Escoba Bistro is Closing Down

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by shermanator

I have to laugh at part of the blame going to a bike lane. A downtown restaurant is not losing a lot, if any, customers because of a bike lane.

Very wrong.

The owner of Escoba went on record saying that he had maybe 25 customers with bike helmets in the restaurant or had seen them parking their bikes. He said he had much much more that complained about the cycle lanes.

If it was improving his business why would he go on record putting part of the blame on cycle track. I know I wouldn't. I'd be thanking cyclists.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by heep223

Disagree. I have not looked at data but I would say the restaurant industry has the highest failure rate of any, and at any given time there are multiple restaurants both failing and launching at any given time in the city. Both high profile and low profile.

Yes, restaurants fail more than other businesses, but you completely missed the point.

External shocks cause large spikes in the rate at which businesses close - including restaurants.

So, in reference to this thread, the question is: did Escoba die of natural causes, or was it due to an external shock?

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by polak

If you answer anything besides Oil is now worth less than half of what it was a couple years ago, you have the wrong answer.

Your singular focus on the price of oil as the only driving force of the economy is incredibly over-simplistic. It makes you sound really naive.

[username]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Your singular focus on the price of oil as the only driving force of the economy is incredibly over-simplistic. It makes you sound really naive.

Odd that a person who has never worked through any of the other recessions over the last 20 years would have a naive response to the argument at hand. There's really no point in responding to him since the drivel coming out of his mouth doesn't make sense. It's embarassing actually.

[heep223]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Yes, restaurants fail more than other businesses, but you completely missed the point.



External shocks cause large spikes in the rate at which businesses close - including restaurants.



So, in reference to this thread, the question is: did Escoba die of natural causes, or was it due to an external shock?

Both. Plenty of "shocked" restaurants will survive this. Restaurants are failing and starting up all the time for a variety of reasons.

[polak]

Originally Posted by username

Odd that a person who has never worked through any of the other recessions over the last 20 years would have a naive response to the argument at hand. There's really no point in responding to him since the drivel coming out of his mouth doesn't make sense. It's embarassing actually.

Yeah tell me about your memories of how crippling the tech bubble burst was for Calgary again. You know, when unemployment in Alberta was 4%.

You're just desperately trying to pin everything on the government. Trying to pretend that this bust is anything like that is what is embarrassing. Pretty sure I can find many, many quotes from the layoffs threads that say this is far worse than anything since the 80's but hey. Live in your fantasy world. This is all the NDP.

And Obama.

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Your singular focus on the price of oil as the only driving force of the economy is incredibly over-simplistic. It makes you sound really naive.

I never said it was the only force, but to pin this on anything but all of those office towers around his restaurant being half empty and no corporate money coming in as the leading cause is what is naive and screams desperation to try and blame everything on the government.

[TheAlpineOracle]

Originally Posted by username

Odd that a person who has never worked through any of the other recessions over the last 20 years would have a naive response to the argument at hand. There's really no point in responding to him since the drivel coming out of his mouth doesn't make sense. It's embarassing actually.

It's the same 3 or 4 in every thread when a similar conversation comes up. Preaching their same ideological BS not listening to anything and repeating the same thing over and over again. It's a lot easier to preach to others when you have nothing to lose, and i'd wager most of that don't really have a career, home, family to support, etc. at this point in their life.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by username

Odd that a person who has never worked through any of the other recessions over the last 20 years would have a naive response to the argument at hand. There's really no point in responding to him since the drivel coming out of his mouth doesn't make sense. It's embarassing actually.

But have you ever played the game? I can't take opinions from anyone seriously unless they've played the game.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by heep223

Both. Plenty of "shocked" restaurants will survive this. Restaurants are failing and starting up all the time for a variety of reasons.

Yes, if only we knew what the specific facts were in this case...

[Coach]

Originally Posted by TheAlpineOracle

It's the same 3 or 4 in every thread when a similar conversation comes up. Preaching their same ideological BS not listening to anything and repeating the same thing over and over again. It's a lot easier to preach to others when you have nothing to lose, and i'd wager most of that don't really have a career, home, family to support, etc. at this point in their life.

I'd be interested in this. If it's only 3 or 4 people, should be easy to figure out if at least 2 of them have any combination of a house, kids, and/or career.

Besides, no generation has ever improved on any aspect of the past by applying different lines of thinking. Nope. Not ever. What do kids know?Just ignore them. You'll be fine.

