205 Comments
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alwayscurious's avatar

Biscuits and gravy, that's where it's at. Make a good homemade bacon, sausage, and corn beef hash, with good hashbrowns and hearty pancakes and there will be loyal customers for life. The customer is always right, and the customer is a local, so the delicious American food needs to be honored, served, enjoyed, and celebrated. As a vacationer that is what I would hope for and expect and be thrilled to get.

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Brian Villanueva's avatar

Cracker Barrel all the way.

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Dr. K's avatar

Or Waffle House. Or a local place that has the same vibes...

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FinemRespice's avatar

Derbyshire’s law indicates to skip all Waffle Houses.

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Doctor Hammer's avatar

Waffle House is always my go to when traveling (outside Sheetz and Rutters territory, at least.) It may not be the best food, but it will equal most random places and be a hell of a lot cheaper.

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jim's avatar

waffle house at breakfast is run like a well oiled machine. Fast, excellent service and decent food at a good price. Your coffe cup will never be empty. The staff may not be much to look at, but they get the job done. i always leave a fat tip.

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Randy Farnum's avatar

I’ve read a few thing’s lately that they’ve gone woke?

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John Geis's avatar

You mean “Bottom of the Barrel?” It’s turned to crap after the pandemic. So sad because it was unnecessary.

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Kip's avatar

For me it's eggs benedict. Whenever we're out camping and we pull into a place for brekkie and they have eggs benny on the menu, I go for it. Traditional, not the 'California' version with avocado! It's all about the hollandaise! Oh, and a nice runny, perfectly poached egg. And when I get a good one, I'm thrilled. There's a small cafe in Weed, CA that is still the gold standard for me when it comes to eggs benny. Some have come close though...

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Fast Eddy's avatar

And free shots o f Ozempic!

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alwayscurious's avatar

Traditional food will not make anyone obese. Sedentariness and uber-processed industrial non-natural fare will.

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Fast Eddy's avatar

Processed food causes obesity... stuff like bread... pancake mixes etc... all loaded with sugar... and made from inputs that convert to sugar in the body.

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JW Writes's avatar

You'd fit right in in my coastal seasonal-touristy beach town, then!

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Ryan Winfield's avatar

I've noticed this same trend, even on the Washington State island where I live. I'm convinced this is driven by millennials with money from other sources. They believe if they build it, it will come. But it doesn't.

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Faz's avatar

Supply and demand has been replaced with field of dreams. If you build they will come ... in your dreams.

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John Geis's avatar

Kind of like Hollywood & superhero movies…

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jim's avatar

they probably are getting some sort of kickback from the city, look into it. Free money to open business in blighted areas. They call them CRA's where I live(community reinvestment agencies). It was 1970's initiative that forces banks to give money away to downtrodden areas. Of course cities jumped on that gravy train so they could dole out the cash themselves under the cover of redevelopment and such. Its a huge shell ganme where I live.

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John Geis's avatar

It’s a huge shell game everywhere anyone lives.

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Fast Eddy's avatar

It's called mass delusional thinking... it's what happens when a civilization has run out of options

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John Geis's avatar

It’s not that we’ve run out of options, but rather that “new & trendy” prevails over “old & proven” in many people’s minds. (I’m typing this on an iPhone 8+ b/c later models’ features add nothing I need. I’m the antithesis of Apple’s marketing strategy.)

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John Geis's avatar

The author certainly takes the long way ‘round the barn to express the simple (but profound) thought that the Earth has finite resources and how efficiently we use them determines our species’ end date.

I’m glad he ridicules those who fantasize about star travel being mankind’s salvation. There is

NO “dilithium crystal” that pulls energy out of its own ass.

We have large slices of people eliminated periodically by rat/flea borne plagues or influenza or “bat/pangolin” viruses. What’s going to happen when we drop onto the rare Class M planet that mysteriously has no intelligent life? Could there be an environmental cause that will wipe out our expedition, like an indigenous flesh eating bacteria that will turn humans into mush?

So the question arises: Who has moral righteousness on their side - a) the extremely impoverished of today, or b) a few extremely distant generations near the end of our species? Do we end our species “early” in a trade off for the extremely impoverished of today improving to merely “poor”?

It’s ironic that the Industrial Revolution led to a large segment of the population becoming unnecessary surplus, which has turned its attention to overbreeding, hastening the eventual end of humanity.

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Cindi's avatar

It could also be lots of people leaving blue states because of terrible policies & high prices for everything from gas, taxes, food, housing - finding out they can get a HUGE bang for their buck in flyover country - & then bringing their f’ed up blue politics w/ them & bingo! A state turns purple or blue. AZ & CO fairly recent examples

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Laura Richardson's avatar

And the pot

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Debby's avatar

I'm still laughing at " one's teenage daughter sighs heavily ".

