More than twice as many restaurants set to close in 2017 as Thais eat out less

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Quote

Also mentioned as contributing factors were...as well as the increasing emergence of online delivery services, reported Daily News.

 

That's simply not true. Lately, we've been using UberEats delivery a lot here in BKK. And because of them, we've found and become customers of Thai and other restaurants that we never would have known about or used before, because they're ones not necessarily local to our home. But with UberEats, that's no a problem, as the restaurant can be pretty much anywhere.

 

If anything, we're buying restaurant food MORE now with UberEats vs. the past when it didn't exist and we were cooking at home more. UberEats makes it so easy, it's almost not worth the time and hassle of doing a lot of grocery shopping, food prep and then cooking at home.

 

[nasanews]

If restaurants mentioned in this article look like the attached photo then I have a problem coping with current life.

[whatsupdoc]

The article should have mentioned the % of restaurants closed down by area in Thailand.
 
My reaction may be a bit simplistic, but if your food is fresh, good taste, at reasonable prices that do not rip off farangs, with friendly staff...such restaurants will always maintain business.
 
I recall during a trip at a well known sea side resort town, a few hours from Bangkok, going to a restaurant catering italian cuisine for around US$ 10,-- a dish!! Reasonable for the west, but outrageously a cheating price for Thailand. And it was not a hotel restaurant. I thus would have no pity in seeing such establishments close down.
 
 
 
 

Your reply is indeed simplistic. There can be many reasons why a business goes down like rent increases, change in customers profiles or numbers etcetera. Even when quality is maintained.

And for the example of the Italian restaurant; that depends very much on the quality. If it is truly fine dining with imported food and maybe expensive location then 10 Dollar per dish is cheap.


Sent from my iPad using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[nasanews]

There aren't 2000 farang restaurants to begin with, I think the article is about Thai trolley restaurants.

 

 

[observer90210]

11 minutes ago, whatsupdoc said:

Your reply is indeed simplistic. There can be many reasons why a business goes down like rent increases, change in customers profiles or numbers etcetera. Even when quality is maintained.

And for the example of the Italian restaurant; that depends very much on the quality. If it is truly fine dining with imported food and maybe expensive location then 10 Dollar per dish is cheap.


Sent from my iPad using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

You run an italian restaurant in Thailand?

[whatsupdoc]

You run an italian restaurant in Thailand?

No I don't.


Sent from my iPad using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Deez]

What? You mean continually  raising prices as customer numbers drop doesn't work?

[robblok]

26 minutes ago, bamukloy said:

Thats true, the graph dont lie. What i find is strange about it is how Thai economy is of course linked to world economics but yet not hit so bad from the western bank crisises

Do you remember the tom yum goong crises? Quite seperate from the west.

 

Anyway, two things you also mention in your posts is education and building investment.

But i assume its the rich and educated that are building these condos everywhere and shopping centres on every corner when already there is to many of em doing it hard.

If/when money really does dry up here and huge amounts are tyed up in empty condos and shopping centres there will be a huge problem i think.

The leaders here should really educate people on the concept what a oversaturated market means but then again im just but another farang mug who dont know much!

 

 

Graphs can lie, but you will see most economies go the way the world economy go. Only when you deviate significantly can you blame a government. 

 

Yes the tom yum goong crisis was separate from the west. But there are always exceptions to any rule.

 

Building, i was talking about all those mega construction projects for infrastructure. I was not talking about condo's. I am not sure about shopping centers, i cant imagine they are not making money. Why build them otherwise .. your assuming that the rich are stupid.. I don't think so there are many real smart people around. I am not talking in goverment (nepotism) but in the free market. There you need to perform or you lose money.

 

Education.. i still don't get it that Thailand spends so much money on education but has bad results (besides that corruption is draining part of the budget)

[observer90210]

5 minutes ago, whatsupdoc said:

No I don't.


Sent from my iPad using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

Good

[12DrinkMore]

3 hours ago, robblok said:

GDP and household income

 

A couple of notes....

 

GDP/Capita is more indicative. GDP tends to grow anyway as the population grows.

 

GDP is also published after the fiddlle-factor applied by the "GDP-Deflator". The economists try and strip out the underlying inflation to show the real growth.

 

I am sure this is a good idea, but I am not convinced the implementation, ie calculation and fiddling of inflation, is valid.

