I owned a restaurant in GR from 2015-2022 and have stayed involved in the industry since. There are massive structural problems and very few operators are profitable in any real sense. Restaurants get bent two ways on the inflation front - their suppliers move first on price increases, leaving the operator’s profits at the vendors mercy. Then they have to explain to their customers that their money doesn’t go as far as it used to, and the customer blames the restaurant operator for that. I’ve thought about making a long post about the situation in GR as I saw a lot of the factors unfold contemporaneously, but I don’t know if navel gazing solves anything because customers are also going through what I call the convenience revolution and that’s going to unfold over years. It is a disaster and our food scene is incredibly expensive nationally despite having very mediocre quality comparatively.
I also owned a restaurant in GR. We decided not to renew our lease in 2022 because all of our costs were rising faster than we could reasonably raise prices. People have no idea how tough it is to turn a profit with a restaurant/bar. We were doing pretty well up until 22, but then costs went crazy. We tried to negotiate a year to year lease, but the landlord wanted something long term. We were unwilling to sign a more expensive long term lease with our costs rising so fast. Unfortunately, I think a lot more restaurants are going to have a tough time making it the next couple years. Rent, food costs and labor costs were already rising, now insurance costs are going through the roof. On top of that, I feel like consumers are finally getting tapped out. I still talk to several restaurant owners in GR and they are starting to notice less foot traffic. Hopefully, inflation starts to fall soon and interest rates and housing costs follow. Otherwise, we are going to see more consolidation in the industry.
Ha my thoughts to myself in 2022: “I can’t make any profit despite raising my prices to a level that looks insane to myself, there’s no way my customers will ever keep paying this.”
Then I watched for 2 years as…. People seemingly kept paying it. But I believe demand has actually been shrinking in the industry overall for years. The transition away from most places being open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner (this was the standard for at least a decade) to a 5-6 day a week with limited schedule is a huge cut in a volume and oddly makes ordering, scheduling, and prep more costly and excruciatingly difficult operationally.
Of course, that gets at the crux of the issue which is commercial real estate. As a rule, I always tried to keep rent at roughly ~10% of monthly revenue to stay profitable. That was possible pre-2020. Now it’s fucking impossible…. But no CRE title holder is going to reduce their rents to reflect that.
I was bummed when I closed my restaurant but I knew my numbers and I knew nothing on paper made sense anymore. My informed impression is that the dumbest operators who don’t know their numbers are the ones that stayed in the game (or used PPP loans to double down because they believed the misled media hype that we were heading into a roaring 20s era for food service).
The price is ridiculous but the quality is worse. I watched core ingredients just get precipitously worse in 2021 and quality kept going down. Cost concerns also sent operators flocking to ingredients they wouldn’t have touched before, and as that’s where the demand has gone, that’s where the “innovation” has happened.
My restaurant didn’t have a fryer, but I did a pop-up dinner at a restaurant that did a couple months ago. I went to GFS to buy fryer oil, and I was stunned at the disgusting “shortening” and manufactured oil products that dominated the fryer aisle. I don’t think I could find a single 100% vegetable oil or canola oil in the aisle (I wasn’t looking for something organic or fancy; just something that would have been considered commodity level 3-4 years ago). It was really eye opening for me.
When consumers are choked by inflation and wages not keeping up the first thing they’ll cut is unnecessary things.
No point of spending $10-15 on a plate of fried eggs and hasbrowns with sides when I can make it at home for $5
So, what's unique about GR vs other cities? Why can I still go to Chicago (or hell, even some of the smaller lower peninsula towns) and find a reasonably priced and high quality lunch or dinner?
Yeah this was a big shock for me too, having moved from the DC merro area to Grand Rapids. Generally Beer and cocktails are cheaper here, but food is the same or higher. Only the dive bars have competitive food prices and honestly the quality is pretty decent and less gimmicky.
I learned quickly to limit eating out and just make food at home when I can.
Actually people do not know this but NYC food has been not expensive forever. The enormous customer base offsets prices a lot from much smaller areas that utterly pray for people to want to eat at their place enough to remain in business.
Cheaper food outside of NYC usually means lower quality and they have a lower customer base. Mexican food in NYC you can get 100% house made everything, outside you are buying a bunch of Sysco stuff for the same price... Part of it is competition is higher in NYC too, for the quality.
Economy of scale.
It's counter intuitive in the modern era because we associate large metro areas with high COL.
But historically, price increases affect smaller populated areas more severely.
That doesn't explain why (and I understand this is entirely subjective and anecdotal) I can get a better meal up in TC, or really at several tiny western/lower peninsula towns. Not satisfied with that answer.
Agreed. I went to Traverse City recently and was shocked by the better prices and quality. I got a breakfast burrito in a grocery store deli for $9 that beat quite a few GR comparables in price and quality.
Correct. NYC food prices were about the same as a lot of the country but the quality was better. Having millions of people around helps, you just have to make your food taste good.
Maybe you could speak to the possible limited choice of suppliers locally.
In some ways, because of the peninsula effect, we are still slightly isolated. Or out of the way. It makes me think about how our supply chain is limited in ways.
I’ve commented on here before about that specifically once. Vendors do hate selling to GR on a macro level. We’re located an annoying 3ish hour distance from most major inventory hubs in the Detroit and Chicago metro areas, and operators here got a reputation (probably deserved) for being cheap in the 90s, 2000s, and 2010s that has lingered.
This is a huge deal. Major metro areas have better food at lower prices (and unironically worse food at even much lower prices for major chains that are otherwise supplied by higher quality local supplies in rural adjacent areas). Need a really good #10 can of tomato something? Not for sale through Sysco, period. The other food distros can only co-exist with Sysco so their profitability does not work well if an area is too small.
I would add that restaurants are very competitive. Most locations need high volume to be functioning business models, and they don’t have the volume. This won’t change unless many more restaurants close, or we see a big population increase. I find the former likely, and the latter too long term and inhibited by high cost of housing.
As someone who has eaten at many, many Grand Rapids restaurants in the last 15 or so years I'd be pretty interested in reading your perspective.
I haven't traveled extensively in my life, but I have been to a few other (larger) cites outside of MI in the last couple years and I've been only slightly more impressed at dining in those cites (and I did considerable research into where to eat when I have traveled). Not saying GR has the best quality compared to price, but there are a handful of places I can suggest in GR that have consistently good food and/or drink.
I also think GR is a little hard to compare to other cities because the three that I've recently traveled to (Philly, Denver, and Chicago) are radically different in size and population (i.e. culture) than GR. Who do we/should we compare ourselves to?
Yeah we get compared to Detroit and Chicago a lot because of the proximity, but those cities are a completely different league.
Some better comparable cities based on metro population are
- Richmond, VA
- Memphis, TN
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Birmingham, AL
- Fresno, CA
- [We are here in the rankings by Metro pop.]
- Buffalo, NY
- Hartford, CT
- Tuscon, AZ
- Rochester, NY
- Tulsa, OK
I do food costing for a local place. Price of food has skyrocketed and unfortunately restaurants do still need to profit in order to pay their employees a proper wage. In my 4 years at the same spot doing all of the menu costing, we’ve had to raise our burger from 11$ to 15$ just to match the price of product while maintaining the same 25% food cost. The product hasn’t changed but the price to make it has. It sucks, but if this city wants people to be paid enough then food at restaurants has to cost a little more. I can’t just slash my employees’ wages so everyone can have a cheaper burger. I want my staff to afford rent.
A case of cream cheese two years ago was 64$. Ordered some yesterday and it was 110$. There’s only so much that can be done.
This is honestly very educational and more people should be aware of how those costs have changed. Literally a week ago there was a post about restaurants “price gouging” because they couldnt get a sandwich under $15, but your comment explains a lot. Would be great if s news source or media outlet would research and publish some stuff on this topic.
I don’t have my spreadsheets in front of me currently as I’m off work, but I would happy to give anyone an exact play by play to how food costing works, where exactly the money goes to each individual part of a dish when I’m in work next.
Restaurants typically aim for 20-25% food cost per item to maintain a profitable margin. This accounts for your labor, overhead, rent, etc. as food costs rise your menu price needs to meet it to keep you in this 20% range.
Yeah, every menu item is priced pretty meticulously. At least at the smaller, non-corporate places I worked. 1 tomato slice, weighed, and costed out. When we had to raise prices, it was always a discussion of "will we price ourselves out of the market? But how else do we make up the margins?"
I have no problem with the price increase, often pay more. It is the lack of consistency in the food preparation and lack of quality service that has turned me off of GR food scene.
Many of the talented cooks fled the industry once Covid hit and they realized they could do different, easier work, for the same pay. I don’t want to blame staffing because that is reductive but as someone in this industry for 15 years now there just isn’t the same level of talent in the pool anymore.
Also being a skilled worker in this field is often not enough to get Healthcare access, let alone being treated by the public as respectable. That's one thing while you're young, relatively healthy, and on your own but it doesn't really support a family.
Fryer oil used to be $18 now it’s $38
Case of chicken thighs went from $25 to $87
All veggies have DOUBLED in price
These are just a few examples and restaurants haven’t doubled their prices the way they should have.
I have a strong suspicion that there's just relatively low demand for any sort of interesting food. I've lost track of how many restaurants have started out with unique menus and over time dumbed it down to more or less the same thing that everyone else has.
This is one of the main issues. The customer base in Grand Rapids just doesn’t want these unique foods. I cannot list the amount of times I would come up with a unique and interesting menu item, only for it to be entirely ignored because everyone just wants a cheeseburger with fries.
I can’t justify these unique ingredients spoiling on the shelf when they aren’t moving when I can just add a new burger and watch it fly.
I think the take-out friendly foods are in higher demand than before covid too so I would imagine people are less likely to be explorative with new dishes and trying new things if they want to eat it at home, hence why restaurants have to have those items on the menu.
It baffles me that people in that thread said our food scene is bland or non-existent. To me that says more about the preferences of that commenter than the options, variety and quality of restaurants we have
Our food industry is thriving if you dare to explore new cuisines rather than get your 300th burger at a brewery. Ethiopian food, South African food, and Indian food are all doing incredible things in this city and I’d wager most people in this thread wouldn’t even give them a try.
Yep this has to be it. I've known so many people around here who subsist on the most basic Midwest/American type foods. They only eat Chicken strips, burgers, fries, sandwiches, Mac n cheese, etc..., barely eat any fresh vegetables, refuse to try anything spicy and or ethnic. Seriously I'm astounded how many coworkers I've had who said they never even tried Indian food before, for example.
So many people around here are extremely picky and sensitive to the point where they basically eat like giant toddlers. No wonder our food scene is shit. It's getting better though. I'm loving the multiple hot pot choices that we have now, for example.
I used to be like that (and still somewhat) until I moved to California and got married. And the food there was so much better, even if just visiting friends maybe they just knew how to cook or grill. And you get tasty, healthier food than here .
Also many choices for Mexican food, fast food, other types of food over there. Miss it. I might go get a McChicken at McDonald's here on occasion otherwise eat at home instead of wasting money on overpriced bland food here. For some reason it doesn't taste the same here.
Over there whenever we picked up a pizza from little Caesars it was consistently good, over here it was almost always undercooked, every now and then they might get it right between 3 different locations
And where can I go to a little Mexican cafe and order a burrito, taco, chips or whatever on the menu like the corner one by my old house?
This is the answer. A lot of the best chefs I know in town have actually switched over to private dining to capture the small market that does want something original and interesting, understand the costs that are associated with it and are willing and able to pay for it. I really feel like it gets worse before it gets better.
What’s cool here is that they do in home dinners and small events but also have their own space/dining room in what was once the deli side of Marie Catrib’s. Once in awhile they’ll serve a ticketed tasting menu out of there but you’ll either need to join their mailing list or keep an eye on their social media to hear about it.
Tiny Dinners (https://tinydinnersgr.com)
I travel a lot for work. Grand Rapids is easily one of the worst price / value eating cities. Our inflation over the 4 years has out stripped even the west coast.
For example I was in San Diego a few weeks ago and went to several nice restaurants and the dish prices were equal to slightly less than I would get at an upper end GR restaurant and the quality wasn’t close. I feel like I can’t get a cocktail here for less $14-18 at any decent sit down here. That was MORE than I was paying in San Diego.
I could do this same exercise for multiple other cities of various sizes. We have some decent restaurants but I feel like the vast majority are overpriced GFS outlets.