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Brandon is not your bro's avatar

Great memories for the sighing teenage… she’ll never forget and always love her dear ol Dad . 😉

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Nancy Benedict's avatar

Someday Chris, she will thank you. Please be patient. She is one lucky daughter.

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David Roberts's avatar

If I had a nickel... (and I have two teenage daughters)

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K2's avatar

Like!

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Brian Nelson's avatar

I would love to listen to a discussion of this article between Chris and David Gornoski. Mimetic desire. We don't know what we want until we know what others want--and then we want that. My nascent understanding of this only helps me identify it when I see it--but not enough to predict, nor what to do to mitigate its effects on my own thinking, feeling, desires, etc.

The cultural descent into 'Brave New World' hedonism has distorted our rational thought. Bankers are giving loans to businesses that think 9,0000 people can support a chic bar with $25 drinks. A freshman in high school would know better.

We have eaten our own heritage, made it so ignoble to be a tradesman, a farmer, a laborer--that anything that hints as that culture must be hidden and the urban elite lifestyle is fetishized to a point that everything is 'chic'--and quickly strip-mall-ish in its effort to not be strip mall-ish.

bsn

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ZuZu’s Petals's avatar

“We don’t know what we want until we know what others want, and then we want that.” Excellent observation.

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Nancy Benedict's avatar

Agreed Brian. We need more rugged individualists willing to eschew "the current thing." They are everywhere. Most of them refused the Covid dogma.

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VeryVer's avatar

Yeah, I know what you mean. I see it here in Vermont -- where Californians and New Yorkers show up and open a rarely ever actually open "farm stand/yoga studio/latte bar" for a few years and then go out of business. I've been puzzled myself and figured it was: 1) money laundering, 2) witness protection plan, 3) stupidity.

Meanwhile, have you been to Bucees? There's your supply and demand right there.

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C Hansen's avatar

Bucees 👏🏻

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David Roberts's avatar

Hell yeah to Bucee's.

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John Geis's avatar

Bucee’s has it’s place, but it lacks a certain ambiance…

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David Roberts's avatar

Yes. To be clear, it has an ambiance, but perhaps not a certain ambiance.

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Vermont Farm Wife's avatar

Oh gosh, "farm stand/yoga studio/latte bar" is a perfect description of what's happening in Vermont. And yes, it's out-of-staters who've decided that what rural people really need is another unique restaurant that serves food we've never heard of.

To wit: in the nearby village of Weston (famously home to the Vermont Country Store) there was once a lovely, family kind of inn with a nice, normal, restaurant. The "Inn at Weston" it was called. The owners sold and it's now been turned into "The Weston", owned by some big-city group with a chef from San Fran, making outrageously expensive food that none of the real locals eat. Of course, their target audience are well-heeled people with discriminating tastes from elsewhere - not that we don't already have Big Blue City snobs who live here full-time. Oh, and don't bring your under-12 child, they're not welcome in the astronomically expensive rooms and suites. Wonder how long it will last.

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VeryVer's avatar

goodness, that is pricey! "The Art of Relaxation" indeed...lol...Meanwhile, the best food local people can find is whatever they got at the Maplefields.

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Debby's avatar

A lot to think about here; could be the economy is starting to take a toll on peoples ability to go out for entertainment. I noticed here in WA in a business park of probably 25 available spaces 9 were now empty. I also think what use to make towns culture unique was that it was just that, unique. Now the internet dictates the cool and uncool, everybody is offered the same food, the same clothing and shoe choices, the same ladder brands at the "big box stores". We've commercialized everything. I still can not pronounce "charcuterie", lol.

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nymusicdaily's avatar

i pronounce it "COLD-cuts" :)

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John Geis's avatar

MAJOR difference:

Cold cuts: $5

Charcuterie: $70

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Christopher's Eclectic as Hell's avatar

That reply needs to be spread far and wide!!! Freaking brilliant!

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Debby's avatar

LOL!

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David Roberts's avatar

Damn, I never knew. All this time...

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Brandon is not your bro's avatar

lol nymusicdaily ya from Ny / joyseeee

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Brian Nelson's avatar

Even all the cars look the same. Everything is ugly.

bsn

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fiendish_librarian's avatar

As a child of the 70s - early 80s I DESPISE this era of cars.

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AndyinBC's avatar

"Everything is ugly"

Which begs the question - Is "everything ugly" because we, (our society), have moved so far to the left that we can no longer create, or appreciate beauty, OR, have we somehow lost our ability to appreciate, or create beauty, which has caused our cultural shift to the left?

