicatable, the prices predictable....
They have sturdy rules about cleanliness, food suppliers,
and food preperation...

One of the lessons I learned many years ago was a phenomenon I call "New
McDonald's Syndrome". It applies to so many new ventures when they come into
town.

They'll win you over when they are brand spanking new and the management and
staff actually cares. But slowly over time they start to fade, as the
management becomes complacent, and the staff gets disgruntled. McDonalds was
particularly prone to this phenomenon as a franchise operation. Once the
owner got his $100,000 investment out (it was that little years ago), he
would lose interest and the operation would slide... pretty fast in some
cases.

I've been to some pretty bad McDonald's in my lifetime. What I can say is
the menu is consistent. Beyond that, all bets are off. I've seen horrendous
food, filthy restrooms, surly service. It really is hit or miss.

At one time I was impressed by Walmart, but soon found out it really fell
into the same pattern as McDonalds. A new Walmart is great. But it doesn't
take all that long before they look like the dreaded K-Marts. Then the
newcomer Target came to town. Same thing. Beautiful clean store, fully
stocked shelves, helpful staff. In the end, they all seem the same. They all
go down the same path. Unfortunately by the time people figure this out, the
local stores have all been decimated. With the local stores there was some
hope of getting through to the owners and getting problems corrected. Fat
chance getting this corrected with a large out of town corporate owner. They
really don't give a damn.

--
( #wff_ng_7# at #verizon# period #net# )

Michael 'Dog3' Lonergan said:

"MareCat" <[email hidden]> looking for trouble wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

"Michael "Dog3" Lonergan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

We still have a few left but they are dwindling quickly. We have
Biener's Hardware and they deliver and will hang around and give
advice etc. on any given project you might be working on. We have
Al's Diner, Chuy's (although the restaurant is so popular, he has
expanded)

Obviously not part of the Chuy's chain... http://www.chuys.com/,
since those locations are only in TX.

Mary

The full name of the restaurant is Chuy Arzolas. Sorry 'bout that.
We just call it Chuy's. Brian is right about them. The yuppie types
are taking the place over. So far the food has been decent but we'll
see. Methinks the family is going for the bucks these days instead of
authenticity.

Michael

There is *one* chain we go to if we spot it; it's been consistent from Texas
to Kansas to Arkansas. Shogun. It's one of those Japanese 'cook it at your
table' places (or opt for sushi in the other room). The Japanese are
sticklers for detail. And I've never encountered an employee in any of them
who wasn't Japanese or of Japanese descent. They are always scrupulously
clean. The chef puts on a good show at the table as he cooks your food.
And the food never sucks!

Jill

wff_ng_7 said:

RJ said:

I hate to say it, but, give me a "chain store" ( even Mickey Dee's )
The food is predicatable, the prices predictable....
They have sturdy rules about cleanliness, food suppliers,
and food preperation...

One of the lessons I learned many years ago was a phenomenon I call "New
McDonald's Syndrome". It applies to so many new ventures when they come into
town.

They'll win you over when they are brand spanking new and the management and
staff actually cares. But slowly over time they start to fade, as the
management becomes complacent, and the staff gets disgruntled. McDonalds was
particularly prone to this phenomenon as a franchise operation. Once the
owner got his $100,000 investment out (it was that little years ago), he
would lose interest and the operation would slide... pretty fast in some
cases.

I've been to some pretty bad McDonald's in my lifetime. What I can say is
the menu is consistent. Beyond that, all bets are off. I've seen horrendous
food, filthy restrooms, surly service. It really is hit or miss.

At one time I was impressed by Walmart, but soon found out it really fell
into the same pattern as McDonalds. A new Walmart is great. But it doesn't
take all that long before they look like the dreaded K-Marts. Then the
newcomer Target came to town. Same thing. Beautiful clean store, fully
stocked shelves, helpful staff. In the end, they all seem the same. They all
go down the same path. Unfortunately by the time people figure this out, the
local stores have all been decimated. With the local stores there was some
hope of getting through to the owners and getting problems corrected. Fat
chance getting this corrected with a large out of town corporate owner. They
really don't give a damn.

They really don't need to give a damn anymore (nor do the big box
stores need to hire give-a-damn help), not with more and more customers
buying on line. Just about every item Walmart and Target sells can be
purchased on line and with no hassles whatsoever... and the merchandise
comes directly from the warehouse, so everything you buy is brand
spanking new, nothing all picked over and put back in the box like at
the stores... and you get to choose from the full selection, don't have
to settle on green when your really wanted red. And more and more
shipping is free... with the price of petrol only the pinheads spend
the day driving all over creation on their fercocktah shopping sprees,
they burn up $30 worth of gas without a whimper to buy a $7 item, and
risk accidents too, but don't ask them to spend $7 for shipping right
to their door for a $30 item.