I think this is the worst business concept of all time

[jmowreader]

Yesterday's morning Fayetteville Observer (they charge, so no link) had an article about a Downtown Business Expo.

Ten years ago, downtown Fayetteville was fun...if you were a drunk, horny GI. (All y'all who don't live in Fayettenam need to know that we have exactly two kinds of people in this town: drunk, horny GIs and people who like to go to church seven days a week.) Fayetteville was the home of Rick's Lounge, one of the most notorious titty bars in the world. On the other side of the street was Little Saigon, where four OTHER titty bars were. Naturally, the people who go to church every day wouldn't go downtown.

Then the city decided to attract the less-savory element (you know, the ones who buy Chick tracts by the box) downtown, and they eradicated all the titty bars. Now it's safe, sparkling, and even more boring than a Halliburton Roller Cone Bit.

But enough of that and back to the problem at hand: At this Downtown Business Expo, which seeks to get people to set up shop in the Downtown Business District, three Army wives brought their business concept for review by lenders and promoters. They seek to open a place where you can go to cook "nutritious meals" using ingredients the business provides, package them up and take them home for reheating.

Can anyone here make sense of this concept? Is there a point to this?

[KitchenWitch]

1. Those places are springing up all over the place

I think their target market is busy yuppie moms that do not necessarily know how to cook.

[aljones]

2. That is as crazy as bottled water was 20 years ago!!!

We Americans are a strange bunch to people...

[no name no slogan]

3. I'm one of those people who'd try this

I'm single, live alone, hate to cook, don't really know how to cook that well. And my kitchen is about 4' x 6'-- barely room enough for one person.

I would try a place like this, especially if they offered to help with preparation, and did the cleanup. It would probably still end up cheaper than a restaurant, too, I'd guess.

I'd give it a shot once, just to see how it works out.

[lost-in-nj]

4. Our food stores

have a section of Just reheat food...
Lasagna, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, even flounder and salmon.....

So it might not be such a bad idea after all
they will need people to buy the product though!



lost

[seaglass]

5. We had one of those and it lasted less than a year. It actually

isn't a bad idea for working moms who want to expand on their repertoire of meals and get all of the ingredients and instructions in one place.
But in practice it sucked.

They did offer free wine while you were putting your meals together though..:-)

I was going to try it but it was expensive, you had to purchase a package of meals and the majority of recipes were with chicken and I don't like chicken.

[seemunkee]

6. There are several in this area.

Can't understand it myself.
All the ingredients are there. They have the recipes. Someone else cleans the kitchen.

[lildreamer316]

7. Already have two of them up the road here in G'boro.

I agree they don't make any sense.

Strangely enough, btw; my husband is a dj at The Men's Club in Charlotte. :)

[AmyDeLune]

8. I believe the idea is to cook up a weeks worth of meals

so that there is something relatively nutritious for dinner if one or both parents/partners/spouses/etc. work full time and are too tired to cook every night. That's the way I've seen them promoted anyway.

[greatauntoftriplets]

9. They closed down all the Fayetville titty bars???

Where ta hell does the 82nd go for fun and underage booze these days?

My :loveya: served in the 82nd years and years and years ago.

[jmowreader]

19. There are still SOME TB in Fayetteville

They're all on Bragg Boulevard. For some strange reason, they're closer to the "downtown" end than to the "Fort Bragg" end.

[XemaSab]

10. How is that different than getting a sack of precut stir-fry veggies,

some fajita meat, and a can of sauce at the grocery and taking it home and throwing it in a pan? :shrug:

[jmowreader]

20. You have to pay them to rent their range

[bbernardini]

11. We've used something similar, but you don't cook it there. Link inside to this month's "menu."

http://dreamdinners.com/main.php?page=ms_previewcurrentmenu

The premise is that they have most of the prep work done for you already. Marinades, sauces, etc. have already been applied or mixed. The cooking directions are provided, as well as suggested side dishes. You go and put together the necessary elements for the meals you want, then bring them home and freeze them. Ready-to-go meals that aren't bland and don't require too much time and effort. We found them particularly handy when my wife was pregnant, then recovering from the c-section.

Sounds to me like the Army wives got the idea a bit wrong. It's like going to a restaurant and paying them to make your own meal, is it not?

[Redstone]

12. The fuck? You go THERE, instead of to the grocery store? And cook THERE, instead of at home?

That's truly bizarre.

Redstone

[Midlodemocrat]

24. What you do is go to the store and

'assemble' the pre-cut, pre-measured ingredients and put it either into a zip lock bag or a foil tray.

