By the way, Route 66 RIP.
Now there are TWO wonderful locations open for entrepreneuring folks.
[quote=“Buttercup”]Expensive food is not always good food, especially in Taipei. I really really don’t look at prices when I eat. I want what I want and I pay for it (interestingly; if you do this, you never run out of money. Only a boor wants ‘the best’ all the time. I want scrambled eggs, a mango, a steak, a roll, a beautiful piece of sole; it all evens out).
It’s yawnsome when the price is to pay for lazy waitresses, with a ‘we’re the best’ attitude, or the tacky decorations, or the laoban’s delusions of grandeur.
Western food in Taipei is largely Krap, made for locals who know no different or jonesing short term expats. I only really went to places where it was either fun to hang out; the food is kind of the cover charge. It doesn’t matter if you are paying 200 or 2000; if you can cook it better yourself, it’s too expensive. The bread and coffee is usually what makes me go back somewhere.[/quote]
i tend to agree…most of the western food i eat in taipei is for social reasons; its not particularly bad food these days, in the case of carnegies it even varies from passable to good, but it can never match what you can get back home for the usual reasons (freshness of ingredients, eye for detail of the chef etc.)…
[quote=“the bear”]
i tend to agree…most of the western food i eat in Taipei is for social reasons; its not particularly bad food these days, in the case of carnegies it even varies from passable to good, but it can never match what you can get back home for the usual reasons (freshness of ingredients, eye for detail of the chef etc.)…[/quote]
That discussion has already happened else where in the forum and it’s not what this thread is about. The matter here was why there aren’t any western restaurants as such in Xindian, not with regards to the food being good or not.
I don’t think it matter where you go, whatever you eat that is local to that country will never taste the same in another country, it’s just how it goes. I bet Taiwanese food in the US is nothing like what it’s here and Chinese food in most places in the UK was hardly what I’d call good.
Anyhow, here’s fingers crossed for something half decent to open up in Xindian in the near future.
Yes, you are partly right, Lost Swede, but it is important. BroonAle said that restaurants don’t make money from westerners, which seems logical to me. Westerners go to hang out and to get a taste of home. If the food is not particularly good, then why would Taiwanese people go? You have to ask what would make Taiwanese people visit a suburban western style restaurant. I’m not an expert, but I can see it being a significant financial risk.
There are plenty of western restaurants that make great food in Taiwan. Anyway the point is not great food or not great food, there is a market beyond the murky XinDian/TamShui river, that’s all.
For bad food?
Is the problem so much the sustainability of a western restaurant by western patrons in the suburbs? Or is it more the management of western restaurants by inexperienced western owners and managers?
From what I’ve read on F.com, many of the new restos and businesses in Taiwan that are owned by non-Chinese (specifically English-speaking Caucasians) don’t last very long. There’s a high turnover of new and failed businesses and specifically for the non-Chinese owned eateries, is it true that many of those business owners/managers have crossed over from English-teaching to opening up an eatery with a Taiwanese spouse, with neither partners having any background in finance, business, human resources? Don’t you need to draw up a business plan/model to show your bank to take out a loan? And how about market research? Doesn’t that take time and money and effort as well?
I’ve always wondered how easy/difficult it is to open up a business. Assuming you have the capital and financial back-up, doesn’t one need to take courses in accounting, human resources, business management, food handling safety, staff training, etc., etc.?
I have seen many small businesses in Taibei open and close shop within a year, and these were businesses run by Taiwanese folks whose hearts were in the right place but they lacked planning. I mostly saw younger people in the 40 and under crowd put their savings into opening up a little snack stand or tea stand, work 12 hour days with a spouse, only to have to close up shop in less than a year. I can see how the economy is bad and there’s too much competition, etc. but if one had done one’s homework, that could have been figured out before they plunked down all the money for a business – if they got educated on how and when to start one’s own business and to keep it running, no? How about hiring cooks and chefs? Don’t they need to take classes and pass tests and be certified?
I guess what I’m asking is surely it can’t be just a matter of having NTD 2 million (or whatever amount) to open up an eatery. There must be a whole ton of planning and where you see your investment growing in a year, two years, five years, etc. And I wonder how many westerners in Taiwan come here with the intention of opening up an eatery and not teaching English?
To be honest, if the food is good – it doesn’t matter if it’s non-Chinese owned or Chinese-owned – people will spend money there. If the food is mediocre at best but the atmosphere is “western,” of course you’ll only pander to westerners. It’s naive to think “Taiwanese people [in Taiwan] can’t afford western food in a western atmosphere [run by western people].” The real truth is Taiwanese people do not want to pay good money for subpar western food. Frankly, who does? Like Buttercup said, many of us go to western owned/managed eateries only because of the company and atmosphere – it ain’t because of the scrumptious meals.
I love food, and I always think I know how to make a dish better than what I’ve just eaten at a restaurant. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and open up a restaurant just because I have the money (assuming I do).
