The Restaurant Shuffle
Tonight was Staccato‘s last night in downtown Bend; they have the notice on their website about their closure, which was also ran on KTVZ and the Bulletin had a more in-depth article.
I was a bit surprised; I rather liked Staccato and thought they were doing well. But there’s more to the story: on the day it was discovered that they were closing, my wife found a coupon in the latest Smart Shopper mail insert for a new restaurant called “Bourbon Street Bend“—listed with the same address as Staccato.
Since those mailers take some time to organize, print, and mail out, the plans for Staccato to close and be replaced had to be set in motion well before last Wednesday, when—according to the official version—Staccato found out their lease wouldn’t be renewed.
Downtown shenanigans! (Not even getting into the closings of Cork and 28.)
Meanwhile, over on the westside, the new self-serve frozen yogurt place, Cuppa Yo, which is apparently so far insanely successful (the Bulletin gives some numbers); I keep seeing all the locals mention it on Twitter and Facebook and there have been some tweet-ups there. I admit, we’ve been there twice already, and the offerings are pretty good: rotating flavors of frozen yogurt, all sorts of toppings, and 40 cents an ounce. I’ll write up a more extensive review later, maybe.
There should be a moratorium on new restaurants opening in downtown. In this economy the places in downtown that have struggled through the hard times need to have some kind of loyalty by the city and it’s public. Is Bend really in need of the next best thing right now? At the very least the city and it’s planners should do some homework on current would be restaurants and there owners, do they have any experience, do they have enough backing to go at least a year if not two without seeing a return, or is it they just have more money than sense. Just because you like to eat food or want a personal watering hole should not be criteria for opening a restaurant. The fact that so many places are closing should be a sign of market saturation, not enough disposable income to go around, or perhaps they just plain sucked. The city may be all too happy to get money via new permits and building owners with super low rent incentives may look good on paper but when is enough, enough? I believe that competition fuels competition but at this rate Bend is becoming an ever shifting culinary circus. Let the few good ones left, hang on to what they built and make due, at least until things get a little better.
Cuppa Yo ROCKS! It’s our family’s new favorite hang out. I’m so happy to have fro-yo in Bend again.
I really have to respond to the post left by Scott. Are you serious?!?! A moratorium? Exactly what benefit to the citizens of Bend would be served by allowing the City to decide who gets to make a run at their own business venture? I agree that downtown has been a shifting culinary circus, and should perhaps strive for different kinds of shops than just more restaurants, but come on!! What country do you think we live in? Aren’t dollar votes enough here? Are the poor citizens of Bend being harmed by the fluctuating choices in Bend?
IMHO, the diners of Bend are way too picky and fussy about restaurants in Bend. True, many restaurants have raised the expectations by positioning themselves as food for city folk, but this place has too many transplants who miss “hating the city” and find it very easy to rag on entrepreneurs who take risks and put it all on the line to try and raise the bar in Bend and hopefully get the satisfaction of pleasing their customers.
If we were to tell businesses that they couldn’t open until the economy got better, how long do you think we would wait for new businesses to open?
I consider myself lucky that someone else is going to take risk at something new and try to please me as a consumer (not to mention keep a few more people employed in Bend).