It can be an enormous time saver when you are in or approaching a really busy month, but it is a tad pricey. Some of the recipes were absolutely delicious, though. I did a lot of crock pot ones for the winter because we grill out most of the time in the summer.

[China_cat]

13. Rick's is still there?

I worked there many years ago. Oh, sorry, I see where it's gone now. Phooey.

[cemaphonic]

14. We got a largish gift certificate to one of those places, so I have some observations:

The Good:

They are packaged sensibly, with clear, easy instructions and accurate prep and cooking times. So it is pretty easy to make sure the meal will come together when you need it to (we tend to save them for nights when we need to get out and run errands in the evening) And you would need to be a pretty lousy cook to botch them.

For an additional surcharge you can get them to do the in-store prep work, (without which, the only time they really seem to be saving you is in doing grocery shopping)

Cheaper and probably more nutritious than most restaurant food.

The Bad:

Much more expensive than cooking from scratch. You could probably buy the raw ingredients for any given meal for about half of the cost. The veggie mixes tend to be heavily weighted towards the cheaper veggies like carrots and onions, and the meats are chicken/flank steak/stew meat.

Pretty bland and unimaginative food. Obviously, this is subjective, but I haven't made one yet that I have been inspired to work out on my own. Also, Jumbalaya has to have rice in it - that is one of the key things that distinguishes it from a generic stew. And there is a distint lack of the green leafy types of vegetables that you should be eating if you are making any attempt at decent nutrition.

I'm not sold on the supposed convienience. You avoid some grocery shopping, but:
a) You have to make an appointment a few days in advance and pick out meals ahead of time, so you can't just drop into one whenever it might be convienient.
b) Some of the prepwork is done, but you still need to do some assembly in-store, unless you pay extra.
c)Most of the meals would need to be supplemented with vegetables, bread or some other side, so you still need to go to the store for those.



All in all, they seem to be directed at people who want home-cooked meals, but don't actually like cooking, and don't mind paying a huge premium for convienience. Probably a good alternative for people who eat out all the time (or eat packaged crap all the time), but once we run through our freebies, I don't think I'll be going back. They are popping up all over the place though, so clearly someone thinks it's a good business model.

Too bad about the downtown. Here in Seattle, the downtown neigboorhood that had all of the seedy business got trendy, sprouted luxury condos, and *then* the new residents figure out that there are some downsides to living in a $500,000 1-bedroom apartment across the street from a strip club, and start bitching to the city council about the noise and drunkenness and whatnot.

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. Dude, that's an old business model - happening all over the country.

And it's popular.

[Orsino]

16. It's an attempt to make soldiers invisible.

Not only do we hate having to think about the war, we want to pretend that our GIs are all God-fearin' Christians too full of patriotic courage even to think about titty bars. The soldiers, I imagine, are expected to keep quiet--or better yet, out of sight.

[jmowreader]

21. It's impossible to make THAT many soldiers invisible

We try, though.

Our wonderful :sarcasm: newspaper runs stories about military activities all the time. They pretty much have to, because all this town really is, is a bedroom community for Fort Bragg. But check this shit out: they have been known to run stories about change of command ceremonies without printing pictures of the incoming or outgoing commanders. They'll run stories about units leaving Fort Bragg for the war or coming back from it without printing pictures of soldiers. No, they're not running these stories without photos--they put pictures of soldiers' children in the paper. (And to top it all off, the change of command has to be battalion-level, or higher, to even make the paper!) You can even get killed in the war and not get your picture in the paper--but they will run a picture of your kids. This paper's coverage of military events is even worse than the coverage in the Watertown Daily News, which is, of all the papers that serve an area with an Army base on it, the most anti-military paper in the bunch. (And the Watertown Daily News has an excuse: the military is a very small part of their economy, and the sound of exploding cannon shells disturb the tourists and the cattle.)

[baldguy]

17. Instant leftovers?

People will spend their hard-earned money on ANYTHING.

[2008]

18. might be a good way for a novice to learn how to cook

like a single guy, fresh out of high school or college, living on his own for the first time

or a single girl, fresh out of high school or college, living on her own for the first time

a recently divorced dad

recovering meth addict

maybe a former employee of Rick's Lounge who was put out of work when Fayetteville eradicated all the titty bars

[Left Is Write]

22. It's a thriving business concept all over. People love those types of places.

[Midlodemocrat]

23. My Girlfriend's Kitchen, Entree Vous, Dream Dinners to name just

three in my town.

Additionally, a friend of mine did it in her house, but it got too time consuming for her.

I'll say one thing about it, having done them multiple times, it is really, really nice to have something ready to toss in the oven or the crockpot on a busy day.

And, some of the recipes are absolutely delicious. I've replicated almost all the ones that my family enjoyed.