Cutting corners in maintenance

[Beltway]

Absolutely–on paper, at least, it is a small business. But when you buy into a brand like McDonalds you also buy into the marketing mechanism of that brand. If I run Scott's Diner, I have no brand name recognition or loyalty at time of startup. As a small business I probably won't be able to afford much in the way of marketing at first. My limited budget will probably restrict me to ads in local papers. Maybe eventually I can move up to local TV. But a franchise like McDonalds has advertisements in the media markets of nearly every city in the United States. That gives you a huge leg up over every other small business.

There are dozens of fast food restaurant chains in the U.S. (look it up).  And most of them have the individual propriater system.

[kphoger]

I've never seen one with more than two service brands and two restaurants.

[ list ]

If you've never seen a service plaza with more than two restaurants, you clearly haven't driven on a toll road in a very long time.

Great.  Super.  How many service plazas have you seen with more than one gas station?  Now how many exits have you seen with more than one gas station? 

[vdeane]

I've never seen one with more than two service brands and two restaurants.

[ list ]

If you've never seen a service plaza with more than two restaurants, you clearly haven't driven on a toll road in a very long time.

Great.  Super.  How many service plazas have you seen with more than one gas station?  Now how many exits have you seen with more than one gas station? 

Who buys gas at service plazas unless they have to?  Only stupid people who don't realize that they're paying a premium.

Absolutely–on paper, at least, it is a small business. But when you buy into a brand like McDonalds you also buy into the marketing mechanism of that brand. If I run Scott's Diner, I have no brand name recognition or loyalty at time of startup. As a small business I probably won't be able to afford much in the way of marketing at first. My limited budget will probably restrict me to ads in local papers. Maybe eventually I can move up to local TV. But a franchise like McDonalds has advertisements in the media markets of nearly every city in the United States. That gives you a huge leg up over every other small business.

There are dozens of fast food restaurant chains in the U.S. (look it up).  And most of them have the individual propriater system.

Great.  Don't care.  Doesn't change the fact that a store operating in such a franchise has a brand advantage over one that doens't.  While they may technically be small businesses, they have much more in common with multinational corporations than the REAL small businesses that come to mind when people think "small business" (read: mom and pop "Joe's corner store").

The government does not exist to serve businesses.  It exists to serve people.  In fact, if you take a sociological approach rather than an economical one, businesses do too.  Profit is supposed to be a reward for contributing to society, nothing more.  Sadly, it has become an end in and of itself.

Also, you and the lobbyists (who seem to have you in their pockets) have done nothing to compensate for other differences that can cause businesses pattern changes.  Using your logic, ice cream sales cause murders (more ice cream is sold in summer, and there are more murders in summer; look, a correlation, so obviously one must cause the other!  ).

[kphoger]

Who buys gas at service plazas unless they have to?  Only stupid people who don't realize that they're paying a premium.

The gas at service plazas is not invariably more expensive; I've seen it be the cheaper option.  Plus, as has been noted, toll road exits are often farther spaced.  This makes filling up at service plazas alluring at times–not to mention you're pretty much guaranteed not to hit any red lights or get stuck in traffic at your exit.

The point is that, even if there could be the same level of competition among restaurants at a service plaza as there is a local exit, there would very unlikely be the same level of competition among gas stations–so that business sector would suffer even if the restaurant sector would not.

[agentsteel53]

Using your logic, ice cream sales cause murders (more ice cream is sold in summer, and there are more murders in summer; look, a correlation, so obviously one must cause the other!  ).

incorrect.  murders cause ice cream.  everyone is filled with delicious ice cream: stab someone today, and find out for yourself!

[Beltway]

There are dozens of fast food restaurant chains in the U.S. (look it up).  And most of them have the individual propriater system.

Great.  Don't care.  Doesn't change the fact that a store operating in such a franchise has a brand advantage over one that doens't.  While they may technically be small businesses, they have much more in common with multinational corporations than the REAL small businesses that come to mind when people think "small business" (read: mom and pop "Joe's corner store").

Nonsense.  Self-proprieter chain businesses have nothing to do with "multinational corporations".

Besides, nearly every business near the interchangs anchor a major brand of fuel or food, in any case.

Also, you and the lobbyists (who seem to have you in their pockets)

Seems like your "multinational corporations" have YOU in their pockets.

have done nothing to compensate for other differences that can cause businesses pattern changes.  Using your logic, ice cream sales cause murders (more ice cream is sold in summer, and there are more murders in summer; look, a correlation, so obviously one must cause the other!  ).

