Lesson 2: the restaurant business

Reading:

The first true restaurant, the Grande Taverne de Londres, opened in Paris in 1782, by Boulanger, "the father of modern restaurant". He called his famous soups "restoratives", because they were believed to restore the guests' strength and energy. By 1794, when heads were literally rolling in Paris, there were about five hundred restaurants in this city. Although it really cannot be said that the French Revolution was responsible for the invention of the restaurant, it was responsible for the propagation of the concept. The chefs of the best restaurants were scattered by the Revolution. Some stayed in France; some went to other parts of Europe; many crossed the Atlantic to America, especially to New Orleans, the truly French corner of the New World. They almost all went into restaurant business, bringing their culinary traditions with them. Soon the plain, hearty fare of the British and the primitive cooking of the Americans were laced with piquant sauces. Other countries, too, felt the effects of French culinary artistry, and most absorbed some of the principles of French cooking into their own. Exceptions were the Italians, who had developed their own very strong culinary traditions and felt, with great deal of justification, that French cooking was itself derived from the Italian. Restaurants play an important role in society. Dining out fulfills an important social need. People want not only nourishment, but also the social interaction that takes place in a restaurant setting. But the successful operation of a restaurant is dependent on a number of factors, and the most important of them are its positioning, i.e. a distinctive place in the market and its concept, i.e. the total impression it makes on its potential guests. The market of a restaurant is composed of those guests who will patronize it. A good indication of the size of the market can be ascertained by taking a radius of from 1 to 5 miles around the restaurant in question. This area is usually called the catchment area. In order to determine the potential viability of a restaurant it is necessary to divide the number of restaurants in the catchment area by the total population. The average number of people per restaurant in the United States is about five hundred. Perhaps this kind of saturation is one of the reasons for the high failure rate in restaurant business. Obviously, each area is different: one location may have several Italian restaurants but no Chinese restaurant. Therefore, a Chinese restaurant would be unique in the market, and, if properly positioned, may have a competitive advantage. If someone in the catchment area wanted to eat Italian food, he would have to choose among the various Italian restaurants. Each year thousands of new restaurants open and thousands more close, and even more change ownership for cents on the dollar. The restaurant business is relatively easy to enter, but it is very difficult to succeed.

 

 

Exercises:

1. Find in the text the following topical words and phrases, make sure that you are able to explain in English what they mean, and add them to your working vocabulary:

a restorative, a chef, a culinary tradition, dining out, positioning, a concept, a catchment area, a failure rate, a competitive advantage.

 

2. Write out from the text the sentences or their parts which contain the words and phrases given below and translate them into Russian:

nourishment, to patronize, viable, viability, saturation, to change ownership.

 

3. Answer the following questions trying to use the topical words and phrases:

1. What is the etymology of the word "restaurant"?

2. In what sense was the French Revolution responsible for the spread of restaurants in the world?

3. What was characteristic of traditional British and American cooking?

4. What country was least influenced by French culinary traditions?

5. What needs does a restaurant fulfill?

6. What is meant by "positioning"?

7. How do the marketers find out the size of the catchment area of a restaurant?

8. How is the potential viability of a restaurant calculated?

9. What is the reason for the high failure rate of restaurants in the US?

10. When has a restaurant a competitive advantage?