How do I set the timer on my VCR?

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by jammies

In other words, the huge increase in property tax wasn't directly related to government hiking taxes to cover a spending spree, but rather an adjustment in the way tax is calculated, where presumably there was an equal amount of winners to losers, as that was intended as revenue neutral.

How does that align with the narrative that socialism ruined his business, though?



The lesson that its easier to blame an identifiable group than impersonal forces?

Who's narrative is that? Not mine. I just said any situation where your taxes go up 100%-300% is probably a government policy that is bad for business and should be changed. Especially when the city has admitted they erred. I'm not exactly sure how anyone benefits from that. I'd love that explained. Oh and I also said it's idiotic to suggest restaurants fail all the time so every failed restaurant is nothing more than status quo.

I'm more than willing to wait for minimum wage to increase business profitability and for bike lanes to create more customer based business though for sure. Don't pin the anti-socialism badge on me just yet.

Why can't all these guys just go quietly like Janice Beaton and Farm did last week? She just ran out of customers and went down the old fashioned way.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by TheAlpineOracle

It's the same 3 or 4 in every thread when a similar conversation comes up. Preaching their same ideological BS not listening to anything and repeating the same thing over and over again. It's a lot easier to preach to others when you have nothing to lose, and i'd wager most of that don't really have a career, home, family to support, etc. at this point in their life.

Mods, please ban the 3 or 4 people whose views don't align with the wishful CP hivemind circlejerk. Thx in advance.

Also you would wager very wrong.

[MrMastodonFarm]

[Locke]

The thing is we don't need restaurants anymore. Soon the NDP will provide all of the proletariat citizenry with our daily allotment of calories from the State Food Dispensaries. Stand in line comrades! Slurp your gruel!

[RougeUnderoos]

This is kind of an odd thread.

The owner of the restaurant said that his sales have dropped 45%. That part of of the story is obviously the overhwelmingly driving force as to why it closed.

Why did his sales drop 45%? We all know why. It wasn't because of a bike lane, it wasn't because the dishwasher got bumped to $11.20, and it wasn't because his taxes went up.

Did those factors contribute? Maybe. Sounds like the tax increase made him throw his hands up in the air, and that was a bad move on the city's part, but still, we all know the reason, and his massive drop in sales can't be blamed on the dishwasher, or the tax hike, or losing a couple parking spots.

It's fun to blame Spendshi and the Commies up there in Edmonistan, but this business would have gone under no matter who was running the show because thousands of people who work around there lost their job.

Anyway, it's interesting to hear some of the more mature posters talk about the naive youngsters who don't have skin in the game, and weren't around for the last slumps. I have skin in the game, and I was around for the last slumps. We didn't have message boards then, but the way I remember it, it was blamed on the price of oil, because that was the reason then.

[nik-]

Bike lanes don't eat at restaurants. Just like self driving cars

[AltaGuy]

Originally Posted by TheAlpineOracle

It's the same 3 or 4 in every thread when a similar conversation comes up. Preaching their same ideological BS not listening to anything and repeating the same thing over and over again. It's a lot easier to preach to others when you have nothing to lose, and i'd wager most of that don't really have a career, home, family to support, etc. at this point in their life.

This is a horrible post and you should feel shame.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Perhaps Escoba could survive if they moved to a more accessible location; I haven't seen many restaurants survive that long on that avenue itself. Hasn't that Gastropub changed names a bunch of times? Same with the Korean restaurant? Hell, even Chicago Chophouse had to go. Perhaps there is something with that specific area that stymies business.

I know the owner of what used to be Downtown Food just a couple doors down. He closed DTF to open Shokunin because he wanted to do something different. They're doing well from what I gather, especially in a new location on 4th St.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

I just read that Escoba disputed the assessment and had it restored to 34k in 2014.... However it cost them 14k to achieve the reduction and it went back up to 58k again in 2015. It seems like a patent mistake by the city that they are unwilling to fix.

Perhaps if Nenshi had gotten his wish and the province had created a city charter that gave the city access to different revenue streams, we could've had an efficient tax structure in place where only profits are taxed and therefore it would be impossible for the tax to put anyone into the red.

[Scornfire]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

Why can't all these guys just go quietly like Janice Beaton and Farm did last week? She just ran out of customers and went down the old fashioned way.

Quietly is right, my friend is... well was I guess, one of the chefs there. And I'm hearing about this on CP