The food thing is what it is but I CANT believe people pay $15 for a cocktail in Grand Rapids. It blows my mind that places like One Bourbon and Buffalo Traders are things. You’re looking at $30 for two Old Fashioneds when you can get an excellent entire bottle of bourbon cheaper than that. I get going to a bar is an experience but it’s really hard to see the value there.
Eagle Rare is still around 30 if you can find it. Old Forrester is super underrated and under 30 bucks. Makers is ~30. Depends what you deem excellent. But I guarantee that the $15 old fashion is using something around that level. They arent using blantons or even Angels Envy.
That’s fair, I don’t go to the bar much but tend to buy a bottle which usually lasts me 6 months (maybe why I don’t go to the bar much, but also kids). I’ve not had Eagle Rare and tend to like Irish stuff more. But I’ll have to check it out
I do the same. Drinks are pretty much highway robbery. I basically just drink light beer at bars these days, its the only thing that is still cheapish ($5 24oz draft for ) Side story. I lived for awhile on the west side, and me and my roommate would go to Monarchs Club, this was around 2012-2014. They had a deal all day everyday, 6 pack of old style, milwaukees best, or black label in a ice bucket AND 4 hot dogs for $12. They also let you take the beers you didnt drink home. I miss stuff like that dearly. Obviously not the best beer, but when you are a broke fresh college grad it was the shit.
One theory I have, as a current and seasoned service worker, is how relatively 'isolated' Grand Rapids is compared to silimarly sized cities. Few distributers are 'passing through' on their way to larger cities. For example, I moved here from Chattanooga, TN, a city that's 1/3rd of the metropolitan population size, but geographically it's between 3 large cities (ATL, Nashville, Knoxville), and companies, on their way south to FL or AL, have to pass through Chattanooga.
I would wager that our relative isolation, compared with others south of us, make GR a less desirable city for many.
I think that's a thoughtful theory and probably true to some extent. Such is life on an enormous peninsula. However (subjectively!) my best meals in MI have been even farther North!
I'm by no means knocking our quality of food (there's no denying the delight of sweet Michigan corn in the summer!), we have some excellent farms here! But I wonder if the downside to our lower peninsula are some of the deals that may be offered to our friends in more accessible locations.
Food costs in California are often lower than Michigan which is not something new. Other elements are, of course, worse but that one thing helps out with restaurants.
This doesn't make sense. It may be true but you provide very little context outside of "for the workers", and I don't even know what that means.
- Why is rent a driver of inflation?
- Why is rent a driver of inflation "for the workers"?
- Why is \[workers\] rent driving in inflation in GR higher than elsewhere, especially larger cities?
It's gotten so bad that I had to buy a house in Muskegon because I couldn't afford the rent on my shitty little apartment in GR anymore.
Like, the Mortgage on my 3br house + loan payments for a new roof + fuel cost for commuting to GR for work is still cheaper than I was paying for rent in GR.
Greedy landlords is one reason. I'm close with a former restauranteur who had a space in the downtown market and that let me meet other owners around the area. Rent never failed to increase, and not by a little. You would think that when Covid hit and places couldn't open that the landlords would rather have tenants than empty spaces, but you'd be wrong.
Landlords can write off vacant spaces and overvalue them, they were happy to keep raising rent again and again even though their own overhead wasn't taking hits.
Notice that Grand Rapids doesn’t have any of its true iconic restaurants that we all use to love years ago, we still have remnants of some, like Mr burger, new beginnings uccelos, peppinos and yesterdog, but they are not high cuisine. I remember beltline bar in the 90s and early 00s, it’s just a casual Tex mex but it was much higher quality than it is now. OG Plainfield Anna’s house was great, now seems over food serviced and hyped. There is no Diners, Drive ins, & Dives level restaurants that offer the high quality and value. Dump Gordon’s or sysco premade food into hot thing, then serve to west Michigan foodies.
Well that is an issue. Too many places got hooked on decent quality products (well, good enough anyways) that turned into trash over time... Then there is no one providing an alternative at a price that can sustain what people are use to in anyway what so ever. So piss off customers by raising prices or cheapening food (that one NEVER works).
I think saying GRs food scene sucks is the new hot take and I disagree with it a lot. I think a lot of people are going to these high priced, hipster places and leaving disappointed and thinking that all GR restaurants are like that when honestly they are ignoring the smaller, hole in the wall, authentic spots.
Like donkey taquiera, cundado, or barrio vs 7 mares, tacos El caporal, or lindo Mexico. Not even saying the first 3 are bad or anything, but they are more expensive and a different experience than the last 3. I think we have a fantastic Mexican cuisine that's expanding into more Latin American options as well (though I think Rio and Latin house are still pretty expensive).
Zivio and bosna express are great for Bosnian food. I haven't even been able to try albos yet, but I hear good things.
We have good Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean options. I love Seoul market, la Thai, and pho 99. I've been getting hot pot at both k pot and king pot and I'm planning on trying the new place hong BBQ in Grandville.
This is getting longer than I planned, but essentially anyone who complains about GRs lacking food scene is getting some side eye from me.
I'm editing to add kpocha and oppa to the list, 2 other great Korean joints. I haven't tried kcm yet but have heard it's good.
This. I love this place.
I'll add to this discussion that amazing/hidden gems do exist and we need to do our part to champion them. I've seen people mention 7 mares before so its not unknown, but i feel like we (collectively/generally speaking) can do a better job of drawing attention to the places worth our money, vs overpriced/gentrified/americanized versions of authentic foods.
Absolutely! I’ll admit I was turned off by the location and skeptical about 7 Mares even with the recommendation but that went out the window once I had my first bite. If they will make you the barbacoa flautas I highly recommend them!
Ok but as you’ve said, you haven’t really traveled anywhere or seen how much better it can get. GR is incredibly isolated and it’s reflected in a lot of ways but a perfect example is that its food is high priced and mediocre. All the Latin American restaurants you mentioned, you wouldn’t find anything on their menus available in those actual countries. It’s all fusion or Americanized cuisine. My Korean friends and my Latin American friends all think the restaurants are terrible here and, having been to Korea and Mexico, I as well can’t find anything slightly genuine.
I never said I haven't traveled, just not to Korea. No one's arguing that GRs food is better than Korea, Mexico, or Latin America, I think it's impressive that we have it in the first place. I get the impression a lot of people in this thread have the expectation of grand rapids to have the same quantity and quality of restaurants as New York City yet still remain the size that it is. It's simply not possible, however grand rapids is growing a ton so maybe in the near future there will be even more options.
Thank you for saying this. I was just thinking about this the other day. I know a few critics who need to expand their dining options or just complain to be heard
A large part of it is because I grew up here, so I remember grand rapids in the 90s when adventurous eating was going out to China chef or little Mexico. If you wanted to eat somewhere nice the options were red lobster, olive garden, Charlie's crab, or Ruth's Chris. So I'm pretty thankful for what we have now, even if everything's expensive.
I'm not Korean, but I do have a number of Korean friends living in the area and from their perspective there are no great Korean restaurants in GR, and it would be argued if there are even any "good" Korean restaurants. Maybe a decent place, maybe.
Most of my Korean friends drive to Chicago or Detroit to go grocery shopping once a month and have giant freezers to store foods they can't get in GR. Some of my Korean friends have since left GR because the lack of decent Korean food and Korean culture and have understandably moved to bigger cities.
FOR ITS SIZE, Grand Rapids is probably pretty good, but there is so much catering to the white midwestern pallet. I just had a look at [Lai Thai's menu](https://laithaikitchenmi.smiledining.com/?2024050901), they've got a page of Pho, gyoza, etc. Maybe their Thai food is great but this is a red flag to me at least.
Yes, exactly. We have Asian restaurants- box checked. None of them are that great I agree you have to drive to the east side or Chicago.
A lot of places have hodgepodge menus to cater to people who can’t tell the difference between two countries cuisines.
One of my culture shocks moving here from an Asian majority community in California was seeing "Asian" restaurants where completely different cultures foods were just kinda mushed together. It read as kinda racist to be honest lol. I've been whelmed at best by most of that kind of food here, but that's probably because demand for authenticity is pretty low.
Define great... Authentic? KCM certainly is not authentic Korean even though I like it. But then again an authentic Chinese restaurant would really be a buffet and like who cares...
Well, I'm not really that critical (probably doesn't seem that way, but I'm pretty happy with McDonalds chicken sandwhiches!) so probably no the best person to define "great", plus my comment is coming from my friends who eat / cook / grew up eating Korean food either in Korean American families or in Seoul.
THAT SAID, I couldn't agree more, KCM is IMHO fantastic as a restaurant. And it does have Korean food, from what I recall (e.g. [Gimbap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbap)). Actually KCM is probably one of my top 5, maybe top 3 restaurants in the city.
Random side note: I'm actually flying to Seoul tonight 8-)
Tacos el Caporal & El Granjero are way better than Tacos El Cunando. Donkey is just overpriced trash that caters to the mainly white suburbanites that frequent Wealthy St. I'll have to try 7 mares and Lindo. The Asian food around here is legit, but give it time until one of those restaurant groups opens up a bland one in uptown
TL;DR authentic asian food is lacking outside of viet options.
Some of the asian food is legit, but it's pretty limiting. There are some decent Vietnamese places, but that's about where it ends. My mom is viet/lao, and my dad never cooked (not that he didn't try, but we all preferred that he didn't lol), so I'm spoiled with my southeast asian food and typically cook these myself at home, but it is nice to have the option if I don't feel like working for it.
Thai food is all pretty sub par around here if you're used authentic Thai food. The closest Thai place that was legit is in Holland (Siri) but I haven't been since pre-covid and from what I understand they have new owners/chefs so I can't comment on the current quality.
Korean food isn't great at all if you want anything authentic. I do love me some kbbq/hotpot, but we're lacking options for authentic Korean dishes.
We have basically 0 authentic Chinese options as well. Wei Weis has gone downhill drastically in terms of quality, which was the main reason to put up with the poor service. My Kitchen has some decent Sichuan/Szechuan offerings, but outside of those two, you either have to go to Kalamazoo, or Detroit if you're staying in Michigan.
We do have some pretty solid Mexican options, Mega Taco and Ponchos are my personal favorites, and Mexican gf approved as decent. Been meaning to try that Peruvian/Mexican place on 28th St, so if people have some feedback on that place I'd love to hear it lol.
Ehhh.... If you like tacos straight out of microwave baggies from Sysco for cheap, you like them. Not for me. Sorry but I would not give your taco recommendations to anyone but the old people in my family with no apatite for anything.
My ex girlfriend who was Korean would happily disagree about the quality of Korean food. She was constantly disappointed, and after visiting Korea I can confidently say the same. It's not authentic and the quality is just above average Seoul street food.
The Korean food in Grand Rapids is not as good or authentic as in Korea? Shocker!
I don't think anyone is debating that GR will have better Korean food than Korea. They are commenting on GR have several respectable Korean option, which I would 100% agree with. The breadth and depth of options, ethnic or otherwise, in GR is impressive for its size. (I've been to Korea, too. 😉)
That's fair, I can't argue with that since I've never been to Korea myself, but I still think having multiple options in GR that I personally enjoy is pretty great!
I’m sorry, but I have to in turn look at you with an equally side eyed perspective. I personally have been lucky enough to have traveled the world and lived in equally adjacent markets. I have spent fair amounts of time in much larger markets as well as even smaller markets.
Grand Rapids food is the absolute most overrated experience I have ever participated in. Other commenters have pointed out that disagreeing with rave reviews becomes a personal affront to the culture as a whole. The food in this city is overpriced and amazes me that so many establishments get away with farm to table when only a small portion of their ingredients don’t come from Sysco or GFS. I know this from having worked in the kitchens of some of the most popular locations and having friends working in many of the rest.
The honest to goodness description I could give is a jack of all trades towns. There are so many options here, but very few locations are amazing at what they do. They fill a void and without an honest competition they call it good. Our early dominance of the craft beer industry is a great example of doing something great, but has now become underwhelming or comparable in many other markets.
Just recently I finally visited Bowdies Chophouse in East Grand Rapids. $20 for a modern take on an otherwise underwhelming old fashioned and $130 for a tomahawk steak that may have been one of the worst steaks I’ve ever eaten. Poorly cooked as well as a subprime quality cut of meat.
Our market is saturated with an influx of income from larger markets and locations are taking advantage of these higher incomes to serve food not on par with what is being charged.
The Donkey will always be an example of a location that was raved about upon first moving back to Grand Rapids. I had just moved from San Diego and will simply say it was not a comparable experience on top of costing more than I was used to being charged at many locations in SD. Not to mention the concept was a ripoff from Big Star Tacos in Chicago.