 

 

[robblok]

8 minutes ago, 12DrinkMore said:

 

A couple of notes....

 

GDP/Capita is more indicative. GDP tends to grow anyway as the population grows.

 

GDP is also published after the fiddlle-factor applied by the "GDP-Deflator". The economists try and strip out the underlying inflation to show the real growth.

 

I am sure this is a good idea, but I am not convinced the implementation, ie calculation and fiddling of inflation, is valid.

 

 

Your right of course, though GDP is still widely used and yes GDP should grow with inflation, but so would GDP per capita as its derived from the same figures. There are no perfect ways to measure an economy. 

[oldgent]

someone mentioned that you have to know what you are doing to be able to run a restaurant which is true.

IMO most thais that start up restaurants are not trained Chefs and have no idea, they see it as a way of making a living,

they dont know about World economy. The problem is there are to many food outlets for sure many will not survive.

and Pridilives  speaks in Chinese English and he made me laugh

[hansnl]

7 hours ago, just.a.thought said:

The high number of Chinese tourists have very little positive effect on the ordinary citizens economy. Seems to have been better days 10 years ago with less than 20 million western tourists.

Probably.

But the Western tourists, in general, stay longer ad spend more per day in the local economy.

The Chinese tourists come on package tours and that money goes to the organisers of those tours.

In general that is.

[inThailand]

When most of the restaurants closing is in the farm belt (Issan), it indicates farmers aren't doing so well. They need help, but not in way of payouts.

[oldgent]

29 minutes ago, inThailand said:

When most of the restaurants closing is in the farm belt (Issan), it indicates farmers aren't doing so well. They need help, but not in way of payouts.

what do you suggest

[bberrythailand]

Could it be that Thai start to understand what unhealthy shiiiiitee they are eating on a daily basis ?

 

Sorry, I'm joking of course :-)

 

 

[metisdead]

Off topic trolling posts and replies have been removed. Inflammatory posts have been removed as well. 

[Na Lee]

It surely doesn't apply for Hua-Hin more and more restaurants and foodstalls are opening their doors.

Sent from my BLL-L22 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[bodymassagemyfriend]

5 hours ago, bamukloy said:

In my own case actually we stopped eating out because quite simple..the quality has dropped badly.

But then this only proove again inflation, rental prices going up, things all generally harder to make a baht and restaurant have to adjust.

 

I notice that when like this many vendor are scare to raise a basic price because of many competitor.

Instead they will cut stuff, buy poor quality ingredient, add cheap nasty meat and less portions and so on.

 

Is probably come to the point when many people have got a bad dinner and still expensive so they figure they can make better at home 

Personally i go less to restaurant because i dont like eating a nice meal , possibly expensive its ok and having a bunch of people playing Line or looking at movies which spoils the athmosphere.

[farcanell]

This article means very little unless someone can link it to the amount of food businesses opening up, during the same time period.

 

2500 new businesses opening.... 2300 closing... up 200 businesses overall, for example.

 

i say this because as fast as I see one place closing, I see another opening.... but that may just be unique to my location

[Shroud]

16 hours ago, webfact said:

Isaan is the worst place for closures with 700 businesses in the region shut already this year

 

Whoops, this means we've got more hookers in da bars now fellas !!!

[cyberfarang]

The Thai way is, if someone creates a successful business, then many others will follow suit and open similar businesses nearby, sometimes even next door to each other. The same applies with cafes, restaurants and street food vendors. Coffee shops are a good example, one opens and succeeds, others open in the same areas believing their on to a good thing, then the market becomes over saturated, not enough customers to be spread around, creating stiff competition resulting in many going out of business. 

 

An old saying in Thailand; if you open a business and then someone else does the same thing, close it down and create some other kind of business.

 

 

[loong]

It is unclear what type of "restaurant" this article is referring to. The posted image accompanying the article is of foodcarts.

I also wonder how many of these failures are recent start ups. I see many new food places fail and I guess it is because of lack of research. They don't know their target customers and don't even know their costs and likely profit margins. Seems to me that rents are ridiculously high and even if rents are reasonable, appear to be successful and the landlord will put up the rent! I am sure that if people sat down and worked out costs and profit per meal and then calculated just how many meals they would need to sell per day simply to cover overheads, they would maybe think twice.

