Western restaurant - let's see some in Xindian, Muzha

To all restaurant and pub owners,

Taipei has a massive population actually outside of Taipei City. How about trying to open a pub in XinDian, Muzha (and all the other neglected suburbs). People have started doing it in Tamshui, you guys can get across the river, come on, there are bridges to cross it and actually MRT stations out here too :slight_smile:

I am too lazy and not interested in running restaurants/bars to run one myself but I think there’s a lot of fresh territory out here, you won’t have much competition. So instead of opening the 7th pizza place on ShiDa Rd or the 6th burger shop in YongKang Jie and 20th pizza place on FuXing how about spreading your wings a bit? I know the whole thing about cluster effect but really don’t be afraid to cross the river and open a restaurant, there may not be so high income as XinYi but there are certainly enough if you crunch the numbers.

So come on guys, we need Indian, Pizza and pasta joints and a decent place to have a beer out here and so do the other 100,000 and counting Taiwanese!

There is a pretty house for rent next to Route 66 restaurant. It would make an excelent location for Alleycat’s Xindian.

You got the time/knowledge. I got the money and the appetite for pizza. :hungry:

ps.
A truly veggie Indian place close to Gigabyte -with all its fellow countrymen engineers- would also be very appreciated.

It is a good idea but sadly for many people the world begins in Nanjing Road and ends in Xinyi Road and they wouldn’t dare cross a bridge lest they encounter marauding bands of barbarians.

Excuse me. Muzha is called Muzha for a reason. We keep the barbarians OUT!!! :fume:

Been tried several times over the years. The problem is that despite what you might think, there aren’t really that many Western foreigners in the area, so any Western place has to rely on locals for custom, which means they have to make the food bland and sweet or perish.
There are any number of hole-in-the-wall Thai and Vietnamese places, though, thanks to the large numbers of labourers.
Even the stone oven pizza place that used to be at Bitan was planning on closing if the county government hadn’t kicked them out, as they only made any money on the weekend. Weekdays the place was dead.
If I was thinking of opening a Western place, it would definately NOT be in Hsindian, even though that’s where I live.

Well, I still have faith in the that with the expat population available, especially in the tech park and the Gigabyte complex, plus the training center for Kid Castle and now with several major English schools, that could be a significant push, for starters.

Lunch specials would be necessary to feed the masses. SUBWAY is gets enough movement, and not only by furriners.

They just opened a new “stone oven pizza” place on Xindian’s Minchuan Rd. True, not much movement on weedday nights, but lunch specials seem to be doing OK.

i was thinking of opening a stinky tofu place in shenken…seems to me there aren’t quite enough there yet… :sunglasses:

[quote=“Icon”]
They just opened a new “stone oven pizza” place on Xindian’s Minquan Rd. True, not much movement on weedday nights, but lunch specials seem to be doing OK.[/quote]
Me and Mrs500 went there the other day… they have service issues, and seem to suffer the “How do i do my job with a foreigner around, i mean is it the same?” scenario.

They won’t be around for long.

[quote=“Icon”]Well, I still have faith in the that with the expat population available, especially in the tech park and the Gigabyte complex, plus the training center for Kid Castle and now with several major English schools, that could be a significant push, for starters.

Lunch specials would be necessary to feed the masses. SUBWAY is gets enough movement, and not only by furriners.

They just opened a new “stone oven pizza” place on Xindian’s Minquan Rd. True, not much movement on weekday nights, but lunch specials seem to be doing OK.[/quote]

Do you think lunch specials make money? Competing with 50NT$ noodle bowls … and lunchbox places … and take away dumplings …

I’ve done it, an believe me you need to plan very well and think about the fact that you need movement all week in your place to get your food turned around or invest in some pretty good storage facilities and come up with a plan to keep serving fresh food to your customers … all food you need to throw out is lost income and not all ‘left over’ food you can make into ‘lunch specials’ when not sold the day before …

And think about the fact that many English teachers just don’t buy a little more expensive ‘western’ food for lunch and they rather go to Taipei, the big city , on weekends … to have fun or travel around the island …

And another thing, Taiwanese are not ‘pub’ people, or ‘hang-out’ people, they go some place to eat and move on when finished … they don’t stay there and have some more drinks and fun (spend $$$) … it might be changing tho with the younger generation …

In places like Xindian and where I live you need to set up something catering to the Taiwanese … there are some possibilities, but it’s not a pizzeria …

That’s a common reaction outside Taipei City, you just gotta roll with it (even happens a lot in Taipei City too).