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Brian Nelson's avatar

Great question. My gut response: both. We don't have the courage, tenacity, nor patience to create works of great beauty--AND--our 'beauty detection equipment' is malfunctioning due to the dearth of beauty. We're unaccustomed to it. Now it frightens us instead of inspiring...bsn

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John Geis's avatar

1) Economic efficiency dictates commonality.

2) Originality occurs in isolation. Communication breeds copying better ideas. (See #1)

Not a defense, just reality.

British gunmakers build the world’s finest rifles & shotguns; they are hand fitted and no parts are interchangeable. Repairs require the weapon to be returned to the UK so a new part can be handmade & fitted.

American & Italian gunmakers manufacture similar weapons using CNC machinery. Parts are 100% interchangeable. I say “similar” b/c while they lack the mystique of the über expensive British guns, the targets observe no difference.

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Fast Eddy's avatar

I am told there is a restaurant blood bath happening in Australia and NZ... mortgages rates rent and inflation has sapped discretionary spending... and restaurants are one of the first to get hit

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Queen Hotchibobo's avatar

Charcuterie is just a lunchable that went to Harvard.

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mileytheduchess's avatar

We curate our okra by hand, round these parts.

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K2's avatar

Like!

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fiendish_librarian's avatar

Same thing happening in Canada. Refugees priced out of Toronto trying to make your assembly line Urban Tattooed Lumberjack artisanal-bespoke-craft-farm-to-table smokehouse-eatery-neo-speakeasy work in bombed out-towns like Brantford and Timmins that lost all of their industry decades ago. They only survive due to a local diploma mill "uni" addicted to foreign students, wealthy and connected First Nations honchos, and elderly Boomers sitting on multiple cottages while their grandkids face $3000/mo. rents in Toronto because they can't stand said towns.

This wonderful piece also put me to mind of Isaac Simpson's piece, "There's going to be a war in Montana". The moneyed, Atlantic-reading managerial class is a threat to every community they invade.

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Loren Dean's avatar

I lived in north central Oklahoma for over a decade, and saw several "cocktail bar" kinds of places try and open (Dang it, Bray, why we gotta keep having similar experiences ... ). The suspicion about "blue money" trying to influence these smallish towns feels to me like it's reading too much into the phenomenon. The problem as I saw it was a generational wealth problem. A rising generation of entrepreneurs (note the mentions of GenX coffee shop people and tattoed Millennial bar owners in these comments) are trying to go into business for themselves, having realized that nobody's coming to save them and they're going to have to create their own income stream. But they either don't know how to enter a solid service industry, or "don't want to have a JOB-job," believing there's no fulfillment in doing the 8-5 grind they watched their dad get slowly worn down by. Because they don't precisely know what to do (and/or never acquired a truly marketable job skill) they tend toward influencer-esque business attempts, like cocktail bars and "venues". But the most popular places to eat in the small town where I lived were the longstanding lunch-counter joint that had been open 90 years, and the Mexican family-run place out by the highway, and one of the most celebrated openings in the town's business world was when a local guy hung out a shingle as ... an auto mechanic.

Bottom line, this is supply and demand, right out in the open. The invisible hand of the market will rule, no matter what Instagram tells midwest kids is coastal cool.

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Tanto Minchiata's avatar

Everybody likes good food and drink. The culinary scene in the USA has been improving for decades. On the other hand, you have to have customers and you have to know your customers. Rural Kansas- probably not the place to push avant garde mixology. But every case is unique.The difference between the towns you’ve described is that one has a vital industry at scale and one does not. The oil industry pays well. And contrary to a lot of hype, it’s not going anywhere.

The solution to a lot of this shit politically is less politics, less government, less spending, less sanctimony, less hatred, more freedom and individual responsibility. People can figure out what makes sense for them. The government does a poor job of that and the media is toxic and drives everybody nucking futs. The people who want to be trannies can live in Portland. The oeople who want to be grannies can live in Oklahoma. I don’t care. But we have to shrink the beast that is devouring all of us. Slavery is not all it’s cracked up to be.

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John Geis's avatar

The rational solutions you propose have been opposed by half the population since the first hunter brought the first game animal back to the fire and the debate ensued about size of shares and the order in which people got to eat. “You eat what you kill” is the scariest thought in the world to the “takers.”

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K2's avatar

Like!

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K2's avatar

“woke Star Wars writ small” - brilliant!

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The Last Scientist's avatar

I do accounting in a rural state - starting restaurants/event centers that cater to no one has always been a thing. Usually it is people that grew up in an urban area and have arts or social sciences background. For some reason they want to recreate their liberal ideals in a very conservative area.