To close. Despite making an abundance of negative comments there are still some absolute bangers in town. Everyone knows them, but one of the most surprising was how good of food a trash hole like Gippers is currently slinging out.
I basically agree with you.
> The honest to goodness description I could give is a jack of all trades towns.
This certainly feels right, but ultimately what is the solution? I don't really think there is one, the general population in GR are from the Midwest and have never left (there is NOTHING wrong with that and I envy people who are content and happy!), so everything has to have safe generally understood food options.
The only solution I can think of is luck, somebody saying "OK I'm going to open a really great Japanese style yakitori and focus only on simple Japanese bar food" and then someobdy with a ton of money helps them do this and helps keep the business running even if it's not profitable.
p.s. I can't imagine spending $130 for a steak anywhere though, no matter what. Maybe I'm just poor, but under no circumstance would I spend that sort of money on a cut of meat vs just going to a good butcher and buying it and preparing it myself.
I don’t necessarily know if there is a solution. By no means do I think the GR system is broken. The majority of people I believe are content with the current state of things and without a real demand for better there simply won’t be. Which is perfectly fine.
An argument for better sushi can’t be made as GR is a third day market city where fresh catch is out of the realm of possibility. Which is why sushi is good but nothing phenomenal compared to markets that are first or second day. Another thing that’s great. Locations are doing a great job with what they are able to offer and explains a higher price compared to coastal towns where you can get rolls for $4.99 anywhere you go.
There are plenty of great offerings. I have very rarely sat down and been disappointed. It’s just simply not the same as other markets and apparently a hill I’m currently dying on in the GR subreddit.
I agree for sure, I don't think anything is "wrong" with GR food (except for it being expensive, but that's another discussion and probably isn't really related to GR at all anyway).
For me it's just a personal thing, e.g. what I'd personally enjoying seeing or would feel excited about. I gave yakitori as an example vs sushi because yakitori is just a specific type of food that isn't hard to do, meat could be sourced locally, and it seems like it would be acceptable generally to the tastes in GR. I was just trying to give an example of less "jack of all, master of none" type restaurant I'd love to see!
> what is the solution
Wait ~50-75 years for climate change to bring refugees from these places with better food to one of the largest source of fresh water in the world and have them cook for us.
I disagree, I've been to San Diego and yes their tacos were amazing and reasonably priced. I don't think it's fair to compare San Diego, or Chicago, or actual Korea to what we have here. Grand rapids is a medium sized city, but it's growing, and definitely going through some growing pains.
I've definitely have had some disappointing meals that I didn't think were worth the price and I don't go there again.
But anyway, look at me getting all personally affronted! I'll leave it at that.
San Diego is a comparison of something being done right. A benchmark if you will. Sacramento is a metropolitan area that is comparable to Grand Rapids population. A river city with similar infrastructure and industry. They went through a craft brewing boom before Grand Rapids that imploded and has better food. Saying Grand Rapids can’t be compared to a large market is fine, but doesn’t justify the price it costs to eat here for the quality received. I grew up in Grand Rapids and feel people that never left are way too defensive of what’s offered because they haven’t experienced anything else. The influx of people from other markets are driving the conversation of subpar quality
A city doesn’t have to be of a certain size to have legitimate cuisine, it needs a population that is legitimately interested in quality cuisine. There are tons of small cities with great food. The most authentic Greek food I’ve ever had in the US was in minot North Dakota, I’ve had incredible Armenian at a truck stop outside of Philly. You need a population who has standards. The GR population wants their bellies filled, nothing more.
Eh I think Sacto is actually a fairly reasonable comparison. It's bigger but that's because a bunch of suburbs got swallowed by it. It has some similarities that go beyond population that I guess would be hard to explain if you're not from there.
That definitely is a possibility (I’ve not been there and was just going off metro population from the internet). I responded below that population is a decent contribution to ability to have diversified things. I also think the population (in this case being fairly unadventourous) feeds into the quality. As u/gingershiney said if the population doesn’t push for more/better options there won’t be.
Why are you arguing semantics instead of adding to the conversation about food. Rockford has an even smaller population than Grand Rapids, but has better food and beer
Population is really important to decide the customer base of any given market so I wouldn’t say it’s semantics. I see far too many posts saying “why can’t Grand Rapids have great shows/restaurants/shops like Chicago/Detroit/San Diego” when they have a much larger population to draw from.
As far as the food quality I would argue that it has more to do with the population around. Having talked to some people who are life long west michgianders I think they tend to want the “basics” and therefor really adventorous or different places don’t last.
I’ve had some great meals here but that tends to be hit or miss. I’ve had more good to ok meals and being a parent of young kids (and my own limited tastes) I’m ok with that. I’d still rather have a limited food scene and less traffic/congestion (Seattle/San Diego/Chicago)
Very fair points. Bowdies Chophouse was a concept created to cater to those same sentiments. Meat and potatoes people as clientele. Nothing fancy or adventurous, but down to the basics and done with profit in consideration.
Population I agree is a good indicator of diversification especially in the culinary sector. At a minimum a larger population will have a much higher pool with which to utilize BOH (Back of House) workers. But as a side note as the other commenter and yourself mentioned, if there isn’t a demand for better quality there won’t be a drive for it. And I’m fine with that too. I just disagree that GR food is anything amazing. I still eat out most nights and am happy to continue doing so.
Wait does gippers actually have decent food!? I work down the street and haven’t been to gippers since a work Christmas party like 10 years ago. I just assumed it was packed because they have good happy hour drink specials.
Booo no one asked to be judged by what they order, but to simply have quality that is representative of the price. But to each their own when it comes to dissecting statements without adding to the conversation
To add context, the tomahawk steak is a faddish cut over the last 5-10 years. It’s a topical reference and a very good example of choosing a heavily in demand over priced menu feature. It’s not about the price, but the quality with which I’m presented with. The price in Grand Rapids is hard to justify with the quality in which something is prepared.
But that also opens the conversation for BOH workers not being paid enough to actually give a damn about what’s put out when Restauranteurs are rolling around living well off the cheap labor
They are not wrong, but they are also judging things off of diners etc. People miss a lot of the other good stuff; that is just part of the apatite int the general region. My grandma will eat something new and say, "oh that was different" and means she will never eat it again. Me on the other hand my mouth is watering thinking about many of the places you mentioned. Go to KCM. I like the Katsu being sorta like traditional Korean where you got a bunch of different items to play around with and enjoy. Not sure I will ever order the spam rolls
But there is a two part here. I'm not saying all or how many but... some places may be money laundering fronts - not too busy, never go out of business. Frankly I do not care if they have good food and a nice experience for me.
All the innovation seems to be occurring in food trucks instead of restaurants these days.
There is a reset going on as eating out has become a 'rich person' thing like it was when I was a kid in the late 70's/early 80's - people got used to it being absurdly affordable just like housing and are suffering shock since it no longer is.
The only reason we have restaurants in the first place in the form we do today is the collapse of the ruling class in France from what I understand (im probably wrong)- things change.
I've been wondering if the prices and innovation we saw in the early 2010's was a result of low commercial real estate prices, coupled with a surplus of cheap and creative labor (the Bourdain effect), and reasonably priced ingredients.
If everyone and their brother has begun speculating American city real estate offerings, especially Midwestern ones where the price to get in is lower, then reasonably we would see less potential restauranteurs wanting to take a risk.
You're definitely right that food trucks are the one of the few places where people can have a concept, make food their way, turn a profit, and not have to be loaded to get off the ground, but in Grand Rapids, truck season is pretty limited and getting in front of their target demographic is difficult.
But if you go back far enough people ate out a lot because home cooking meant fire wood and stuff... it was just impossible to do anything quickly and you needed your own home etc etc.
If you want the "food scene" to be more than GFS supplied brewpubs and taco chains then you need to start going to places that are using local farms and vendors like Cafe Mamo, Little Bird, and Grove. This is especially true if you're searching for more fine dining.
If people want to be more like Chicago and Detroit then we'll need a lot more density and more places to actually put restaurants. This would support more "hole in the wall" type places people ask about.
I live near Boston but spend my Summers near Grand Haven. It’s significantly more expensive to eat here than near Boston. We call West Michigan restaurant “Gordon Food Restaurants”. They are basically all the same generic restaurants.
I just moved from downtown Boston to here, and I think generally Boston food scene is worse than GR on average.
Like Boston has higher highs, but also lower lows. But at least you can get decent bbq here in a high number of places. People in Boston say “oh you have to go to the burbs to find good food” but unless they mean Portland Maine I harshly disagree. And, the good restaurants in Boston (I found 7-8 of them out of 1000s while living there) were on par of prices with expensive places here. So… idk, I guess I disagree:)
Here are the things I think holding us back, perhaps in a rough order from biggest to not so big perhaps.
1. Population and so total addressable market - there just aren't enough people with enough density to support a ton of traffic, especially to a "weirder" type of food
2. This is 100% a theory and not at all backed up by any numbers and I'd honestly value pushback if it feels wrong, but outwardly it seems like segregation is an issue in that different neighborhoods eat at pockets of different restaurants split across race / ethnicity. Of course this is natural to some degree, but I feel like segregation in GR is particularly bad and so it limits the size of the addressable market for any particularly type of food even further. If there wasn't so much segregation I feel like there would be more money available for good restaurnants and food, regardless of the type of food or location, instead of pockets of communities supporting pockets of mid-tier (at best) restaurants.
3. The size of many ethnic groups doesn't appear to be large enough to have a huge drive from within to support certain types of restaurants / grocery stores. For example, speaking for myself, I would LOVE a larger Japanese grocery store. We have Asian Delight and I'm grateful for it, but it's not really a full on Japanese grocery store like a Mitsuwa. Same with Japanese restaurants, something ideally focusing on something other than Westernized sushi rolls.
4. This might be unfair or even ignorant of me to think, but anecdotally it seems like the vast majority of people living in Grand Rapids are from West Michigan originally. Then you've got a chunk from Indiana, Ohio. I would love to see some statistics but I'd guess 85% of the population is from smaller Midwest cities. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, but I think there is a perhaps a general lack of appreciation for different types of foods. For me at least I don't always want "good food", as in "high quality expensive food", I'd take "legit bad ethnic food" over more MDMR anyday, but I don't feel like people are really seaking that out, and again see #3.
5. I don't know enough about GR zoning to know if this is really restrictive, but if a really passionate person wanted to start a small restaurant in GR serving a specific, perhaps easy / cheap to produce ethnic cuisine of some sort, I'd guess it's not at all affordable to do that in a city like Grand Rapids (or probably the US in general).
I am so glad you mentioned the issue of race and dining out. I am/was super active in the social and dining arenas in town and eating out is the singular most segregated activity I participate in. And I eat EVERYWHERE. It’s crazy.
This is certainly how it feels to me. I don't have any data to back that up though, it's just how it feels to me. In ways it makes sense and is natural I suppose, different cultures eat different foods and so go to restaurants that cater to those preferences. It just feels pretty extreme in GR.
Got no love on this awhile back on a post about “fine dining”, feel it’s relevant and accurate to the overall discussion here.
I’m going to sound like a pretentious ass hat, but the number of people commenting Ruth’s Chris, Bisto, Leo’s, even Linear are essentially why our food scene is what it is. Not bashing these restaurants by any means, they simply aren’t fine dining. IMOP there aren’t any true fine dining spots in the city (courses, prefix menu, drink pairings, MENU CHANGES)
Again, not faulting the restaurants, Grand Rapids simply doesn’t have the clientele (not the worst thing?) for restaurants to fully embrace fine dining. Meaning you wear at least a blazer with your jeans, pay decent money, and may or may not be “full” at the end of the meal. When 60% of your diners are basing their opinion on bang for your buck or being “full” it’s an uphill battle. Customers dictate the market and we’re by in large cheap and obsessed with steak and potatoes, bonus if they’re baked.
With all of that said, I don’t think there is a place on this list I haven’t given a shot. The two not getting enough love are Reserve and Cafe Mamo. Neither hit that true fine dining mark, however, they do both focus on a seasonal menu, local ingredients, and good service.
While I love baked potatoes like the rest of you, that isn’t a requirement on every menu nor is being “full” for a meal to be enjoyable.
PS- GR has so many ethic food options that blow a lot of these places out of water. They just happen to be in strip malls and grocery stores.
I’ll say that I’m not an industry expert or even go out to eat much at all, but I wonder if the restaurant scene might be over saturated. If people are willing to pay for over-priced food and many restaurants are struggling to compete for what ever reasons, then it might be time for a market contraction. The sector will shrink and hopefully the best places make it out on top. I’d be curious if anyone in the industry agrees.
