Post #352700 by The Gnomon on Thu, Jan 3, 2008 9:46 AM

On 2008-01-03 07:37, christiki295 wrote:

On 2008-01-02 11:45, Kenike wrote:

Damn! What is it with the whole TV enterprise?

Don't forget...Trader Vic's is a franchise. The Trader Vic's company doesn't always have a say on how one of their branches close. That's up to the investors/owners of that particular restaurant. It's a shame they have to be shady about it but they're only looking at their profit margins and not the tiki community. Sometimes the final decision is made the day before they close. I'd be interested to know how much notice the employees got.

Just to reiterate what's already been said...SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL TIKI BAR!!

It seems odd that after the investment and the marketing of TV, the owners would close up shop, but if there is no one buying Tiki drinks at the bar and only a few people dinning, the owners had to walk away from the investment - assuming it was even their investment and not a bank, brokerage, etc.'s investment.

My comment was not only directed at their restaurant business, but their whole enterprise. Their drink mixes seem to have gone downhill and their restaurant operation always seems to be in dire straits. TV restaurant closings are becoming the rule rather than the exception. Further, they have a hell of a time even getting one opened.

Their recent prospects for opening one in DC evaporated. I presume they have abandoned the idea until some interested investor goes to them wanting to open one in DC. They used to have a TV in DC a while back, but as the city grew the TV location ceased to be a good one. They dug up the streets to create a subway system, traffic patterns were changed for security reasons, and many areas of the city completely changed their identities. Corporate TV should have seen that coming and simply moved the location to a better one. Instead, TVs just seem to close.

Even as a franchise, being that the SF TV was so close to TV HQ, the company should have been aware that the restaurant was having trouble and should have seen fit to provide any assistance possible in overcoming those difficulties. They should do that for any site but, especially, at the TV across the bay. If I'm a potential TV investor and I fly out to HQ for meetings, it would be natural to spend some time at the local TV for inspiration, if for no other reason. Now all they can say is that their local TV closed. That's sure gonna keep me interested in investing in TV. :roll:

Maybe the restaurant operation should go full cirle, but rather than call it Hinky Dinks they should call it Rinky Dinks.