DaPingLin and QiZhang are developing quite fast so it’s a good biz opp. as the owner of Subway in XinDian knows already. You can get food from all over SE Asia and North Asia so there’s definitely room for an Indian anyway (although Indian is not quite western, contradicting myself)!

There are lots of Taiwanese who like pubs. Go to JRs and you will see who most of the clientele are. You just need to provide good food and athmosphere (it would have to be a bit more to Taiwanese tastes I guess). Of course people prefer Taipei City but there’s a market there in Taipei County. Even ZhongLi and Taoyuan have bars!

…which was my thinking, you know, the Starbucks effect.

With all the new developments in these areas, huge towers coming up everyday, you have a lot of potential customers to be grabbed. These are people of some means, with exposure to foreign food.

“Western” or at least westernized food is attractive to this segment of the population. Furthermore, there is enough of a foreign customer base, with many entire families living in the area. If you got kids, not straying too far from home may sound like a plan.

You know? I bet I can set up a little Western grocery store like Wellman’s. it may not make me rich, but it will not fail, either.

[quote=“Icon”]…which was my thinking, you know, the Starbucks effect.

With all the new developments in these areas, huge towers coming up everyday, you have a lot of potential customers to be grabbed. These are people of some means, with exposure to foreign food.

“Western” or at least westernized food is attractive to this segment of the population. Furthermore, there is enough of a foreign customer base, with many entire families living in the area. If you got kids, not straying too far from home may sound like a plan.

You know? I bet I can set up a little Western grocery store like Wellman’s. it may not make me rich, but it will not fail, either.[/quote]

Who says, with a load of debt on the CC and mortgage … and since when are people with some means in Taiwan more exposed to western food …

Right, westernized crap, that’s what they like to eat … something that’s more to the local pallet is not western anymore.

Don’t think so, do you think that having maybe 50 families live in an area as huge as Xindian you can keep a place running …

Have you ever had a look at the exposure dates on products at Wellman’s … if you’re very strict for yourself and want to do business by the rules, you have to throw away a lot of products and you’ll be broke in no time … no one knows how to use western products in their daily kitchen here … it’s like these guys from Australia/Taiwan long time ago, they started importing frozen pies into Taiwan but didn’t do market research on how many families actually owned an oven to prepare them … out of business in no time …

In my opinion Taiwanese are very tradition stuck people … perhaps they like to try something when it’s new and trendy but very soon they go back to their used to local food …

The Starbucks effect …opening a zillion stores and then closing the bunch that don’t make the cut … that’s happening everyday in Taiwan … I’ve lost count on how many stores/pubs/eateries have been opened and closed in a 200 meter circle around my home since I moved here, that’s about 6 years I live in the same area … and the last 3 years it has been even worse …

BP, are you capable of producing a single positive thought about anything, ever?
Besides Belgian beer?

I agree with you Belgian Pie and you’ve got some experience to give you insight. Taiwanese like branded stuff so I’d already guessed the Subway would be a better bet. Franchise stores in general would have a lower risk. You need to crunch the numbers and have a bit of insight into the area.
There’s no way a Wellman’s would survive in XinDian, it hardly survives in Taipei or Tienmu, these days I guess.
It’s a competitive market overall and a lot of restaurants business has gone down overall due to lack of income growth the last few years. Still as I said there are enough people with money if you’ve got a quality product that also appeals to Taiwanese tastes, good location by the MRT and the gigabyte/dapinglin offices as another poster suggested and operating a franchise might be easier.

