money making cuisine.......

[ChefInTraining]

I am from Los Angeles, California. Sure I appreciate fine food but it seems that local short order mexican taco shacks and chinese fast food seem to do very well. What cuisines do you think most "customer's" tend to lean towards and why?????

[AprilB]

Dunno...

April

<think it's the bread and gooey cheese thing>

[panini]

demographics play a huge role in answering this question.
Overall, where I live, the sad answer to that is convenience cuisine.
pan

[Blueicus]

Also I'm assuming you have a very large demographic of Latin Americans, hence the gravitation towards what they know.

Besides, I'd kill for a good small tacqueria in my hometown, where Mexican choices are limited and mediocre at best.

[foodpump]

A million reasons why, most of them are money related. The majority of us only go to really nice places once or twice a year: birthdays, anniversaries, etc. The minority, who have expense accounts or are wealthy, can afford to eat at nice places or entertain prospective clients two or three times a week. These places are niche markets: staffing costs are high, overhead (location, location..) is high, food costs are high, but profit margins are high as well, and profit margins from booze, especially wine makes it almost worthwhile. You might not need a full restaurant to make money, but only a handfull of tables to blow $500 and up per table will cover costs and make a profit for that night. But not many of these places exist, that is if you compare them on a perentage basis to the take-outs, Moms and Pops, and diners. The start up costs and level of experience to open up one of the high-end places is mind boggling. Ask around, most of the owners will tell you that they worked in the industry at least 10 -15 years before starting up this current venture. And these are the ones who succeed, the failure rate is very high.

Most of the take out places provide nourishing meals for under $10.00, some for under $5.00. It's a volume business, they can survive on the slim profit margins because of the high volume, and start-up costs and overhead are far cheaper than fancier places, so it's much easier to start up these kind of places.

So why Mexican and Chinese? Demographics. Here in Vancouver we have very little Mexican, but lots of Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and European places, California is alot closer to Mexico than Vancouver, so you have more Mexican influence.
California, as Canada did, brought in Chinese labourers to build the railways, and the ones who survived stayed. As a result, there is alot of Chinese influence along the west coast, even after almost 100 years after the first Chinese labourers came here.

[panini]

So why Mexican and Chinese? Demographics. Here in Vancouver we have very little Mexican, but lots of Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and European places, California is alot closer to Mexico than Vancouver, so you have more Mexican influence.
California, as Canada did, brought in Chinese labourers to build the railways, and the ones who survived stayed. As a result, there is alot of Chinese influence along the west coast, even after almost 100 years after the first Chinese labourers came here.[/quote]
So I guess history has an affect also.

[shroomgirl]

I ate at a Taqueria for lunch yesterday.... they made money on us......$40.00
for 4 of us and it was lunch and two were kids. Some of the food seemed like a deal, but a few of the dishes were skimpy on toppings......nachos were a real poor version of the Tex Mex variety. Food costs were minimal. The owner was making money. His family was working....if you notice most Chinese restaurants are also owned and run by families. Cheap labor.
Low food costs. tortillas, beans, rice, bits of offal or small amounts of meats....loads of rice, lots of veg, copious quantities of noodles, smaller pieces meat (normally small/med shrimp are used).