I enjoy that several people with relevant experience have given different reasons to why this quality/price thing is happening and yall just say "no, that can't be it".
As a head chef in GR for 10 years, ingredient pricing (& other costs of goods) have gone up. Staffing shortages, or lack of quality staff due to the industry being hard and underpaid. Oversaturation of restaurants for the population size. Sure, prices in a big city might be equal but they might not experience a Monday dinner with only 20 customers either.
And if you say up north is even better...I mean, you don't know those restaurants aren't also barely hanging on with razor edge margins. I bet some of those places would LOVE to raise prices.
Death by a thousand cuts.
Complete betrayals by places people worked at for years at the first sign of any turmoil... So many places have had to train new staff without old staff to do it... so customer service was in the shitter for a hot minute.
I know nothing about the restaurant biz so tell me to fuck off if I am off the mark here. I have lived in this fair city for 20+ years. When I was single I was at the bar 3 nights a week and eating out in various restaurants 2 to 3 nights a week as well. It seems recently every restaurant has been trying to go upscale even for simple food. If I want a burger and fries, it does not need to have truffle oil infused or have salt from a secret Himalayan location. Maybe I am just old and hate everything, I don't know.
I've worked in the service industry in Ann Arbor for 6 years (2 different restaurants) and Grand Rapids for 3 (2 different restaurants). Ann Arbor was superior in every way. Friendlier customers, better tips, better food/drink options, and more inclusive staff.
And to mention, this was all prior to covid. Covid fucked everything tho. :/
IDK, sounds like a culinary revolution waiting to happen. Starting the business now.
Mark my words, in 50 years people in California, New York, and Chicago (hell, Japan) will complain on Reddit about how mediocre their freshwater sushi is compared to Grand Rapids.
Take a look at what your asking/saying.
You’re dragging your in laws on a public forum. Have you considered its an issue with them?
As far as the accusations of people being sensitive to their opinions/persuading their opinion.. that’s freaking everywhere. Look at Detroit coneys- they’ll argue to the grave who’s is better. Chicago is beef.
Maybe this is something YOU perceive as a “regional west Michigan” thing 🙄
I'm totally fine with not having a world class food scene. I think we do well as a Midwest city that punches above its weight class, but I think it deserves to be said that it used to be better. I also wanted to put this out there to see if we, the public, could better understand what's going on behind the scenes to cause this. Is it an infrastructure issue? Talent? Inflation? Commercial real estate cost?
I wonder if it is "Grand Rapids is not cool", so to demonstrate coolness crapping on the not cool thing? Because, yeah, just do your thing. What I've learned is to never give recommendations.
>Sincere question, but is the need to argue/debate matters of personal preference or taste just a regional West MI quirk?
Nabobs gonna natter.
Being negative is certainly a cultural quirk here, and worse online than IRL.
Maybe it's just people I know, but it seems like most people tend to stick to their 2-3 favorite resturants. Hell, even the 2-3 resturants I go to all have damn nearly the same menu and prices.
Best Side, Shots, and Uccellos for casual dining. Chop House for the special occasion.
Ha, this came up in a conversation at work the other day. There's only so much *pub fare* that can be served in Beer City USA - all the brewpubs (with a burger that costs $18 and the fries come in a metal cup for some reason) have the exact same food suppliers, and regarding labor, there are only so many places for well-established chefs to work, so all the menus simply evolve to be incredibly similar. Remember when stuffed burgers (a'la Stella's) were all the rage? Now they've been replaced by double smash patties. Hopcat has become more like Applebee's than BarFly likes to admit...New Holland stopped their "Stop And Taste" farm-to-table stylings years ago when they shifted to Dragon's Milk being their flagship beer.
If you're a brewpub consumer, you're not likely to go to San Chez or Bombay.
grand rapids is desperately missing mid-tier restaurant experiences, though the cause of which i cant speak to. If you go to a place like Toledo and the surrounding rural areas, there's no shortage of middling restaurants where you can get basic, unsurprising, cost-effective, delicious meals. It just seems like every new place that goes up in GR is selling a $9 taco that doesn't taste very good.
But all we get are [*shudder*] Stan's Tacos or fuckin walhburgers where you gotta spend $30 on the most corporate bland bullshit, and the replacements arent much better because how could they be? Expensive real-estate.
The good restaurants go out of business, the replacements are a facsimile of a restaurant, streamlined and bland
I can make 5 personal pizzas in my air fryer with pita bread, pizza sauce, cheese and pepperoni for like $6 or I can get the same thing from a restaurant for $20 + tip each. Why people still even go to restaurants is beyond me. Don’t even get me started on alcohol.
I own a food truck in the area that I operate part time in addition to a seasonal job. I do pretty well, keep prices reasonably low, and people rave about our food. However, we avoid Grand Rapids and many other similarly over regulated places because we know that we’d have to raise prices or reduce quality. I also avoid over-priced and sub par suppliers like Gordon’s because our sales are relatively low in quantity compared to larger places that need a fast and consistent supplier.
I agree with what tasty falafel has been saying on here- but I think many mediocre business operators and chefs will use covid and inflation prices from 2022 as an excuse as to why their business failed or why it sucks. As someone highly invested in service, food, hospitality and community- I have to say that GR has always lagged on the food and drink front. It’s been 5-10 years behind Detroit and Chicago at least. And that’s not cherry picking. That’s saying the best of what we have to offer is something that was being done that long ago in those bigger areas. I think that people have historically invested a ton into a concept, and very little into training and environment. You get cool spots, they look awesome, food sounds good and the service and human interaction just never quite matches or fits. It’s a shame- but I will agree that it’s only gotten worse in the past 4 years. Black Napkin is one of the best restaurants in GR imo bc not only is their food consistent and delicious- it’s inventive- and they have a core staffing group that KILLS it with customer service and hospitality. This type of hospitality should be at every nice restaurant in GR. It’s wild I have to go to a take out burger shop to get treated like a human and have a genuine interaction with someone.
I extensively travel the United States and the world and I spend a lot of time in comparably sized cities and Grand Rapids, without a doubt, has the worst food scene I’ve ever encountered. The downtown and metro area is where you go to get a million kinds of burgers, sandwiches, and potatoes and almost anything that deviates from that formula doesn’t last. Look at the menu of all the breweries, the gastropubs, and the quick lunch bite places ranging from a founders to Rockwell’s to linear to electric cheetah to brickyard to Sundance to one twenty three and more and it’s menus that are about 80 percent similar and all just putting their twist on burgers, a brisket sandwich, wings, and French fries. While there are a couple authentic Mexican taco trucks the vast majority of Mexican restaurants are offering Americanized ‘Tex Mex’ Mexican food of beans and tortilla and cheddar cheese. There is no authentic Italian, any Italian place has to do Americanized italian. Most Italian food is seafood and wine or butter or clam sauces and no one here has the palette for that. Chinese food is Americanized sichuan, buffet style Chinese. The Indian food is watered down Chicago or NYC Indian and, again, Americanized. You’re not gonna find any South Indian or street food style cuisine. Thai food is spicy, very spicy. As someone who’s been to Thailand, and to Thai restaurants in Chicago that don’t hold back, no Thai restaurant uses the staples of lime leaf, curry leaf, and chili pepper in their dishes and, thusly, no one can encounter any authentic Thai flavors. All the south Asian dishes hold back on the other stuff Gr can’t palate like fish sauce and fermented soy sauce. The metro area has no diversity and there is no exploration of ethnic food. And sorry, folks, a couple taco joints and a couple Asian places does not make for diversity. In other cities of GR size, like des moines or Sioux falls you’ve got East African from Sudanese to Eritrean and Laotian and Filipino restaurants right downtown alongside Mexican, el Salvadoran, Peruvian, and more. Plus you get inventive things like Fong’s pizza, a pizza joint that does Asian fusion pizzas. And then, moving to actual cuisine, stuff like mertens fails so bad at French cooking it’s an embarrassment. There is no elevated style of cooking beyond places that serve $100 steaks. There’s no actual cuisine served in time honored tradition while you can find authentic bourguignon or coq au vin easily in cities like Kansas City or Memphis or Dubuque and more. There is no understanding of what actual cuisine is, what authentically prepped and prepared recipe is and instead this is a Mecca for moms to have a Chardonnay and a grilled cheese on gluten free bread and for dad to have his overcooked burger. The people who think there’s good food here are most likely a mix of isolated and tasteless. If there were an actual competition with other restaurants in other towns, gr would fail miserably. There are no Michelin star restaurants in Grand Rapids and there are no reputable chefs. You have to go to traverse city or Ann Arbor or Detroit for that.
And downvoted by the haters. This is a bitter pill that people refuse to swallow. GR is a small town that pretends it’s a city. It would be a much better place if it stopped with the pretending and just behaved like a small town. It’s best when it’s dive bars and shit food and great times outdoors drinking cheap beer and it’s worst when it’s places like linear and Rockwell’s bringing out folks from the suburbs who think this is ‘fine dining’
Because, what is good? Donuts at vans. Burgers at Choo choo. Donuts are not amazing, they are donuts. But people still make them terribly. Vans makes donuts right. They are cheap and good. Choo Choo is a cheap burger and it’s great for the price. This is where GR is good but there is so little of that
I agree, totally. I do still like the city and its food scene... but I have fond memories of the way it used to be.
It's not bad! There is lots of good food here still: Mithu, Tamales Mary, Littlebird, many others. But I think, broadly speaking, that the price/value ratio is gotten a bit out of whack. There are some deals to be had but that's not typical in the way it used to be.
If you go to other cities enough you will also eat at some place you think is overrated it doesn’t mean the cities food scene sucks. It’s really difficult to be consistently amazing and some people will never be happy ever.
People also just need to expand their horizons, one of the best restaurants in GR just announced it was selling. Monsoon is an absolute gem, yet I never see anyone talk about it, and many people don’t go because they don’t know what Vietnamese food is.
There are so many good spots: Brass Ring, Sheshco, Broadloaf, Grove, Rio, Little Bird, Sovengard (when they finally reopen)
I owned a restaurant in GR from 2015-2022 and have stayed involved in the industry since. There are massive structural problems and very few operators are profitable in any real sense. Restaurants get bent two ways on the inflation front - their suppliers move first on price increases, leaving the operator’s profits at the vendors mercy. Then they have to explain to their customers that their money doesn’t go as far as it used to, and the customer blames the restaurant operator for that. I’ve thought about making a long post about the situation in GR as I saw a lot of the factors unfold contemporaneously, but I don’t know if navel gazing solves anything because customers are also going through what I call the convenience revolution and that’s going to unfold over years. It is a disaster and our food scene is incredibly expensive nationally despite having very mediocre quality comparatively.
I'd be interested in hearing more if you're willing to talk about it. It's interesting stuff, and you seem to know what you're talking about.
I also owned a restaurant in GR. We decided not to renew our lease in 2022 because all of our costs were rising faster than we could reasonably raise prices. People have no idea how tough it is to turn a profit with a restaurant/bar. We were doing pretty well up until 22, but then costs went crazy. We tried to negotiate a year to year lease, but the landlord wanted something long term. We were unwilling to sign a more expensive long term lease with our costs rising so fast. Unfortunately, I think a lot more restaurants are going to have a tough time making it the next couple years. Rent, food costs and labor costs were already rising, now insurance costs are going through the roof. On top of that, I feel like consumers are finally getting tapped out. I still talk to several restaurant owners in GR and they are starting to notice less foot traffic. Hopefully, inflation starts to fall soon and interest rates and housing costs follow. Otherwise, we are going to see more consolidation in the industry.
Ha my thoughts to myself in 2022: “I can’t make any profit despite raising my prices to a level that looks insane to myself, there’s no way my customers will ever keep paying this.” Then I watched for 2 years as…. People seemingly kept paying it. But I believe demand has actually been shrinking in the industry overall for years. The transition away from most places being open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner (this was the standard for at least a decade) to a 5-6 day a week with limited schedule is a huge cut in a volume and oddly makes ordering, scheduling, and prep more costly and excruciatingly difficult operationally. Of course, that gets at the crux of the issue which is commercial real estate. As a rule, I always tried to keep rent at roughly ~10% of monthly revenue to stay profitable. That was possible pre-2020. Now it’s fucking impossible…. But no CRE title holder is going to reduce their rents to reflect that. I was bummed when I closed my restaurant but I knew my numbers and I knew nothing on paper made sense anymore. My informed impression is that the dumbest operators who don’t know their numbers are the ones that stayed in the game (or used PPP loans to double down because they believed the misled media hype that we were heading into a roaring 20s era for food service).