[quote=“914”] The real truth is Taiwanese people do not want to pay good money for subpar western food. [/quote] but this is where the converse is true…taiwanese will pay for crap western food if there is a queue outside the door and if it features in taipei walker…e.g. the onion…pure crap, mobbed out every lunch time. i work next to one and neither i nor my western workmates nor the myriad of westerners working in the nanjing/fuxing area have ever even so much as looked at it…
Now you tell me. I was there last weekend because it was my friend’s B-day and she especifically selected it. Nothing to write home about … and sooo expensive.
Though somewhat scathing in its simplicity, the bear is right about local people paying for slop. More importantly he touches upon the assumption that this is the case and the danger for any westerner running a western restaurant is formulating their business model around this assumption and then just leaving it at that; it then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in some ways. If you assume that, then that is what will be the case. Crucially, it is important to find an operator with motivation and interest. 914’s points about being prepared and doing your homework are extremely important; having your ‘heart in it’ is not enough and those that jump from teaching to hospitality without due diligence and planning mostly fail and in so doing perpetuate the bear’s assumption and in many cases examples of that assumption in action. The net result is a slew of subpar western restaurants that, for westerners, fail to deliver but for Taiwanese may deliver for a number of reasons: no ‘home-based’ reference points and their own assumption that if it western and popular, it must be good but even then this is too simplistic. Far from being ignorant, I have found the Taiwanese consumer to be quite sophisticated with regards to food and restaurants. The westerner is the one unable to make the corresponding leap into the rather necessary world of compromise out of their own expectations being set falsely high (fresh ingredients etc.). For an operator, the primary goal must be to exceed expectations whatever they are at the micro-level. It is unrealistic to be all things to all men/women but where a sincere and effective compromise is offered and the quality reasonable and above (price/quality ratio has a bearing on this judgement), the chances for success are fair.
My earlier points in this thread were intended to show the realities of the demographics of operating a western restaurant in Taiwan and I did dabble for a little while so I hope they are not so readily dismissed.
914’s post above is really worth reading if anyone in F.comland wants to become a restaurant operator and owner: wise words.
And for those with a pining for home, bear in mind that if you don’t want a burger/nachos/steak, then the USA fails to deliver on so many levels as the ethnic restaurants seem (to me anyway) to dumb it down for the burger crowd in much the same way as many western restaurants in Taiwan seem to for the Taiwanese. A recent trip to an Indian eatery in San Diego with my father seemed to bear this out.
Ideally, the best restaurant would be owned and operated by a millionaire chef with no regard for business nor any care. This is seldom the case however and ultimately any restaurant offering fayre outside of the indigenous will be a compromise. It then becomes a question of how good is that compromise and could it stand alone back ‘home’. This is an exceedingly difficult proposition as expats do tend to become more difficult and demanding when further from the nest. Those that have been around long enough tend to be able to balance expectation and assumption reasonably and are accommodating but FOB’s are the worst.
If, at the end of the day, you cannot be satisfied by what is on offer, do it yourself but…read 914’s post (and mine if you think fine fare in an industrial khazi is going to work) and beware the pitfalls.
And NEVER be happy with what you are offering in the way of product. Never. Then you end up near Fuxing/Nanjing with an eatery that has a queue at night but wouldn’t satisfy a Somali refugee at any other time. 
BroonAdvice
“scathing in my simplicity” yes that’ll do nicely as an epitaph when i’m gone…
This comes from here: http://www.forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=73590, but is eminently applicable here, especially since I tried to write the same thing several times but couldn’t seem to get the profanity count down to an acceptable 2 fps, anyway the writer says it all, and very nicely too.
(my boldfaces)
[quote=“41783”][quote=“bakesalot”]Hi Everyone,
So I’ve been thinking about opening a cupcake bake shop for quite some time. For those of you who have thought about or actually opened a small business, I had some questions for you.
- What kind of capital do I need to have?
- Location wise - Taipei County is definitely less expensive, so what am I looking at rental wise?
- Any advice as far as appealing to the Taiwanese market is concerned?
[/quote]
While I don’t wish to discourage you, I would propose this way of modeling your business. Work backward from your expenses to determine how much product you would need to sell.
Example –
Rent = NT$30,000
Salary (you) = NT$50,000
Utilities = NT$5,000
Misc. = NT$5,000
SUBTTL = NT$90,000
Average price at Dunkin Donuts & Mr. Donut (your competition) is around NT$40. For this example, let’s say raw material is NT$10, so that means NT$30 per piece would go towards paying off the above expenses.
90,000/30 = 3,000 cupcakes per month (100pcs/day) to pay off your expenses. You would still need to pay off the capital investment: oven, mixing machines, signage, display case, air conditioner, chairs, tables, etc.
This is a very simplistic formula, but it shows that at a bare minimum you need to get 100 people a day to enter your shop and each buy 1 cupcake. Do you know 100 people who would do this? Would these 100 people travel to Taipei County every day? How do you get the word out? (How do you say ‘cupcake’ in Chinese?)
There aren’t enough Westerners around to support you, so you will have to accommodate local tastes.
