Isn't it interesting how people self-organize by what they identify with?
It kind of seems like the food at McDonald's et. al is good enough or has cultural status that makes it hard to compete with. Locol has better tasting food at comparable prices, good decor, and locals working the store but people are still hesitant to make it their go-to burger joint.
From the article, maybe people see a fancy looking store and assume that it's not a place for them?
Any ideas what they could offer to connect better with their communities?
I'm reminded of an article [0] posted on HN last year about "McDonald’s [being] de-facto community centers". Perhaps difference is that Locol has a 'mission' and is thus seen as a sort of charity, whereas McDonald's is very clearly a capitalist enterprise.
Overall, it seems the proprietors were very out of touch with the community. I have to wonder if they would have been much more successful if, instead of coming up with a hipster sounding name and hiring an architect to design a restaurant that would be "welcoming" to the locals, they had opened it as 'Ez Burgerz' in whatever dilapidated retail space they could find.
Yeah, when I look at their design it says "White hipster" to me. I can see why AA looking in the door would think it's not their kinda place. Still cool that they are trying.
Not to mention the menu. I'm a (lower) middle-class white dude and when I hear that their burger is a "combination of ground beef, tofu, barley, quinoa, and seaweed" I definitely think it's not my kind of restaurant. I can only imagine how a poor, intercity, working class person would feel about it.
I just looked at their menu and their burgers are around $4-6. Mcdonalds has $1 burgers. I don't think that's really comparable. I can get a meal for 6 for the price of a meal for 2 at Locol.
On that note, Locol looks awesome and I'll be eating their since it's in my area :D.
I haven't had time to read the article yet, but look forward to being able to do so. Semi-related comment: California Sunday Magazine has done some great food writing, to the point of wining (I can't remember which) either a James Beard or IACP writing award at least once this past year.
A few are linked at the bottom of this article (including the following one), but a personal favorite of mine is My Dinners With Harold (McGee) [0]. In fact, I believe that was the award winning article that turned me on to the publication initially.
>Garbage sat uncollected in alleyways; street-cleaning vehicles sped through so fast they seemed to make everything dirtier; police allowed constant low-level criminal activity outside the smoke shop with the bulletproof Plexiglas.
This, here, is our society failing the residents of Watts.
>Getting all this dealt with, however, risked raising local resentment over outsiders receiving special treatment.
It's not just unfounded resentment and fear of outsiders. People in these neighborhoods have been actively and systematically denied access to capital.
There needs to be is an active effort to increase ownership among the existing residents in an area before promoting massive outside private investment. People need the education, security, and access to capital to own their own homes and open their own businesses.
>Every local business, as a result, was out of compliance and therefore required to pay an annual variance fee for nothing at all.
It's ridiculous how local governance can get so awful.
It kind of seems like the food at McDonald's et. al is good enough or has cultural status that makes it hard to compete with. Locol has better tasting food at comparable prices, good decor, and locals working the store but people are still hesitant to make it their go-to burger joint.
From the article, maybe people see a fancy looking store and assume that it's not a place for them?
Any ideas what they could offer to connect better with their communities?