To the moderators --- you may want to step in and stop this thread.

Because I am at the point where I am going to start heaping ridicule on this jerk and others like him if they keep posting the crap that they have been posting.

[NE2]

The assumption that anyone on the Interstate wants a small business is laughable.

[Scott5114]

I don't think you can outright say small business franchisees have "nothing to do" with multinational corporations. I used to work for a local Burger King franchisee with locations throughout Oklahoma and Arkansas, headquartered in Broken Arrow. While Burger King Corporation itself was a separate company and never was in our direct chain of command, we would occasionally have BKC reps order food from the drive-thru to ensure the food met their quality standards, that we got the order correct, that we didn't take forever to get it out, etc. If we failed to keep BKC happy the franchise owner would hear about it, and shit rolls downhill, as they say. If a franchisee is tarnishing the brand image, they can get their franchise revoked (i.e. lose the right to use the brand name).

But BKC had our back on a lot of things. BKC handled product development; we didn't come up with new sandwiches, they did in Miami and the ingredients and instructions would be sent in on our next truck. We didn't have to contract with a distributor; BKC did that. All we had to do was say how much product we needed and pay for it, and trucks showed up at our store. Same with packaging: we didn't have to have it designed and printed, we just had ordered the packaging and it showed up on the truck. We spent zero on marketing, again, BKC did that, they paid (at the time) Crispin Porter + Bogusky to develop ads and air them nationwide. We also spent nothing on our menu boards; we would get a big box of signs from Miami for us to put up and that was that.

If we were a truly independent small business we would have had to have gone it alone on all of this. We would have had to have contracted a print shop to print our packaging and menu advertising. We would have had to have found a distributor (and probably not gotten as good a deal as BKC could have since they could leverage the fact that they have something like 10,000 restaurants to deliver to and we only had like 25 or so). If we had to develop our marketing ourselves there was no way we could have afforded CPB as our ad agency, and couldn't have justified the cost to run ads outside of Oklahoma and Arkansas (thus someone from Maryland traveling in Oklahoma would have no idea who we are or what our products were). Someone would have had to been hired to invent new products. But since we had bought into the Burger King brand, we had all that back-end stuff covered for us, and could focus on the business of just running the restaurant.

[hbelkins]

If a franchisee is tarnishing the brand image, they can get their franchise revoked (i.e. lose the right to use the brand name).

That probably happens with great frequency with hotels and motels. You'll see a location change brand names a few times and then all of a sudden it'll become "Joe's Motel."

[Beltway]

Well, whatever.  You'll rarely if ever see a non-chain service or food business at a turnpike service plaza, while you will see some off of Interstate interchanges.  So your argument is if anything hurting the concept of commercializing rest areas, and not helping it.

[Scott5114]

The problem is that a lot of people simply don't trust independent brands. Taking H.B.'s example above–if you have a choice between Motel 6 and Joe's Motel, which do you think most people will pick? At least at Motel 6 if you have a cruddy stay you can raise hell with corporate and get a refund or a free stay (which is actually usable since Motel 6 has so many locations). At Joe's your recourse is probably going to be much more limited (even if you can get Joe to give you a comped stay, when are you ever going to be in Bucksnort, TN again to use it?)

[US71]

I used to prefer independents, but the last 4-5 years I've been staying at franchised hotels. Too many independents are simply being allowed to rot because the land is more valuable than the property (partly because the owners are lining their pockets rather than maintaining things)

Ramada Inn in Fayetteville, AR went independent 15-20 years ago. The owners didn't maintain the property and it was eventually sold to a developer for a strip mall. The old owner took the money and ran, leaving the new owner to dispose of everything.

Yet, franchised hotels are a crap shoot as well. I recently stayed in an America's Best Value that was a former Hampton Inn. I could see where it was being allowed to crumble. And this was supposed to be one of the best of the franchise? I don't think so.
I've stayed in bad Super 8's and bad EconoLodges. Also bad HoJos. I have never understood how these places stay in business.

I'll say this: Hilton is tough! They have very high standards from what I've seen and you don't want them mad at you.

[kphoger]

Taking H.B.'s example above—if you have a choice between Motel 6 and Joe's Motel, which do you think most people will pick?