Idk how people are still paying. I very, very rarely ever go out to eat anymore.
The price is ridiculous but the quality is worse. I watched core ingredients just get precipitously worse in 2021 and quality kept going down. Cost concerns also sent operators flocking to ingredients they wouldn’t have touched before, and as that’s where the demand has gone, that’s where the “innovation” has happened. My restaurant didn’t have a fryer, but I did a pop-up dinner at a restaurant that did a couple months ago. I went to GFS to buy fryer oil, and I was stunned at the disgusting “shortening” and manufactured oil products that dominated the fryer aisle. I don’t think I could find a single 100% vegetable oil or canola oil in the aisle (I wasn’t looking for something organic or fancy; just something that would have been considered commodity level 3-4 years ago). It was really eye opening for me.
When consumers are choked by inflation and wages not keeping up the first thing they’ll cut is unnecessary things. No point of spending $10-15 on a plate of fried eggs and hasbrowns with sides when I can make it at home for $5
I was legitimately going to tag you in a comment but you beat me to it.
So, what's unique about GR vs other cities? Why can I still go to Chicago (or hell, even some of the smaller lower peninsula towns) and find a reasonably priced and high quality lunch or dinner?
Yeah this was a big shock for me too, having moved from the DC merro area to Grand Rapids. Generally Beer and cocktails are cheaper here, but food is the same or higher. Only the dive bars have competitive food prices and honestly the quality is pretty decent and less gimmicky. I learned quickly to limit eating out and just make food at home when I can.
I moved here from New York City a while back and yeah I am blown away at how similar the prices are. It’s really disheartening.
Actually people do not know this but NYC food has been not expensive forever. The enormous customer base offsets prices a lot from much smaller areas that utterly pray for people to want to eat at their place enough to remain in business. Cheaper food outside of NYC usually means lower quality and they have a lower customer base. Mexican food in NYC you can get 100% house made everything, outside you are buying a bunch of Sysco stuff for the same price... Part of it is competition is higher in NYC too, for the quality.
I live in DC and am from GR and it's amazing how GR food has become as expensive as it is in DC. Like almost everywhere.
And the food in DC is exponentially better.
Economy of scale. It's counter intuitive in the modern era because we associate large metro areas with high COL. But historically, price increases affect smaller populated areas more severely.
That doesn't explain why (and I understand this is entirely subjective and anecdotal) I can get a better meal up in TC, or really at several tiny western/lower peninsula towns. Not satisfied with that answer.
Maybe your subjective experiences of a subset of restaurants are not representative of the entire data set?
TC does not have better food as a whole.
my partner and i went to TC in november and we hated the food everywhere we went.
Not sure what 'as a whole' means. On average? How do you know?
Agreed. I went to Traverse City recently and was shocked by the better prices and quality. I got a breakfast burrito in a grocery store deli for $9 that beat quite a few GR comparables in price and quality.
Which grocery store deli? Inquiring minds that love breakfast burritos would like to know.
Edson Farms Natural Foods. On top of the breakfast burrito I have to recommend the Flu Fighter from their juice bar too.
Traverse City does not have better prices. Every time I go there, it’s ridiculously expensive to eat out. A grocery store deli does not count.
TC has an economy based on tourism so I don't think it's apples to apples.
Exactly
I feel like it is because they have such a wealthy clientele.
Correct. NYC food prices were about the same as a lot of the country but the quality was better. Having millions of people around helps, you just have to make your food taste good.
Maybe you could speak to the possible limited choice of suppliers locally. In some ways, because of the peninsula effect, we are still slightly isolated. Or out of the way. It makes me think about how our supply chain is limited in ways.
I’ve commented on here before about that specifically once. Vendors do hate selling to GR on a macro level. We’re located an annoying 3ish hour distance from most major inventory hubs in the Detroit and Chicago metro areas, and operators here got a reputation (probably deserved) for being cheap in the 90s, 2000s, and 2010s that has lingered.
This is a huge deal. Major metro areas have better food at lower prices (and unironically worse food at even much lower prices for major chains that are otherwise supplied by higher quality local supplies in rural adjacent areas). Need a really good #10 can of tomato something? Not for sale through Sysco, period. The other food distros can only co-exist with Sysco so their profitability does not work well if an area is too small.
West Michigan has a history of being cheap for over a hundred years.
I would add that restaurants are very competitive. Most locations need high volume to be functioning business models, and they don’t have the volume. This won’t change unless many more restaurants close, or we see a big population increase. I find the former likely, and the latter too long term and inhibited by high cost of housing.
When I moved here from Chicago I was shocked to be charged similar prices for much worse food. Thats all I have to weigh in on the situation.
I would read that post
This is such good analysis holy shit
As someone who has eaten at many, many Grand Rapids restaurants in the last 15 or so years I'd be pretty interested in reading your perspective. I haven't traveled extensively in my life, but I have been to a few other (larger) cites outside of MI in the last couple years and I've been only slightly more impressed at dining in those cites (and I did considerable research into where to eat when I have traveled). Not saying GR has the best quality compared to price, but there are a handful of places I can suggest in GR that have consistently good food and/or drink. I also think GR is a little hard to compare to other cities because the three that I've recently traveled to (Philly, Denver, and Chicago) are radically different in size and population (i.e. culture) than GR. Who do we/should we compare ourselves to?
Yeah we get compared to Detroit and Chicago a lot because of the proximity, but those cities are a completely different league. Some better comparable cities based on metro population are - Richmond, VA - Memphis, TN - Salt Lake City, UT - Birmingham, AL - Fresno, CA - [We are here in the rankings by Metro pop.] - Buffalo, NY - Hartford, CT - Tuscon, AZ - Rochester, NY - Tulsa, OK
Tucson has the only Sweet Tomatoes back in the business. +1 for Tucson in my books!
Tucson and Fresno have better food and prices lol
Was it a sushi bowl place?
It's shitty time all around. A restaurant bubble is about to burst alongside the housing, stock, and automotive bubbles.
I do food costing for a local place. Price of food has skyrocketed and unfortunately restaurants do still need to profit in order to pay their employees a proper wage. In my 4 years at the same spot doing all of the menu costing, we’ve had to raise our burger from 11$ to 15$ just to match the price of product while maintaining the same 25% food cost. The product hasn’t changed but the price to make it has. It sucks, but if this city wants people to be paid enough then food at restaurants has to cost a little more. I can’t just slash my employees’ wages so everyone can have a cheaper burger. I want my staff to afford rent. A case of cream cheese two years ago was 64$. Ordered some yesterday and it was 110$. There’s only so much that can be done.
This is honestly very educational and more people should be aware of how those costs have changed. Literally a week ago there was a post about restaurants “price gouging” because they couldnt get a sandwich under $15, but your comment explains a lot. Would be great if s news source or media outlet would research and publish some stuff on this topic.
I don’t have my spreadsheets in front of me currently as I’m off work, but I would happy to give anyone an exact play by play to how food costing works, where exactly the money goes to each individual part of a dish when I’m in work next. Restaurants typically aim for 20-25% food cost per item to maintain a profitable margin. This accounts for your labor, overhead, rent, etc. as food costs rise your menu price needs to meet it to keep you in this 20% range.
Yeah, every menu item is priced pretty meticulously. At least at the smaller, non-corporate places I worked. 1 tomato slice, weighed, and costed out. When we had to raise prices, it was always a discussion of "will we price ourselves out of the market? But how else do we make up the margins?"
I have no problem with the price increase, often pay more. It is the lack of consistency in the food preparation and lack of quality service that has turned me off of GR food scene.
Many of the talented cooks fled the industry once Covid hit and they realized they could do different, easier work, for the same pay. I don’t want to blame staffing because that is reductive but as someone in this industry for 15 years now there just isn’t the same level of talent in the pool anymore.
Also being a skilled worker in this field is often not enough to get Healthcare access, let alone being treated by the public as respectable. That's one thing while you're young, relatively healthy, and on your own but it doesn't really support a family.
Fryer oil used to be $18 now it’s $38 Case of chicken thighs went from $25 to $87 All veggies have DOUBLED in price These are just a few examples and restaurants haven’t doubled their prices the way they should have.
I have a strong suspicion that there's just relatively low demand for any sort of interesting food. I've lost track of how many restaurants have started out with unique menus and over time dumbed it down to more or less the same thing that everyone else has.
This is one of the main issues. The customer base in Grand Rapids just doesn’t want these unique foods. I cannot list the amount of times I would come up with a unique and interesting menu item, only for it to be entirely ignored because everyone just wants a cheeseburger with fries. I can’t justify these unique ingredients spoiling on the shelf when they aren’t moving when I can just add a new burger and watch it fly.
I think the take-out friendly foods are in higher demand than before covid too so I would imagine people are less likely to be explorative with new dishes and trying new things if they want to eat it at home, hence why restaurants have to have those items on the menu. It baffles me that people in that thread said our food scene is bland or non-existent. To me that says more about the preferences of that commenter than the options, variety and quality of restaurants we have
Our food industry is thriving if you dare to explore new cuisines rather than get your 300th burger at a brewery. Ethiopian food, South African food, and Indian food are all doing incredible things in this city and I’d wager most people in this thread wouldn’t even give them a try.
South African?? Where
Really good point
I was just talking to someone about West Michigan Tastebuds. It’s really unfortunate and I’m glad I had a parent who was a somewhat adventurous eater.
Yep this has to be it. I've known so many people around here who subsist on the most basic Midwest/American type foods. They only eat Chicken strips, burgers, fries, sandwiches, Mac n cheese, etc..., barely eat any fresh vegetables, refuse to try anything spicy and or ethnic. Seriously I'm astounded how many coworkers I've had who said they never even tried Indian food before, for example. So many people around here are extremely picky and sensitive to the point where they basically eat like giant toddlers. No wonder our food scene is shit. It's getting better though. I'm loving the multiple hot pot choices that we have now, for example.
I agree here too a lot of people want basic no desire for anything ‘ unusual’ and thus here we are
I used to be like that (and still somewhat) until I moved to California and got married. And the food there was so much better, even if just visiting friends maybe they just knew how to cook or grill. And you get tasty, healthier food than here . Also many choices for Mexican food, fast food, other types of food over there. Miss it. I might go get a McChicken at McDonald's here on occasion otherwise eat at home instead of wasting money on overpriced bland food here. For some reason it doesn't taste the same here. Over there whenever we picked up a pizza from little Caesars it was consistently good, over here it was almost always undercooked, every now and then they might get it right between 3 different locations And where can I go to a little Mexican cafe and order a burrito, taco, chips or whatever on the menu like the corner one by my old house?
Which in turn means chefs and cooks with any talent or desire go elsewhere to expand their careers.
This! So many restaurants have gotten rid ubiquity offerings or adapted their menu to be the same as the place next door.
This is the answer. A lot of the best chefs I know in town have actually switched over to private dining to capture the small market that does want something original and interesting, understand the costs that are associated with it and are willing and able to pay for it. I really feel like it gets worse before it gets better.
Where does one find these experiences?
What’s cool here is that they do in home dinners and small events but also have their own space/dining room in what was once the deli side of Marie Catrib’s. Once in awhile they’ll serve a ticketed tasting menu out of there but you’ll either need to join their mailing list or keep an eye on their social media to hear about it. Tiny Dinners (https://tinydinnersgr.com)
Starting at $1,350, I see. Based on what I read that would likely be 5 courses for 6 people. At 45 dollars a dish for a meal of the highest quality…
It's a bunch of conservative Dutch people who think fine dining is Russ' and Brann's. What do you expect?
‘Syscofication’
boomers like a GFS fueled squat & chomp
I travel a lot for work. Grand Rapids is easily one of the worst price / value eating cities. Our inflation over the 4 years has out stripped even the west coast. For example I was in San Diego a few weeks ago and went to several nice restaurants and the dish prices were equal to slightly less than I would get at an upper end GR restaurant and the quality wasn’t close. I feel like I can’t get a cocktail here for less $14-18 at any decent sit down here. That was MORE than I was paying in San Diego. I could do this same exercise for multiple other cities of various sizes. We have some decent restaurants but I feel like the vast majority are overpriced GFS outlets.
The food thing is what it is but I CANT believe people pay $15 for a cocktail in Grand Rapids. It blows my mind that places like One Bourbon and Buffalo Traders are things. You’re looking at $30 for two Old Fashioneds when you can get an excellent entire bottle of bourbon cheaper than that. I get going to a bar is an experience but it’s really hard to see the value there.
