:icon_offtopic: well what can you expect from a general argy bargy thread like this.
Nick does have an interesting point about 'expired business models' and I'm sure living on the Gold Coast he would be well aware of the rapidly-becoming-extinct Aussie takeaway/milk bar.
This was, until recently, the main business model for Bribie Island here, with a couple of snack bars in the suburbs and the rest along the main drag off the bridge, and at Bongaree near the jetty. You could be guaranteed the finest frozen dim sims, Chiko rolls, fish and chips, Mrs Macs Pies etc etc. About the most sophisticated fare was a steak sandwich, but generally if you ordered say a seafood basket then that would be done by schoolkids after school reading off a checklist:
2 frozen calamari
3 frozen fish bytes
1 scoop edgells frozen chips
1 frozen potato scallop..................
No sign of the owners, probably down the club on the pokies. And they would religiously shut at 7 pm, sort of a 'closing cartel' because none of them ever seemed to buck the trend. Fortunately there were and still are a few Chinese joints that aren't too bad, and a really tired old Red Rooster. Then in the last few years the following have arrived:
Indian Restaurant
Thai
Tex/mex
Dominos
Eagle Boys
Subway
Noodle box
And they are 3/4 of the way to completing a Maccas woohooooo
You know what? The wailing and whining and gnashing of teeth from the old snack bar owners - still hanging on by the skin of their teeth but still serving frozen **** via schoolkids - is amazing to hear. Yes Nick they are an expired business model. I sorta think that many but not all LHBS tend to be in the snack bar category - hanging on but not adapting. Maybe they can't adapt.
John Steinbeck in "The Grapes of Wrath" accurately describes a mum and dad servo on the highway, fading into oblivion because of the new Shell and Esso servos that they just cannot compete with, and that was back in the 1930s. Not much changes.
