Robuu

^ The kids call that "subtweeting."

It doesn't seem to me that the desire to expand is universal. It is a cutthroat business, you're definitely right about that. But many owners are happy to stay at a size that feels manageable for them, successfully and as a labor of love. As a patron, I appreciate that. It's fine that not everyone wants to follow that path, but again I lament the sameyness that has resulted in the region due in no small part to Thunderdome. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop going to Maplewood. My enthusiasm for their establishments is a bit less, though.

Honestly, I think the chicken has gone downhill. But that could be due to having gone at less crowded times more recently. It tasted "made to order" the first couple times I went. They pre-make their chicken, though. But that's not really the point. The point is it's a different experience versus e.g. having a chef-owner stopping by your table on occasion. Makes me feel better about patronizing a place when that happens. Dunno, I've never been to Senate. But having a couple locations in the same metro is very different than what Thunderdome does. AmerAsia gets a lot of its personality from having Chef Chu and his son around. Tucker's feels very community-based. Please offers meals that you know you can only get in one place, for a limited time. There are countless places, that run the gamut from diner to fine dining. I think the Jean-Robert restaurants have gone too far with expansion to give the vibe I'm talking about. JR would have been a good example in the Maisonette days, or when he first started with his own places. Not so much anymore. But @Chas Wiederhold has a good point that if a chain retains a commitment to its place of origin, that's also a level above what Thunderdome does.

They really can't be "easily handled." You can't replicate having the actual owner of a business spending hours each week in their restaurant with a chain of restaurants in multiple cities. Same with having the chef who is the creative mind behind all the dishes, you can't replicate having the chef spending hours in the kitchen across a chain. At best, you could get by with 2-4 nearby locations before the whole personal touch disappears completely.

By expanding, you lose the ability to curate the experience of your restaurant to your own tastes and quality standards, and you lose the personal interaction with staff and customers. Many restaurant owners would not like that.

Do you know of other companies like Thunderdome Group where this is actually their business model? Yeah, the cities are becoming more like the suburbs, just with a different style/polish (and higher quality, more ethically sourced food). Though Thunderdome also has put a Maplewood out in the eastern burbs, so that line is kind of blurring also.

I guess there are mixed-messages on what 3CDC's rules actually are. Or maybe they don't really have rules, but decide on a case-by-case basis. For my personal taste, the Thunderdome brand is getting really watered down. And it's disappointing that Vine Street, High Street, and Mass Ave are all starting to feel a bit samey with the Bakersfields and Eagles. You know how tech companies "reinvent" things like public transportation? It feels a bit like Thunderdome has done that with the chain restaurant, but in a way that people are slow to pick up on it. They've commodified/McDonaldized the twenty-teens' concept of authenticity.

True, the weight can be kept down considerably due to size and also perhaps by not needing to include passenger safety features. Without an impatient passenger, and while keeping to lower-speed streets, the vehicle can slow down as much as necessary to accommodate for road and weather conditions. From what I have read (including from someone on this board reporting on a conversation with a "not-driver" on the Columbus shuttle), rain and falling leaves and squirrels and all sorts of things create problems for existing autonomous vehicles. If the vehicle can just slow down and let the algorithms take their time modeling the environment, it seems like all these issues would be much easier to handle at 10 mph versus the 65 mph demanded by an intercity Uber rider.

I don't get why, at this point, 3CDC is still treating Thunderdome restaurants as meeting their "non-chain" requirement.

In the late aughties, and until the 2010 census results came out, everyone was touting that Cincinnati had started gaining population again. Then instead of close to 340k, as the estimates had shown, the 2010 census put the city under 300k for the first time since the 1800s. Just saying, these estimates can be wildly inaccurate and we'll have to wait to see where things stand when the 2020 results come out. And even then, we'll never really know what happened on an annual basis between 2010 and 2020. They have improved the methodology for estimates over the past decade, but you just never really know.

^ Another part of being in the tech sector, associated with the loss-leading you addressed, is the massive pool of capital investors are willing to throw at loss-leading operations. I don't know if Kroger can really tap into that, being far from a start-up company which is the typical beneficiary of this model (Tesla and Uber being the poster children). Instead, they are playing the role of the funders to the start-ups they're partnering with. Their case is really interesting, though. I wonder if unmanned delivery from neighborhood stores may actually be the proper place for level 5 autonomy to get started. The speed of the vehicle is fundamentally less important in this use-case. That makes it so much safer. They could be investing in the proper way ahead here, while Waymo, Uber, et. al. may be traveling towards a dead-end as they chase personal transportation, which it doesn't seem like the tech is there to make viable in the near future.

Kind of in this boat, lol! Great to see some real work being done.

One time within the past year or so, I had an early morning flight out of CVG. I expected zero wait, showing up at the airport at like 4:30 or 5 a.m. (Sorry, the details are fuzzy). I was SHOCKED to find a massive line, which took half an hour or more. Fortunately, I'd afforded enough time to get through it. That's not usually how I operate (I tend to intentionally play risky with alotting time for airport lines, and doing so I have saved myself from a good 100+ hours of waiting around). Every other time I've been there in recent memory the line has been sub-15 min, if not sub-10 min. DAY is so refreshingly stress-free, especially now that Cincy folks aren't up here creating lines. But there is, of course, a downside to an airport being a ghost town -- a decreasing number of flights.

It sounds like maybe the addition is just becoming the new location? I never quite got what was going on with that, and it moved like molasses. Edit: I see what you're saying...they're moving to a new building, so the addition is effectively abandoned.

I suspect Sam Adams finally pulled the trigger on building their tap room with the hopes of becoming a major pre/post-game spot. If that wasn't part of their idea, the stadium situation certainly is serendipitous for them.

Since you're with your parents, if you're looking for somewhere to get a drink I'd suggest the Vestry and/or Taft's Ale House. Those are more laid-back locations. Moerlein's tap room (the OTR one, though the river spot is cool in its own right) is also a chill spot, but it's a little off the beaten path. I just have a hard time seeing my parents being happy at 16-bit, but I guess YMMV. And not because dad wouldn't enjoy some Ms. Pac-Man, but because of the dense crowd and noise.

Looks like the Urban Artifact sanctuary is getting an update.

I'm constantly hearing good things about Please, though I haven't been myself. https://pleasecincinnati.com/

^ In the case of the one @jmecklenborg posted the Craigslist ad for, it's behind a rowhouse. But generally, I agree that a real urban form is preferable to a retrofitted form like in Capitol Hill in Seattle. When I'm visiting a city and immediately outside the downtown I start seeing a bunch of single-family houses with yards, I get a bad taste in my mouth. Even if the houses have been retrofitted with apartments and granny flats.

Great choice of property for your example. ?

Can you provide a direct link?

Finally starting to get a little excited about the Arcade project. Still a little skeptical that it gets done, though.

Banks parking should come with streetcar passes. Or even Metro Day Passes.

^ That's funny, there's a brewery in Dayton called Lock 27.

The districts will be redrawn after the 2020 census results come out. I believe that means approval in 2021 and using them for 2022 elections (at least the general). It remains to be seen how helpful the new laws will be, but there are reasons to be skeptical. If there isn't bipartisan agreement on the new districts, the majority in the legislature can pass a map that's valid for 4-years instead of 10-years. Some would predict that this will become the new normal: redistricting every 4 years.