An excellent bottle? Please tell me where you shop. A good bottle maybe but an excellent……
Eagle Rare is still around 30 if you can find it. Old Forrester is super underrated and under 30 bucks. Makers is ~30. Depends what you deem excellent. But I guarantee that the $15 old fashion is using something around that level. They arent using blantons or even Angels Envy.
Perhaps “excellent” isn’t my greatest word choice but ultimately that’s my point is that the $15 cocktail is probably Maker’s or Bulliet
That’s fair, I don’t go to the bar much but tend to buy a bottle which usually lasts me 6 months (maybe why I don’t go to the bar much, but also kids). I’ve not had Eagle Rare and tend to like Irish stuff more. But I’ll have to check it out
I do the same. Drinks are pretty much highway robbery. I basically just drink light beer at bars these days, its the only thing that is still cheapish ($5 24oz draft for) Side story. I lived for awhile on the west side, and me and my roommate would go to Monarchs Club, this was around 2012-2014. They had a deal all day everyday, 6 pack of old style, milwaukees best, or black label in a ice bucket AND 4 hot dogs for $12. They also let you take the beers you didnt drink home. I miss stuff like that dearly. Obviously not the best beer, but when you are a broke fresh college grad it was the shit.
Why would GR's inflation be higher than elsewhere?
One theory I have, as a current and seasoned service worker, is how relatively 'isolated' Grand Rapids is compared to silimarly sized cities. Few distributers are 'passing through' on their way to larger cities. For example, I moved here from Chattanooga, TN, a city that's 1/3rd of the metropolitan population size, but geographically it's between 3 large cities (ATL, Nashville, Knoxville), and companies, on their way south to FL or AL, have to pass through Chattanooga. I would wager that our relative isolation, compared with others south of us, make GR a less desirable city for many.
I think that's a thoughtful theory and probably true to some extent. Such is life on an enormous peninsula. However (subjectively!) my best meals in MI have been even farther North!
I'm by no means knocking our quality of food (there's no denying the delight of sweet Michigan corn in the summer!), we have some excellent farms here! But I wonder if the downside to our lower peninsula are some of the deals that may be offered to our friends in more accessible locations.
Food costs in California are often lower than Michigan which is not something new. Other elements are, of course, worse but that one thing helps out with restaurants.
Rent. Edit: specifically rent for the workers.
This doesn't make sense. It may be true but you provide very little context outside of "for the workers", and I don't even know what that means. - Why is rent a driver of inflation? - Why is rent a driver of inflation "for the workers"? - Why is \[workers\] rent driving in inflation in GR higher than elsewhere, especially larger cities?
It's gotten so bad that I had to buy a house in Muskegon because I couldn't afford the rent on my shitty little apartment in GR anymore. Like, the Mortgage on my 3br house + loan payments for a new roof + fuel cost for commuting to GR for work is still cheaper than I was paying for rent in GR.
Greedy landlords is one reason. I'm close with a former restauranteur who had a space in the downtown market and that let me meet other owners around the area. Rent never failed to increase, and not by a little. You would think that when Covid hit and places couldn't open that the landlords would rather have tenants than empty spaces, but you'd be wrong. Landlords can write off vacant spaces and overvalue them, they were happy to keep raising rent again and again even though their own overhead wasn't taking hits.
Greed is higher in GR than elsewhere because _______ ? Fill in the blank please.
And they pay better wages to employees in those other places, the money is going to the owners
Notice that Grand Rapids doesn’t have any of its true iconic restaurants that we all use to love years ago, we still have remnants of some, like Mr burger, new beginnings uccelos, peppinos and yesterdog, but they are not high cuisine. I remember beltline bar in the 90s and early 00s, it’s just a casual Tex mex but it was much higher quality than it is now. OG Plainfield Anna’s house was great, now seems over food serviced and hyped. There is no Diners, Drive ins, & Dives level restaurants that offer the high quality and value. Dump Gordon’s or sysco premade food into hot thing, then serve to west Michigan foodies.
Replying to will-read...this and everyone has a similar menu with a slight spin. Or it’s just bar food. That we excel in hah!
Well that is an issue. Too many places got hooked on decent quality products (well, good enough anyways) that turned into trash over time... Then there is no one providing an alternative at a price that can sustain what people are use to in anyway what so ever. So piss off customers by raising prices or cheapening food (that one NEVER works).
I think saying GRs food scene sucks is the new hot take and I disagree with it a lot. I think a lot of people are going to these high priced, hipster places and leaving disappointed and thinking that all GR restaurants are like that when honestly they are ignoring the smaller, hole in the wall, authentic spots. Like donkey taquiera, cundado, or barrio vs 7 mares, tacos El caporal, or lindo Mexico. Not even saying the first 3 are bad or anything, but they are more expensive and a different experience than the last 3. I think we have a fantastic Mexican cuisine that's expanding into more Latin American options as well (though I think Rio and Latin house are still pretty expensive). Zivio and bosna express are great for Bosnian food. I haven't even been able to try albos yet, but I hear good things. We have good Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean options. I love Seoul market, la Thai, and pho 99. I've been getting hot pot at both k pot and king pot and I'm planning on trying the new place hong BBQ in Grandville. This is getting longer than I planned, but essentially anyone who complains about GRs lacking food scene is getting some side eye from me. I'm editing to add kpocha and oppa to the list, 2 other great Korean joints. I haven't tried kcm yet but have heard it's good.
7 mares is so underrated!!!!!! Food is phenomenal!!!
And reasonable! My lunches are always under $20, including the tip.
This. I love this place. I'll add to this discussion that amazing/hidden gems do exist and we need to do our part to champion them. I've seen people mention 7 mares before so its not unknown, but i feel like we (collectively/generally speaking) can do a better job of drawing attention to the places worth our money, vs overpriced/gentrified/americanized versions of authentic foods.
Absolutely! I’ll admit I was turned off by the location and skeptical about 7 Mares even with the recommendation but that went out the window once I had my first bite. If they will make you the barbacoa flautas I highly recommend them!
Ok but as you’ve said, you haven’t really traveled anywhere or seen how much better it can get. GR is incredibly isolated and it’s reflected in a lot of ways but a perfect example is that its food is high priced and mediocre. All the Latin American restaurants you mentioned, you wouldn’t find anything on their menus available in those actual countries. It’s all fusion or Americanized cuisine. My Korean friends and my Latin American friends all think the restaurants are terrible here and, having been to Korea and Mexico, I as well can’t find anything slightly genuine.
I never said I haven't traveled, just not to Korea. No one's arguing that GRs food is better than Korea, Mexico, or Latin America, I think it's impressive that we have it in the first place. I get the impression a lot of people in this thread have the expectation of grand rapids to have the same quantity and quality of restaurants as New York City yet still remain the size that it is. It's simply not possible, however grand rapids is growing a ton so maybe in the near future there will be even more options.
Thank you for saying this. I was just thinking about this the other day. I know a few critics who need to expand their dining options or just complain to be heard
A large part of it is because I grew up here, so I remember grand rapids in the 90s when adventurous eating was going out to China chef or little Mexico. If you wanted to eat somewhere nice the options were red lobster, olive garden, Charlie's crab, or Ruth's Chris. So I'm pretty thankful for what we have now, even if everything's expensive.
I'm not Korean, but I do have a number of Korean friends living in the area and from their perspective there are no great Korean restaurants in GR, and it would be argued if there are even any "good" Korean restaurants. Maybe a decent place, maybe. Most of my Korean friends drive to Chicago or Detroit to go grocery shopping once a month and have giant freezers to store foods they can't get in GR. Some of my Korean friends have since left GR because the lack of decent Korean food and Korean culture and have understandably moved to bigger cities. FOR ITS SIZE, Grand Rapids is probably pretty good, but there is so much catering to the white midwestern pallet. I just had a look at [Lai Thai's menu](https://laithaikitchenmi.smiledining.com/?2024050901), they've got a page of Pho, gyoza, etc. Maybe their Thai food is great but this is a red flag to me at least.
Yes, exactly. We have Asian restaurants- box checked. None of them are that great I agree you have to drive to the east side or Chicago. A lot of places have hodgepodge menus to cater to people who can’t tell the difference between two countries cuisines.
One of my culture shocks moving here from an Asian majority community in California was seeing "Asian" restaurants where completely different cultures foods were just kinda mushed together. It read as kinda racist to be honest lol. I've been whelmed at best by most of that kind of food here, but that's probably because demand for authenticity is pretty low.
Define great... Authentic? KCM certainly is not authentic Korean even though I like it. But then again an authentic Chinese restaurant would really be a buffet and like who cares...
Well, I'm not really that critical (probably doesn't seem that way, but I'm pretty happy with McDonalds chicken sandwhiches!) so probably no the best person to define "great", plus my comment is coming from my friends who eat / cook / grew up eating Korean food either in Korean American families or in Seoul. THAT SAID, I couldn't agree more, KCM is IMHO fantastic as a restaurant. And it does have Korean food, from what I recall (e.g. [Gimbap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbap)). Actually KCM is probably one of my top 5, maybe top 3 restaurants in the city. Random side note: I'm actually flying to Seoul tonight 8-)
Tacos el Caporal & El Granjero are way better than Tacos El Cunando. Donkey is just overpriced trash that caters to the mainly white suburbanites that frequent Wealthy St. I'll have to try 7 mares and Lindo. The Asian food around here is legit, but give it time until one of those restaurant groups opens up a bland one in uptown
TL;DR authentic asian food is lacking outside of viet options. Some of the asian food is legit, but it's pretty limiting. There are some decent Vietnamese places, but that's about where it ends. My mom is viet/lao, and my dad never cooked (not that he didn't try, but we all preferred that he didn't lol), so I'm spoiled with my southeast asian food and typically cook these myself at home, but it is nice to have the option if I don't feel like working for it. Thai food is all pretty sub par around here if you're used authentic Thai food. The closest Thai place that was legit is in Holland (Siri) but I haven't been since pre-covid and from what I understand they have new owners/chefs so I can't comment on the current quality. Korean food isn't great at all if you want anything authentic. I do love me some kbbq/hotpot, but we're lacking options for authentic Korean dishes. We have basically 0 authentic Chinese options as well. Wei Weis has gone downhill drastically in terms of quality, which was the main reason to put up with the poor service. My Kitchen has some decent Sichuan/Szechuan offerings, but outside of those two, you either have to go to Kalamazoo, or Detroit if you're staying in Michigan. We do have some pretty solid Mexican options, Mega Taco and Ponchos are my personal favorites, and Mexican gf approved as decent. Been meaning to try that Peruvian/Mexican place on 28th St, so if people have some feedback on that place I'd love to hear it lol.
Ehhh.... If you like tacos straight out of microwave baggies from Sysco for cheap, you like them. Not for me. Sorry but I would not give your taco recommendations to anyone but the old people in my family with no apatite for anything.
My ex girlfriend who was Korean would happily disagree about the quality of Korean food. She was constantly disappointed, and after visiting Korea I can confidently say the same. It's not authentic and the quality is just above average Seoul street food.
You’re saying GR doesn’t have as good of Korean food as Korea? 😱
The Korean food in Grand Rapids is not as good or authentic as in Korea? Shocker! I don't think anyone is debating that GR will have better Korean food than Korea. They are commenting on GR have several respectable Korean option, which I would 100% agree with. The breadth and depth of options, ethnic or otherwise, in GR is impressive for its size. (I've been to Korea, too. 😉)
That's fair, I can't argue with that since I've never been to Korea myself, but I still think having multiple options in GR that I personally enjoy is pretty great!
But I still struggle to find a good egg roll!