Unlike most locals that start businesses they often use grants or other government programs to get started. When a business starts with unearned funds they seem to forget that they need actual customers and virtue signaling alone doesn't pay the bills. They operate for a couple of years and then they fail.

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LeftyMudersbach's avatar

My opinion: a group of people are tired of the urban rat race and romanticize about opening a bar/music venue/coffee shop/restaurant/hand made gift store in a small town. Then the pandemic hits and their house is worth way more than it should be so they cash out to follow their dreams. The state and local gov’ts throw redevelopment money at them and presto, that old building in town gets restored into a new business. There’s a huge grand opening with lights and banners and politicians and reporters.

Then boom, reality hits and after a few months their dream crashes and burns. Those small town people have no interest in organically grown, ecologically transported, sustainably processed $10 cups of coffee. Who knew???

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JT's avatar

…one’s teenage daughter sighed heavily…? (Pssst, Chris…that’s what they do)

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Chris Bray's avatar

AWARE

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Lynda Hill's avatar

Is it as bad as our longed for and well planned overseas family trip to the UK resulting in the backseat occupants - three of the rascals - reading books (this was in the 80's when life was simpler) ALL the while we drove through THE most remarkable historical sites and picture-perfect villages ?? As encouragement to other somewhat disillusioned parents our 'lot' are now all well educated both in life and academia and have instilled a lust for knowledge in all of our seven gorgeous grandchildren....eg the first stop on overseas holidays is always the local museums. They are our secret weapon at quiz nights where we smugly and happily elicit sympathy for having to drag along the kids....So take heart ye with younger offspring.

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FinemRespice's avatar

They *have* to act bored and uninterested. But they absorb it.

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CB's avatar

Maybe, but three times in the last month or so I've seen family groups in restaurants with one or more of the kids wearing headphones. Zuckerburg et al want them wearing VR goggles from birth.

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Lynda Hill's avatar

It is totally different ballgame now for sure ; and a very scary one. Beautifully planned and executed by those behind the scenes that (I refuse to call them "who") are after our very minds as well as bodies.

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Nancy Benedict's avatar

Great job Grandma and Grandpa.

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Lynda Hill's avatar

Thank you.

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edhuff's avatar

Willa Cather has thoughts:

we come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who

love it

and understand it are the people who own it-for a little while.

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Fast Eddy's avatar

I always wondered what happened to those clowns taking desk spaces in WeWork offices ... drinking free coffee and beer all day long ... and assuming that just being there would lead to a successful business...

Now I know

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nymusicdaily's avatar

it's all about FOMO. the kids who would have taken their midwestern speculator parents' money and failed in brooklyn 20 years ago are failing in humboldt now because even the scuzziest parts of the BK are too expensive.

humboldt will work out a whole lot cheaper for the 'rents

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Fast Eddy's avatar

I betcha they didn't have a business plan... cuz what they have done was guaranteed to fail before it even started

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John Geis's avatar

Their “business plan”. is described by this anecdote:

Two professors are standing in front of a huge blackboard completely filled with 2 wide columns of calculus hieroglyphs except for a tiny space between the two columns. Written in that space in small letters are the words “and then magic happens.”

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Fast Eddy's avatar

I recall reading an article in a financial publication while the money spigot was wide open ... and a specific start up was losing big chunks of some of it... the writer suggested that their business model was strong because they could just keep going back to the well for more $$$$.... they had no path to profitability (the more revenue they brought in the wider the spread was on their losses...) but I guess the assumption was that the money would continue to flow in ... a perpetual economic motion machine???

I began to play around with an online model that sold $100 bills for $75 ... retaining $5 per transaction as my cut... my pitch to investors would have been that we can make up the losses with greater sales volume... economies of scale etc.... but then the easy money stopped so I canned it

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John Geis's avatar

No, not “perpetual,” any more than spending up to the credit limit on your credit card.

“‘How did you go bankrupt?’ Bill asked. ‘Two ways,’ Mike said. ‘Gradually and then suddenly.’”

Hemingway – The Sun Also Rises

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Leonard's avatar

There’s a lot to be said for that. You never know who’s going to be the one with business sense. There’s people who understand marketing but have no clue about handling money, there’s others that can handle money but have no clue about marketing or how to manage people. Some people are determined and will work at learning the parts they don’t know and others expect customers just because the doors are open. And you can’t always tell by their immediate past what kind of business owner they will be.

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Fast Eddy's avatar

I've had a decent amount of experience starting businesses and investing in startups...

Opening a 'hipster organic coffee shop' in farming country ... is a guaranteed fail... it would not matter how hard you work or how smart you work...

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Chris Bray's avatar

The coffee place seems to be the least-unsuccessful of the businesses. I'd like to see the business plan for the very large brewpub, with projected revenues and nightly average covers.

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