Call me old, but I think two restaurants are a chain. It's hard for Infatuation to make the case against same-ification when almost every review of a new restaurant has phrases like "from the folks who brought you..." or "the team behind bla-bla-bla have finally opened a 2nd/3rd/4th/nth outpost in Midwood/Spuyten Duyvil/The Hole/across from the Hertz Rent-a-Car at JFK." Chains of frozen yogurt shops and coffee shops are inevitable, given Margaret's points above, but that doesn't necessarily translate into everyone having to dine at barely different versions of the same twenty restaurants. Hyperbole in a city as big and diverse as NYC? Probably -- but you brought the subject up so there must be something there.
This hits so hard, and scaling to multiple locations is usually just survival instinct in an industry of impossible margins and rents. I’m always curious how many locations get perceived as a “chain”… I think Apollo might be right on the cusp as they open their 8th (?) in Tribeca
MYKA frozen yogurt also just opened another location, and people line up for it like it’s not a chain with dozens of locations around the world. Wonder is truly spooky.
Call me old, but I think two restaurants are a chain. It's hard for Infatuation to make the case against same-ification when almost every review of a new restaurant has phrases like "from the folks who brought you..." or "the team behind bla-bla-bla have finally opened a 2nd/3rd/4th/nth outpost in Midwood/Spuyten Duyvil/The Hole/across from the Hertz Rent-a-Car at JFK." Chains of frozen yogurt shops and coffee shops are inevitable, given Margaret's points above, but that doesn't necessarily translate into everyone having to dine at barely different versions of the same twenty restaurants. Hyperbole in a city as big and diverse as NYC? Probably -- but you brought the subject up so there must be something there.
The hospitality groups are really to blame here. Any restaurant website that has “check out our sister…” on the header.
OF COURSE IT'S A BAD THING AND YES I KNOW I AM SHOUTING. No one moves to New York so they can go to any of these places. Come on.
This hits so hard, and scaling to multiple locations is usually just survival instinct in an industry of impossible margins and rents. I’m always curious how many locations get perceived as a “chain”… I think Apollo might be right on the cusp as they open their 8th (?) in Tribeca
Good on ya infatuation
MYKA frozen yogurt also just opened another location, and people line up for it like it’s not a chain with dozens of locations around the world. Wonder is truly spooky.