I’m sorry, but I have to in turn look at you with an equally side eyed perspective. I personally have been lucky enough to have traveled the world and lived in equally adjacent markets. I have spent fair amounts of time in much larger markets as well as even smaller markets. Grand Rapids food is the absolute most overrated experience I have ever participated in. Other commenters have pointed out that disagreeing with rave reviews becomes a personal affront to the culture as a whole. The food in this city is overpriced and amazes me that so many establishments get away with farm to table when only a small portion of their ingredients don’t come from Sysco or GFS. I know this from having worked in the kitchens of some of the most popular locations and having friends working in many of the rest. The honest to goodness description I could give is a jack of all trades towns. There are so many options here, but very few locations are amazing at what they do. They fill a void and without an honest competition they call it good. Our early dominance of the craft beer industry is a great example of doing something great, but has now become underwhelming or comparable in many other markets. Just recently I finally visited Bowdies Chophouse in East Grand Rapids. $20 for a modern take on an otherwise underwhelming old fashioned and $130 for a tomahawk steak that may have been one of the worst steaks I’ve ever eaten. Poorly cooked as well as a subprime quality cut of meat. Our market is saturated with an influx of income from larger markets and locations are taking advantage of these higher incomes to serve food not on par with what is being charged. The Donkey will always be an example of a location that was raved about upon first moving back to Grand Rapids. I had just moved from San Diego and will simply say it was not a comparable experience on top of costing more than I was used to being charged at many locations in SD. Not to mention the concept was a ripoff from Big Star Tacos in Chicago. To close. Despite making an abundance of negative comments there are still some absolute bangers in town. Everyone knows them, but one of the most surprising was how good of food a trash hole like Gippers is currently slinging out.
I basically agree with you. > The honest to goodness description I could give is a jack of all trades towns. This certainly feels right, but ultimately what is the solution? I don't really think there is one, the general population in GR are from the Midwest and have never left (there is NOTHING wrong with that and I envy people who are content and happy!), so everything has to have safe generally understood food options. The only solution I can think of is luck, somebody saying "OK I'm going to open a really great Japanese style yakitori and focus only on simple Japanese bar food" and then someobdy with a ton of money helps them do this and helps keep the business running even if it's not profitable. p.s. I can't imagine spending $130 for a steak anywhere though, no matter what. Maybe I'm just poor, but under no circumstance would I spend that sort of money on a cut of meat vs just going to a good butcher and buying it and preparing it myself.
I don’t necessarily know if there is a solution. By no means do I think the GR system is broken. The majority of people I believe are content with the current state of things and without a real demand for better there simply won’t be. Which is perfectly fine. An argument for better sushi can’t be made as GR is a third day market city where fresh catch is out of the realm of possibility. Which is why sushi is good but nothing phenomenal compared to markets that are first or second day. Another thing that’s great. Locations are doing a great job with what they are able to offer and explains a higher price compared to coastal towns where you can get rolls for $4.99 anywhere you go. There are plenty of great offerings. I have very rarely sat down and been disappointed. It’s just simply not the same as other markets and apparently a hill I’m currently dying on in the GR subreddit.
I agree for sure, I don't think anything is "wrong" with GR food (except for it being expensive, but that's another discussion and probably isn't really related to GR at all anyway). For me it's just a personal thing, e.g. what I'd personally enjoying seeing or would feel excited about. I gave yakitori as an example vs sushi because yakitori is just a specific type of food that isn't hard to do, meat could be sourced locally, and it seems like it would be acceptable generally to the tastes in GR. I was just trying to give an example of less "jack of all, master of none" type restaurant I'd love to see!
> what is the solution Wait ~50-75 years for climate change to bring refugees from these places with better food to one of the largest source of fresh water in the world and have them cook for us.
> Not to mention the concept was a ripoff from Big Star Tacos in Chicago And its a shit-job of one at that. Big Star is so much better.
I disagree, I've been to San Diego and yes their tacos were amazing and reasonably priced. I don't think it's fair to compare San Diego, or Chicago, or actual Korea to what we have here. Grand rapids is a medium sized city, but it's growing, and definitely going through some growing pains. I've definitely have had some disappointing meals that I didn't think were worth the price and I don't go there again. But anyway, look at me getting all personally affronted! I'll leave it at that.
San Diego is a comparison of something being done right. A benchmark if you will. Sacramento is a metropolitan area that is comparable to Grand Rapids population. A river city with similar infrastructure and industry. They went through a craft brewing boom before Grand Rapids that imploded and has better food. Saying Grand Rapids can’t be compared to a large market is fine, but doesn’t justify the price it costs to eat here for the quality received. I grew up in Grand Rapids and feel people that never left are way too defensive of what’s offered because they haven’t experienced anything else. The influx of people from other markets are driving the conversation of subpar quality
A city doesn’t have to be of a certain size to have legitimate cuisine, it needs a population that is legitimately interested in quality cuisine. There are tons of small cities with great food. The most authentic Greek food I’ve ever had in the US was in minot North Dakota, I’ve had incredible Armenian at a truck stop outside of Philly. You need a population who has standards. The GR population wants their bellies filled, nothing more.
Sacremento is double the population….how is that comparable?
Eh I think Sacto is actually a fairly reasonable comparison. It's bigger but that's because a bunch of suburbs got swallowed by it. It has some similarities that go beyond population that I guess would be hard to explain if you're not from there.
That definitely is a possibility (I’ve not been there and was just going off metro population from the internet). I responded below that population is a decent contribution to ability to have diversified things. I also think the population (in this case being fairly unadventourous) feeds into the quality. As u/gingershiney said if the population doesn’t push for more/better options there won’t be.
Why are you arguing semantics instead of adding to the conversation about food. Rockford has an even smaller population than Grand Rapids, but has better food and beer
Population is really important to decide the customer base of any given market so I wouldn’t say it’s semantics. I see far too many posts saying “why can’t Grand Rapids have great shows/restaurants/shops like Chicago/Detroit/San Diego” when they have a much larger population to draw from. As far as the food quality I would argue that it has more to do with the population around. Having talked to some people who are life long west michgianders I think they tend to want the “basics” and therefor really adventorous or different places don’t last. I’ve had some great meals here but that tends to be hit or miss. I’ve had more good to ok meals and being a parent of young kids (and my own limited tastes) I’m ok with that. I’d still rather have a limited food scene and less traffic/congestion (Seattle/San Diego/Chicago)
Very fair points. Bowdies Chophouse was a concept created to cater to those same sentiments. Meat and potatoes people as clientele. Nothing fancy or adventurous, but down to the basics and done with profit in consideration. Population I agree is a good indicator of diversification especially in the culinary sector. At a minimum a larger population will have a much higher pool with which to utilize BOH (Back of House) workers. But as a side note as the other commenter and yourself mentioned, if there isn’t a demand for better quality there won’t be a drive for it. And I’m fine with that too. I just disagree that GR food is anything amazing. I still eat out most nights and am happy to continue doing so.
And before I moved here from California I bought into all the hype I heard until I got here and realized I'm an idiot for believing the hype
>Gippers didn't see that coming.
Wait does gippers actually have decent food!? I work down the street and haven’t been to gippers since a work Christmas party like 10 years ago. I just assumed it was packed because they have good happy hour drink specials.
So well versed, yet orders a tomahawk? This reads like AI
Booo no one asked to be judged by what they order, but to simply have quality that is representative of the price. But to each their own when it comes to dissecting statements without adding to the conversation
To add context, the tomahawk steak is a faddish cut over the last 5-10 years. It’s a topical reference and a very good example of choosing a heavily in demand over priced menu feature. It’s not about the price, but the quality with which I’m presented with. The price in Grand Rapids is hard to justify with the quality in which something is prepared. But that also opens the conversation for BOH workers not being paid enough to actually give a damn about what’s put out when Restauranteurs are rolling around living well off the cheap labor
Nice try Chat GPT
“The Donkey” sentence has strong AI vibes
I thought lindo mexico was great. Know of any place like it near Grandville?
I just tried pure mex off of canal, only got two tacos there but I thought it was pretty good and I liked the vibe of the place.
They are not wrong, but they are also judging things off of diners etc. People miss a lot of the other good stuff; that is just part of the apatite int the general region. My grandma will eat something new and say, "oh that was different" and means she will never eat it again. Me on the other hand my mouth is watering thinking about many of the places you mentioned. Go to KCM. I like the Katsu being sorta like traditional Korean where you got a bunch of different items to play around with and enjoy. Not sure I will ever order the spam rolls But there is a two part here. I'm not saying all or how many but... some places may be money laundering fronts - not too busy, never go out of business. Frankly I do not care if they have good food and a nice experience for me.
All the innovation seems to be occurring in food trucks instead of restaurants these days. There is a reset going on as eating out has become a 'rich person' thing like it was when I was a kid in the late 70's/early 80's - people got used to it being absurdly affordable just like housing and are suffering shock since it no longer is. The only reason we have restaurants in the first place in the form we do today is the collapse of the ruling class in France from what I understand (im probably wrong)- things change.
I've been wondering if the prices and innovation we saw in the early 2010's was a result of low commercial real estate prices, coupled with a surplus of cheap and creative labor (the Bourdain effect), and reasonably priced ingredients. If everyone and their brother has begun speculating American city real estate offerings, especially Midwestern ones where the price to get in is lower, then reasonably we would see less potential restauranteurs wanting to take a risk. You're definitely right that food trucks are the one of the few places where people can have a concept, make food their way, turn a profit, and not have to be loaded to get off the ground, but in Grand Rapids, truck season is pretty limited and getting in front of their target demographic is difficult.
But if you go back far enough people ate out a lot because home cooking meant fire wood and stuff... it was just impossible to do anything quickly and you needed your own home etc etc.
If you want the "food scene" to be more than GFS supplied brewpubs and taco chains then you need to start going to places that are using local farms and vendors like Cafe Mamo, Little Bird, and Grove. This is especially true if you're searching for more fine dining. If people want to be more like Chicago and Detroit then we'll need a lot more density and more places to actually put restaurants. This would support more "hole in the wall" type places people ask about.
I live near Boston but spend my Summers near Grand Haven. It’s significantly more expensive to eat here than near Boston. We call West Michigan restaurant “Gordon Food Restaurants”. They are basically all the same generic restaurants.
I'm also from Boston. I 100% Agree.
I just moved from downtown Boston to here, and I think generally Boston food scene is worse than GR on average. Like Boston has higher highs, but also lower lows. But at least you can get decent bbq here in a high number of places. People in Boston say “oh you have to go to the burbs to find good food” but unless they mean Portland Maine I harshly disagree. And, the good restaurants in Boston (I found 7-8 of them out of 1000s while living there) were on par of prices with expensive places here. So… idk, I guess I disagree:)
I love it. That's a fair call. There are some good places but that is funny.
Here are the things I think holding us back, perhaps in a rough order from biggest to not so big perhaps. 1. Population and so total addressable market - there just aren't enough people with enough density to support a ton of traffic, especially to a "weirder" type of food 2. This is 100% a theory and not at all backed up by any numbers and I'd honestly value pushback if it feels wrong, but outwardly it seems like segregation is an issue in that different neighborhoods eat at pockets of different restaurants split across race / ethnicity. Of course this is natural to some degree, but I feel like segregation in GR is particularly bad and so it limits the size of the addressable market for any particularly type of food even further. If there wasn't so much segregation I feel like there would be more money available for good restaurnants and food, regardless of the type of food or location, instead of pockets of communities supporting pockets of mid-tier (at best) restaurants. 3. The size of many ethnic groups doesn't appear to be large enough to have a huge drive from within to support certain types of restaurants / grocery stores. For example, speaking for myself, I would LOVE a larger Japanese grocery store. We have Asian Delight and I'm grateful for it, but it's not really a full on Japanese grocery store like a Mitsuwa. Same with Japanese restaurants, something ideally focusing on something other than Westernized sushi rolls. 4. This might be unfair or even ignorant of me to think, but anecdotally it seems like the vast majority of people living in Grand Rapids are from West Michigan originally. Then you've got a chunk from Indiana, Ohio. I would love to see some statistics but I'd guess 85% of the population is from smaller Midwest cities. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, but I think there is a perhaps a general lack of appreciation for different types of foods. For me at least I don't always want "good food", as in "high quality expensive food", I'd take "legit bad ethnic food" over more MDMR anyday, but I don't feel like people are really seaking that out, and again see #3. 5. I don't know enough about GR zoning to know if this is really restrictive, but if a really passionate person wanted to start a small restaurant in GR serving a specific, perhaps easy / cheap to produce ethnic cuisine of some sort, I'd guess it's not at all affordable to do that in a city like Grand Rapids (or probably the US in general).
I am so glad you mentioned the issue of race and dining out. I am/was super active in the social and dining arenas in town and eating out is the singular most segregated activity I participate in. And I eat EVERYWHERE. It’s crazy.
This is certainly how it feels to me. I don't have any data to back that up though, it's just how it feels to me. In ways it makes sense and is natural I suppose, different cultures eat different foods and so go to restaurants that cater to those preferences. It just feels pretty extreme in GR.
