You don’t get rich by spending.
We have a diner with a similar story. The building was originally a Hardee’s, but when the owner wanted to sell, the buyer remodeled it and turned it into a standard diner with big windows that face east. First mistake. (The rising sun shines right into the building. Not so good for the breakfast clientele, who would prefer to eat and read the paper without the glaring sun.)
The diner has since changed hands I don’t know how many times. Each owner has tried to make a go of it, but they keep making the same mistakes. They’re trying to cater to the senior housing complex across the street and to the car show crowd. The diner is too far from the fairgrounds to get that business, and the seniors at the housing complex typically don’t eat out. So each iteration of this diner has had the same shitty diner food because whoever the current set of owners happens to be won’t try anything new.
If it were me, I’d make it more of a student- and family-friendly coffeehouse-type of place. Lots of table space for gaming; healthier, locally-sourced and kid-friendly food; reasonable prices, that sort of thing. But it’s not me, so it’s just me talking.
And then, of course, the old folks from across the street complain about the atmosphere.
Not that they’re spending much money there, but it is still some small amount of business.
One of my business profs used to say "you want the rich and stupid market. Unfortunately, its a very small market and a lot of people go after it. But if you can be successful in “rich and stupid’ you’ve got it made.”
We had a place here that didn’t last long. It was a wine shop that sold maybe 60 different bottles of wine - grouped by “flavor” - so “Fruity and Bright” or “Tart and Light” - at prices approximately twice what the wine shop with 600 different bottles of wine half a mile away sold the same labels for. I’m not sure that even in a good economy there are that many people who go looking for “Rich and Deep” wines and don’t just go pick up a Cab for $12-20 with an animal on the bottle. People who knew wine went to a better organized place with better selection for less money. People who didn’t know wine didn’t spend much time in a place that screamed “wine snob.”
However, I don’t know that the owners made disparaging comments about their potential customers when they closed.
I have seen eggs for £8 each but to be fair, they were ostrich eggs.
I do try to support small local businesses and have spent slightly more for products on occasion to show that support, but “selling things I want to buy” is kind of the minimum criterion for my patronage.
I think you’re confusing chickens with vultures.
Free range vultures…mmmmm…
Fascist.
Hey, I reserve the right to boycott any shop which does not offer anything I want or need.
We had an interesting, somewhat-related experience this weekend. We went to a new restaurant for dinner on Saturday which has a large market attached to it (Sunterra in the Keynote building for any Calgarians reading). The dinner was mediocre at best, in spite of having pretensions to high-end food, but the dark chocolate berry cheesecake was heavenly. We’ll be going far out of our way for that dessert again, but not for the food. That restaurant has now entered our minds as, “Go here for dessert.” Since we’ll be going there for dessert, we’ll give them at least one more try to make a decent meal, but at least they’ll have us back in the door. If it had all been mediocre, not only would we have not come back as it is a long way for us to drive, but we would give it a bad review to everyone who asks.
The bottom line for us and a whole lot of people is “value.” If you have high prices, you better be delivering something to justify that price. I’ll pay $6.99 for an incredible piece of cheesecake; I won’t pay $10.99 for a barely edible bison burger.
From L.A. Story.
Mr. Perdue, Maitre D’ at L’Idiot: "You think with a financial statement like this you can have the duck?
You may have the chick-en."
No no no. He’s not a Fascist. He’s a Narcissist. It’s all about HIM, and what HE WANTS. Never a thought for what the poor shopkeeper needs to sell.
From the comments in this thread, it seems the grade A jackass of a manager was trying to market himself at the price of a grade AA jumbo jackass.
Surely everybody knows that onions and garlic are the basis for any civilised cooking?
Sure. I was just picking nits and showing off. Isn’t that what we do here? 
Small retail businesses which survive infancy often get branches, the first half-year of a store or bar sees a lot of deaths.
I do believe in all that “do local” stuff, but this year I did need two beds and a sofa. The bed I got from a large supermarket chain took a week to arrive, and part of the delay was because it was more convenient for me to receive on Friday afternoon than at another time. The other bed and the sofa? Ordered from a local store on July 6th, got them the last week of September. Going to IKEA? I would have had them all the next day 
Supporting local businesses is all warm-fuzzy and stuff, but they need to be able to sell me what I need at prices that don’t feel like I’m trading a kidney for that item, and deliver it before I start shaving.
It’s been a long time since I studied economics, but I dimly recall something about “Veblen Goods”, which are things which are prestigious because they’re expensive, not necessarily because they’re actually any good (although usually they are).
I see an element of it at work sometimes: We have a particular laptop that’s about $200 overpriced considering its specifications (and we have other laptops for less money with better specifications) but a disturbing number of customers honestly seem to believe that the expensive laptop is “better” in some unquantifiable way (it isn’t) because it’s more expensive.
That small amount of business isn’t enough to sustain it.
I have this same complaint about the local mechanic and my favorite cleaners. I don’t begrudge them for wanting to go home @ 5 like everyone else, but perhaps keeping a lackey there until 7 so I can pick up my damn car instead of leaving my cc#. And I had to stop going to the cleaners because I work every day he’s open, which his hours are my hours, not including travel time.
I’ve long wondered (and never really been able to understand) how businesses continue to function during 9-5 hours only when most of their customers are also working 9-5 and thus unable to come to the business to do their shopping. And I really wonder how they managed Back In The Day when “Shift Work” and “Flex Time” and the like was far less common…
Go far enough Back in the Day and many households were single-income, which usually meant that the lady of the house did the food shopping while hubby was at work. If there are still enough of these in the neighbourhood then they don’t worry about the people trying to shop post-work on the assumption that the costs of staying open (hiring more staff, paying overtime, whatever) outweigh the added revenue.
But it is bloody annoying, yes.