[quote=“Josefus”]BP, are you capable of producing a single positive thought about anything, ever?
Besides Belgian beer?[/quote]

These are facts, not negatives nor positives … open a pizzeria in Xindian or a western food grocery and find out for yourself …

[quote=“Josefus”]BP, are you capable of producing a single positive thought about anything, ever?
Besides Belgian beer?[/quote]

Jeez, I sure don’t see you throwing down the capitalization cash for some ill-conceived joint out on the rim, Pie’s been there and done that.
You guys have no idea whatsoever (BP and Sandman excepted) what it takes to keep a restaurant afloat in this town.
After all the whinging and complaining about the availability of your own special comfort food out in the outlying areas, how many times are you going to eat there in a week?
How much badly needed trade are you going to be responsible for?
Take a quick glance around these boards to see how unbelievably miserly your average foreigner is in terms of price expectations, irrespective of the uniqueness and authenticity of the menu and ingredients, both of which cost money.
Local folks are even more reluctant to pay for quality.
Smarter, savvier dudes than me have always asserted that you’ll only make a go when you’re looking at a minimum of 85% local traffic. I don’t care what your menu is, there still isn’t enough foreigner trade, and here I mean in central Taipei, to account for more than a maximum of 15% of your trade.
Getting enough local folks to come in on a regular enough basis to cover costs, forget profit, especially when menu prices are low enough to please most foreigners, is beyond a challenge.
You guys kill me when you get all excited about some new place, and visit like 2 times and then don’t come back for 6 months, and then end up moaning all over because either A. The prices went up, B. The service/quality went down, or C. The poor bugger’s closed.
Did you really think your bi-annual NT$400 tab was going to keep him going?
Talk to the Scotsman, man.

Well, go for it is all I can say to you. Not me, though – apart from Belgian Pie, who has ample experience of catering to the Taipei County plebs, I’ve spoken at length to at least two very experienced F&B mavens who HAVE crunched the numbers and found them sorely lacking, without pandering to local tastes (which is basically just the same as giving up completely, IMO).
Can it be done? Just ask Eddie out in Tamsui. Is it a massive, massive gamble? Without a doubt.

Well, I value BP’s point of view because he has the actual experience of running a business everyday. Same with the bear. All the points you guys bring up are logical.

Restaurant business is very hard. Foreign foodstuffs, even harder. You guys are really courageous for taking up the challenge. We in the outskirts would love to have some of that good stuff you guys produce, and that is what we wanted you to know. Our areas are coming up, growing quickly, and we also wanted everyone to know that. I personally believe these are good places to live and make business.

As to my own planned venture, I am an optimist. Try and try again, I will hit it right sometime. Or not.

During my stint in Sanxia several years ago (had the place for almost 3 years) I made money, but not from the 10% foreigners that came by in the weekends and the few that lived around Sanxia … although I must say that the tab they paid was higher than the average local although there were some exceptions, Taiwanese beer aficionado’s …

I had people (locals) coming in from as far as Taipei, Tucheng and all around, not just from Sanxia. I had companies coming over with their foreign visitors/buyers and sometimes the military from the Sanxia R&D center that had connections with Belgian electronics firms that made guiding systems for missiles …

I know for fact that most them that came in on a regular basis came for the authentic taste of my cooking. But, the work was hard, my wife didn’t like it, couldn’t find staff that actually knew something about cooking western food and I had slight medical condition that had to taken care of sooner or later … nothing serious but enough to not be able to get the most out of my bodily strengths …

Anyways, I’m starting something new, soon … not authentic Belgian kitchen but kind of fusion like thing … but it’s just a pilot store …

We can easily travel in if we want it. From other posts from icon, i guess she lives in the vicinity of Dapinglin/Qizhang MRT stations, this area is one of the best connected by public transport to the major restaurant spots of Taipei.

You are not the “outskirts” as much as you assert.