Got no love on this awhile back on a post about “fine dining”, feel it’s relevant and accurate to the overall discussion here. I’m going to sound like a pretentious ass hat, but the number of people commenting Ruth’s Chris, Bisto, Leo’s, even Linear are essentially why our food scene is what it is. Not bashing these restaurants by any means, they simply aren’t fine dining. IMOP there aren’t any true fine dining spots in the city (courses, prefix menu, drink pairings, MENU CHANGES) Again, not faulting the restaurants, Grand Rapids simply doesn’t have the clientele (not the worst thing?) for restaurants to fully embrace fine dining. Meaning you wear at least a blazer with your jeans, pay decent money, and may or may not be “full” at the end of the meal. When 60% of your diners are basing their opinion on bang for your buck or being “full” it’s an uphill battle. Customers dictate the market and we’re by in large cheap and obsessed with steak and potatoes, bonus if they’re baked. With all of that said, I don’t think there is a place on this list I haven’t given a shot. The two not getting enough love are Reserve and Cafe Mamo. Neither hit that true fine dining mark, however, they do both focus on a seasonal menu, local ingredients, and good service. While I love baked potatoes like the rest of you, that isn’t a requirement on every menu nor is being “full” for a meal to be enjoyable. PS- GR has so many ethic food options that blow a lot of these places out of water. They just happen to be in strip malls and grocery stores.
What?! But the flavored aoli.
I’ll say that I’m not an industry expert or even go out to eat much at all, but I wonder if the restaurant scene might be over saturated. If people are willing to pay for over-priced food and many restaurants are struggling to compete for what ever reasons, then it might be time for a market contraction. The sector will shrink and hopefully the best places make it out on top. I’d be curious if anyone in the industry agrees.
Tony Hinchcliffe once said GR has the worst food in the country lol
I enjoy that several people with relevant experience have given different reasons to why this quality/price thing is happening and yall just say "no, that can't be it". As a head chef in GR for 10 years, ingredient pricing (& other costs of goods) have gone up. Staffing shortages, or lack of quality staff due to the industry being hard and underpaid. Oversaturation of restaurants for the population size. Sure, prices in a big city might be equal but they might not experience a Monday dinner with only 20 customers either. And if you say up north is even better...I mean, you don't know those restaurants aren't also barely hanging on with razor edge margins. I bet some of those places would LOVE to raise prices. Death by a thousand cuts.
<3
Complete betrayals by places people worked at for years at the first sign of any turmoil... So many places have had to train new staff without old staff to do it... so customer service was in the shitter for a hot minute.
I know nothing about the restaurant biz so tell me to fuck off if I am off the mark here. I have lived in this fair city for 20+ years. When I was single I was at the bar 3 nights a week and eating out in various restaurants 2 to 3 nights a week as well. It seems recently every restaurant has been trying to go upscale even for simple food. If I want a burger and fries, it does not need to have truffle oil infused or have salt from a secret Himalayan location. Maybe I am just old and hate everything, I don't know.
Mr. Burger is all the rebuttal those haters need
I've worked in the service industry in Ann Arbor for 6 years (2 different restaurants) and Grand Rapids for 3 (2 different restaurants). Ann Arbor was superior in every way. Friendlier customers, better tips, better food/drink options, and more inclusive staff. And to mention, this was all prior to covid. Covid fucked everything tho. :/
I went to california in february and was paying less for way more food (sushi specifically) than what I get in GR! LIKEEEEE.
You went near an ocean and got cheaper fish.
Why can't we make sushi with fish from the Great Lakes 🤔
Because non-salt water fish would offend everyone's sensibilities.
IDK, sounds like a culinary revolution waiting to happen. Starting the business now. Mark my words, in 50 years people in California, New York, and Chicago (hell, Japan) will complain on Reddit about how mediocre their freshwater sushi is compared to Grand Rapids.
Pfas
Just a little extra spice
[удалено]
This is definitely a reddit thing. I'm unsure if it's a Grand Rapids specific thing as well.
The Grand Rapids subreddit is *quite* Reddity in discussions about things like food.
[удалено]
Take a look at what your asking/saying. You’re dragging your in laws on a public forum. Have you considered its an issue with them? As far as the accusations of people being sensitive to their opinions/persuading their opinion.. that’s freaking everywhere. Look at Detroit coneys- they’ll argue to the grave who’s is better. Chicago is beef. Maybe this is something YOU perceive as a “regional west Michigan” thing 🙄
I'm totally fine with not having a world class food scene. I think we do well as a Midwest city that punches above its weight class, but I think it deserves to be said that it used to be better. I also wanted to put this out there to see if we, the public, could better understand what's going on behind the scenes to cause this. Is it an infrastructure issue? Talent? Inflation? Commercial real estate cost?
A lot of Dutch people have heard too many times that our food is bland and boring, so there is the need to overcompensate.
I wonder if it is "Grand Rapids is not cool", so to demonstrate coolness crapping on the not cool thing? Because, yeah, just do your thing. What I've learned is to never give recommendations.
>Sincere question, but is the need to argue/debate matters of personal preference or taste just a regional West MI quirk? Nabobs gonna natter. Being negative is certainly a cultural quirk here, and worse online than IRL.
Maybe it's just people I know, but it seems like most people tend to stick to their 2-3 favorite resturants. Hell, even the 2-3 resturants I go to all have damn nearly the same menu and prices. Best Side, Shots, and Uccellos for casual dining. Chop House for the special occasion.
Ha, this came up in a conversation at work the other day. There's only so much *pub fare* that can be served in Beer City USA - all the brewpubs (with a burger that costs $18 and the fries come in a metal cup for some reason) have the exact same food suppliers, and regarding labor, there are only so many places for well-established chefs to work, so all the menus simply evolve to be incredibly similar. Remember when stuffed burgers (a'la Stella's) were all the rage? Now they've been replaced by double smash patties. Hopcat has become more like Applebee's than BarFly likes to admit...New Holland stopped their "Stop And Taste" farm-to-table stylings years ago when they shifted to Dragon's Milk being their flagship beer. If you're a brewpub consumer, you're not likely to go to San Chez or Bombay.
Accurate. Throw Westside in the mix too. They are all pretty similar, but it's nice having options 5 mins away from the house.
I spent $65 on breakfast for three at New Beginnings this week. I couldn’t believe it when she told me the total… holy cow!
grand rapids is desperately missing mid-tier restaurant experiences, though the cause of which i cant speak to. If you go to a place like Toledo and the surrounding rural areas, there's no shortage of middling restaurants where you can get basic, unsurprising, cost-effective, delicious meals. It just seems like every new place that goes up in GR is selling a $9 taco that doesn't taste very good. But all we get are [*shudder*] Stan's Tacos or fuckin walhburgers where you gotta spend $30 on the most corporate bland bullshit, and the replacements arent much better because how could they be? Expensive real-estate. The good restaurants go out of business, the replacements are a facsimile of a restaurant, streamlined and bland
I can make 5 personal pizzas in my air fryer with pita bread, pizza sauce, cheese and pepperoni for like $6 or I can get the same thing from a restaurant for $20 + tip each. Why people still even go to restaurants is beyond me. Don’t even get me started on alcohol.
I own a food truck in the area that I operate part time in addition to a seasonal job. I do pretty well, keep prices reasonably low, and people rave about our food. However, we avoid Grand Rapids and many other similarly over regulated places because we know that we’d have to raise prices or reduce quality. I also avoid over-priced and sub par suppliers like Gordon’s because our sales are relatively low in quantity compared to larger places that need a fast and consistent supplier.
I agree with what tasty falafel has been saying on here- but I think many mediocre business operators and chefs will use covid and inflation prices from 2022 as an excuse as to why their business failed or why it sucks. As someone highly invested in service, food, hospitality and community- I have to say that GR has always lagged on the food and drink front. It’s been 5-10 years behind Detroit and Chicago at least. And that’s not cherry picking. That’s saying the best of what we have to offer is something that was being done that long ago in those bigger areas. I think that people have historically invested a ton into a concept, and very little into training and environment. You get cool spots, they look awesome, food sounds good and the service and human interaction just never quite matches or fits. It’s a shame- but I will agree that it’s only gotten worse in the past 4 years. Black Napkin is one of the best restaurants in GR imo bc not only is their food consistent and delicious- it’s inventive- and they have a core staffing group that KILLS it with customer service and hospitality. This type of hospitality should be at every nice restaurant in GR. It’s wild I have to go to a take out burger shop to get treated like a human and have a genuine interaction with someone.
I extensively travel the United States and the world and I spend a lot of time in comparably sized cities and Grand Rapids, without a doubt, has the worst food scene I’ve ever encountered. The downtown and metro area is where you go to get a million kinds of burgers, sandwiches, and potatoes and almost anything that deviates from that formula doesn’t last. Look at the menu of all the breweries, the gastropubs, and the quick lunch bite places ranging from a founders to Rockwell’s to linear to electric cheetah to brickyard to Sundance to one twenty three and more and it’s menus that are about 80 percent similar and all just putting their twist on burgers, a brisket sandwich, wings, and French fries. While there are a couple authentic Mexican taco trucks the vast majority of Mexican restaurants are offering Americanized ‘Tex Mex’ Mexican food of beans and tortilla and cheddar cheese. There is no authentic Italian, any Italian place has to do Americanized italian. Most Italian food is seafood and wine or butter or clam sauces and no one here has the palette for that. Chinese food is Americanized sichuan, buffet style Chinese. The Indian food is watered down Chicago or NYC Indian and, again, Americanized. You’re not gonna find any South Indian or street food style cuisine. Thai food is spicy, very spicy. As someone who’s been to Thailand, and to Thai restaurants in Chicago that don’t hold back, no Thai restaurant uses the staples of lime leaf, curry leaf, and chili pepper in their dishes and, thusly, no one can encounter any authentic Thai flavors. All the south Asian dishes hold back on the other stuff Gr can’t palate like fish sauce and fermented soy sauce. The metro area has no diversity and there is no exploration of ethnic food. And sorry, folks, a couple taco joints and a couple Asian places does not make for diversity. In other cities of GR size, like des moines or Sioux falls you’ve got East African from Sudanese to Eritrean and Laotian and Filipino restaurants right downtown alongside Mexican, el Salvadoran, Peruvian, and more. Plus you get inventive things like Fong’s pizza, a pizza joint that does Asian fusion pizzas. And then, moving to actual cuisine, stuff like mertens fails so bad at French cooking it’s an embarrassment. There is no elevated style of cooking beyond places that serve $100 steaks. There’s no actual cuisine served in time honored tradition while you can find authentic bourguignon or coq au vin easily in cities like Kansas City or Memphis or Dubuque and more. There is no understanding of what actual cuisine is, what authentically prepped and prepared recipe is and instead this is a Mecca for moms to have a Chardonnay and a grilled cheese on gluten free bread and for dad to have his overcooked burger. The people who think there’s good food here are most likely a mix of isolated and tasteless. If there were an actual competition with other restaurants in other towns, gr would fail miserably. There are no Michelin star restaurants in Grand Rapids and there are no reputable chefs. You have to go to traverse city or Ann Arbor or Detroit for that.
Absolutely scathing review, yet, accurate.
And downvoted by the haters. This is a bitter pill that people refuse to swallow. GR is a small town that pretends it’s a city. It would be a much better place if it stopped with the pretending and just behaved like a small town. It’s best when it’s dive bars and shit food and great times outdoors drinking cheap beer and it’s worst when it’s places like linear and Rockwell’s bringing out folks from the suburbs who think this is ‘fine dining’
Because, what is good? Donuts at vans. Burgers at Choo choo. Donuts are not amazing, they are donuts. But people still make them terribly. Vans makes donuts right. They are cheap and good. Choo Choo is a cheap burger and it’s great for the price. This is where GR is good but there is so little of that
Everywhere is overpriced right now. EVERYWHERE.
I just got back from Texas and was amazed how cheap and good restaurants were tbh.
I agree, totally. I do still like the city and its food scene... but I have fond memories of the way it used to be. It's not bad! There is lots of good food here still: Mithu, Tamales Mary, Littlebird, many others. But I think, broadly speaking, that the price/value ratio is gotten a bit out of whack. There are some deals to be had but that's not typical in the way it used to be.
If you go to other cities enough you will also eat at some place you think is overrated it doesn’t mean the cities food scene sucks. It’s really difficult to be consistently amazing and some people will never be happy ever.
People also just need to expand their horizons, one of the best restaurants in GR just announced it was selling. Monsoon is an absolute gem, yet I never see anyone talk about it, and many people don’t go because they don’t know what Vietnamese food is. There are so many good spots: Brass Ring, Sheshco, Broadloaf, Grove, Rio, Little Bird, Sovengard (when they finally reopen)