There’s lots of information on setting up a small business on the web, along with sample spreadsheets for budgeting. You need to do a lot more work on the business side before you move ahead w/ this idea.[/quote]
And he never even calls anyone a cunt.
Go figure.
Any restaurant that you own here must be supported by local people. Honestly, that’s just not gonna happen here in Taiwan with such a low population of Taiwanese eating Western food, and with a low population of Westerners. Taiwanese eat 7-11 food religiously for goodness sakes! To me personally, food has always been a religion of sorts. Not only eating great food, but I love preparing it as well. And then there’s the huge business side to owning and running your own Western restaurant. When you look at the two big independent Western food joints here, The Tavern, and Carnegies, you have to understand that these places have put a significant amount of money into their respective businesses. Therefore catoring to not only the ex-pat community here, but to businesspeople from all over. When I mention they’ve put money into their businesses, I don’t only mean their appearances, but also the extensive advertising campaigns they run. So many variables go into running a restaurant here. It’s not just about opening up a place in Xindien because there are a few foreigners there who don’t want to travel to the city. Especially when the same people who want you to open a restaurant in Xindien only show up once a month.
It depends what you mean by extensive advertising campaigns: The Tavern (last I was in Taiwan) did use the media quite extensively (the owner has another primary business and a number of outlets so cross-subsidy is possible) in terms of print advertising and at least until last year, Carnegie’s did not. In fact, often a flick through the papers would reveal that many smaller western eateries (well, not many but some) did place weekly ads in the English language print media. Carnegie’s, as far as I am aware targetted customers more directly through having memberships and effectively used word of mouth. Above the line advertising is prohibitively expensive and in my view, not necessarily that effective. That form of advertising is a small part of the business. Food reviews etc. play an important role in generating interest amongst locals.
BroonAd
I don’t think anyone said it was free or easy to do this, nor do I think anyone said that whoever decided on this would open up a mediocre place, as what’s the point of that?
And I don’t think anyone specifically said that it had to be a US style eatery, maybe we can get some good food from another corner of the western world (i.e. not the UK 
).
Do we have any Spanish people here that can cook really good tapas, paella etc? As I’ve tried a few places here and they all suck at it, it either tastes utter crap or it’s just bland and boring. Oddly enough I had some fantastic tapas and paella in Manilla, how come? And on top of that, it was cheap…
Why is it that as soon as something isn’t local the price goes up by between 10 and 100x here?
I was even considering opening up a Swedish meatball wagon in some night market, localize it a bit and put them on a stick, as it seems like anything on a stick sells here, the question that I’d like answered though is why?
How come Taiwanese people think that anything that comes on a stick tastes great?
And why can’t someone open a hole in the wall western food place? Why does it have to be a full on restaurant?
I think the problem with a lot of people is that they’re thinking too big, that’s why it goes down the toilet so quick.
Look at Biff’s, it started out really small scale and in all fairness, I wasn’t too impressed with the old place or the food.
I decided to give it another go after I found out about the new place and I have to say the food is fantastic now, really tasty, filling and affordable, what more can you ask for? There’s still no restaurant, but in all honesty, I rather see more Biff’s stalls or hole in the wall outlets, take away style, than a restaurant with over inflated prices for the same good food.
But I guess that’s just me…
I guess because the ingredients are more expensive? Good cheese, meat butchered to Western styles, imported ingredients. Somewhere like Carnegies presumably needs to pay more for articulate, English-speaking waiting staff who don’t hide when they see a foreigner (one of its strong points).
i just don’t do ‘hole in the wall’, nor do any of my Taiwanese friends.
Just wondering to myself why I posted so much in this thread; I have no expertise in these things. I have eaten a lot in Taipei, though… Oi knows wot oi loikes.
I appreciate your sincerity, and I feel you. Nice little hole in the wall restaurant is great for us, but Taiwanese are not gonna go for that. They’re gonna go for the nicer bigger and better looking place, and like I said before, we need local business to make any kind of respectable living. You have to cater to the people who make up the majority, which would be Taiwanese in our case. Find out what they like, dislike ect…
So tell me something, every time a new kind of food is introduced to a western country, how do the people that introduces it know that people are going to like it?
And if anyone eat in hole in the wall places, then it’s the locals, as the cheaper it is, the more appealing it seems to be.
And Buttercup, go try Biff’s, it’s well worth the outdoors experience.
[quote=“cjj31”]I appreciate your sincerity, and I feel you. Nice little hole in the wall restaurant is great for us, but Taiwanese are not gonna go for that.[/quote]Depends where it is, I think. Near Yanji St in Taipei City, Tosteria and the Alleycat’s next to it couldn’t be more hole-in-the-wall if they tried, but they seem to keep busy with customers from nearby office buildings.
As for the Dapinglin area, surely a new restaurant would need to be similarly inexpensive if it were aimed at the same kind of lunchtime office crowd? Or maybe it could offer some good cheap lunchtime deals and then something a bit fancier in the evenings.
My very basic viewpoint. Offer something of value way exceeding the price. Something good so they will come back and be aware that you may run red ink for a year or two. IF you can hang with that, you can be headed for success.