The other thing that people often don't seem to realise is that they can't cook! Honestly, I have eaten in many places and the food is awful. How they get any customers to come back is a mystery.

Often portion size is a joke. When I order a meal and it comes out and could be on a saucer instead of a plate I won't be keen to return.

Mind you it's nice of some places to provide entertainment in the form of hunt the meat. I had a chicken curry recently and the chicken was chopped and splintered bone with tiny scraps of meat.

Why are chicken dishes normally the same price as pork dishes despite chicken being half the price of pork?

 

There's a place not far from me that sells food from the trays. They prepare the food early morning. The food is excellent and tasty and good portions. Only drawback is that you have to go early to enjoy the food at its best. Between 6 and 8 o'clock in the morning there is a constant stream of people arriving for sit in meals or takeaways. Customers obviously jump on their motorbikes and travel there for the food.

A good business model and I can't see it going out of business any time soon.

[MaksimMislavsky]

Sad news. Slowly yet consistently Thailand is drifting towards Western-style lifelessness...

[speedtripler]

On 14/07/2017 at 8:56 AM, robblok said:

 

Yes .. not the fact that there are too many restaurants, and that more food is available online.

Actually, there are so many restaurants that barely ever have a customer in them I used to walk past wondering how they can afford to keep the lights on and pay the rent.... 

 

Add to the fact that the prices have Risen dramatically in the last decade and I'm sure Thai wages haven't Risen much in comparison 

 

Then you fire all the slave Burmese workers and thais won't do it because they want to be paid more... 

 

Replace the western tourists with cheap Chinese tour groups and its almost like someone could have predicted this... 

[oldgent]

Cyberfarang and Loong have nailed it spot on in there respective posts

all that nonsense about Global economy/Graphs and online food has no impact

on ordinary Thai people.

[speedtripler]

8 hours ago, loong said:

It is unclear what type of "restaurant" this article is referring to. The posted image accompanying the article is of foodcarts.

I also wonder how many of these failures are recent start ups. I see many new food places fail and I guess it is because of lack of research. They don't know their target customers and don't even know their costs and likely profit margins. Seems to me that rents are ridiculously high and even if rents are reasonable, appear to be successful and the landlord will put up the rent! I am sure that if people sat down and worked out costs and profit per meal and then calculated just how many meals they would need to sell per day simply to cover overheads, they would maybe think twice.

The other thing that people often don't seem to realise is that they can't cook! Honestly, I have eaten in many places and the food is awful. How they get any customers to come back is a mystery.

Often portion size is a joke. When I order a meal and it comes out and could be on a saucer instead of a plate I won't be keen to return.

Mind you it's nice of some places to provide entertainment in the form of hunt the meat. I had a chicken curry recently and the chicken was chopped and splintered bone with tiny scraps of meat.

Why are chicken dishes normally the same price as pork dishes despite chicken being half the price of pork?

 

There's a place not far from me that sells food from the trays. They prepare the food early morning. The food is excellent and tasty and good portions. Only drawback is that you have to go early to enjoy the food at its best. Between 6 and 8 o'clock in the morning there is a constant stream of people arriving for sit in meals or takeaways. Customers obviously jump on their motorbikes and travel there for the food.

A good business model and I can't see it going out of business any time soon.

Chicken isn't half the price of pork 

There is about 20% premium in Tesco 

60 something a kilo for chicken and 80 something for pork

 

Maybe they put less pork in to keep it the same price? 

[loong]

1 hour ago, speedtripler said:

Chicken isn't half the price of pork 

There is about 20% premium in Tesco 

60 something a kilo for chicken and 80 something for pork

 

Maybe they put less pork in to keep it the same price? 

I can't remember the last time that I saw pork at 80 Baht Kilo. Must have dropped a lot very recently.

[trainman34014]

1 hour ago, loong said:

I can't remember the last time that I saw pork at 80 Baht Kilo. Must have dropped a lot very recently.

80 Baht a Kilo is the price of good pork from about 12 years ago unless you want soup bones !

[Joebuzz]

I see it a bit different.  If the majority of restaurants closing are in Isaan that means money is not being sent 'back home' which means mongers aren't spending which likely means tourist numbers are down which means they ever present 'Tourist numbers are up!' Is completely BS.