Assuming comparable prices, I'll base my choice on online reviews, weighted by date of post, type of issue, and apparent pickiness of the poster.  I've stayed at enough excellent mom-and-pops and dumpy brand-names over the years to not base my decision on brand recognition.  While I understand most people prefer to stick to brand recognition, I can't help but think that more and more people will take advice on TripAdvisor et alii into consideration as time goes on.

But that's as may be.  Very few service plazas have motels (I can't think of any here in the Midwestern U.S., but I can think of a few in México).  The businesses that are really in question are gas stations and restaurants.  People generally don't plan meal stops or fuel stops in advance, the way they do motel stays; so these businesses are more vulnerable.

[deathtopumpkins]

People generally don't plan meal stops or fuel stops in advance, the way they do motel stays;

Bear with me here, but in a way I think they do - people might not deliberately plan to go through a certain city because it has a certain restaurant, but they may well see on their GPS where the nearest location of their fast food chain of choice is and take an alternate route so they go by it. Like say they're getting hungry when approaching a big city, and they see that the nearest Burger King is a couple exits down the beltway. They may then decide to take the beltway even though they originally planned to go through downtown, because it's the easiest way to go by the Burger King.

And there are people out there who do plan trips so that they go by a specific place. I've done it before. I've decided that I really like food stops at a specific place, so I look at their locations and specifically plan to swing by one.

[kphoger]

People generally don't plan meal stops or fuel stops in advance, the way they do motel stays;

Bear with me here, but in a way I think they do - people might not deliberately plan to go through a certain city because it has a certain restaurant, but they may well see on their GPS where the nearest location of their fast food chain of choice is and take an alternate route so they go by it. Like say they're getting hungry when approaching a big city, and they see that the nearest Burger King is a couple exits down the beltway. They may then decide to take the beltway even though they originally planned to go through downtown, because it's the easiest way to go by the Burger King.

And there are people out there who do plan trips so that they go by a specific place. I've done it before. I've decided that I really like food stops at a specific place, so I look at their locations and specifically plan to swing by one.

I plan my meal and gas stops ahead as well, but I suspect there are very few people who do this as a general practice–unless they drive the route regularly, in which case they already know where everything is and would be less likely to jump ship were a new service plaza to open.

While some may look up services on the fly on their GPS device, it's been my (limited) experience that few people will stray from their intended route for anything except a motel.  Most people I've travelled with simply scan along their intended route to see what restaurants there are, then pick their favorite one–not scan a wider area for one choice, then pick the closest one.  Then, of course, most people at large simply wait until they see the blue sign or the actual property itself before deciding anyway.

At any rate, I find it likely that some people plan ahead for gas and food just as they do for lodging (I myself am proof of that), but I would wager the percentage would be far lower.

[vdeane]

Nonsense.  Self-proprieter chain businesses have nothing to do with "multinational corporations".

Did you even read any of the stuff that has been posted on this thread?

Seems like your "multinational corporations" have YOU in their pockets.

WTF?  You clearly haven't read any posts of mine outside this thread.  Not being against rest area commercialization = being pro multi-national corps?  WOW.  For the record, I'm pro consumer, and don't care one iota about businesses as long as their policies are favorable to consumers and workers.  As far as I'm concerned, the only reason businesses exist is to provider services and employ people.  Profit for the owners is merely a reward for doing a good job IMO.  Anyone who goes into business for the money, and not because they are passionate about providing whatever service their business provides, should be thrown out.

Because I am at the point where I am going to start heaping ridicule on this jerk and others like him if they keep posting the crap that they have been posting.

So anyone who points out the flaws in your logic is automatically a jerk.  If that's how you feel, maybe you be done with this thread; nobody has been coming out to support your full argument, though we have had reasoned discussions about some specific points.

[Alps]

Guys, let's just chill out here for a little bit. Obviously there's a disagreement that we're not resolving about the impacts of service area services on similar local services. Let's see if we can get back to the main issue of improving maintenance.

[hbelkins]

As far as I'm concerned, the only reason businesses exist is to provider services and employ people.  Profit for the owners is merely a reward for doing a good job IMO.  Anyone who goes into business for the money, and not because they are passionate about providing whatever service their business provides, should be thrown out.

That statement is so foreign to the fundamental tenets of capitalism that I don't even know how to begin to respond to it.

[NE2]

You can begin by excommunicating him from the kool kids' klub.

[Alps]

We've strayed too far, and people are unwilling to come back on topic. Thread locked.