Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[CleverNickName]

No one benefits from the whole country looking like that, though.

Agreed. Unfortunately, if a single company makes record profits one year, even if it's just a coffee shop, every corporate shareholder meeting will bark about it constantly. How can we be more like Starbucks? (fast forward a few years) How can we be more like Apple? (fast forward a few years) How can we be more like Google? or Amazon? or (insert latest company here)? It's not innovation, it's board room copy-pasta.

Why does an auto-maintenance garage need to look like Starbucks? Why does the local FedEx need to look like an Apple Store? It's not because of the consumer--it's because the shareholders demand it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Why does an auto-maintenance garage need to look like Starbucks? Why does the local FedEx need to look like an Apple Store? It's not because of the consumer--it's because the shareholders demand it.

Our local FedEx is hilariously Apple Store coded, although I never put that together until you mentioned it. Floor to ceiling windows, vast amounts of space for the non-existent crowds to mill around and floating FedEx employees coming to you where you are rather than, more sanely, being by the scales and cash registers.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In Twin Cities and even rural MN we are blessed with some good classic sit down pizza joints.

Our best nearby one--part of a small chain--closed last year. I'm still pretty annoyed about it.

Not that I can afford to be eating Italian with any regularity anyway, but still.

 

[Deset Gled]

Agreed. Unfortunately, if a single company makes record profits one year, even if it's just a coffee shop, every corporate shareholder meeting will bark about it constantly. How can we be more like Starbucks? (fast forward a few years) How can we be more like Apple? (fast forward a few years) How can we be more like Google? or Amazon? or (insert latest company here)? It's not innovation, it's board room copy-pasta.

Why does an auto-maintenance garage need to look like Starbucks? Why does the local FedEx need to look like an Apple Store? It's not because of the consumer--it's because the shareholders demand it.

My understanding is that it's less about wanting to look like everyone else, it's about being able to sell your real estate to everyone else with minimal work.

An old school Pizza Hut roof is iconic. But reusing the building with that roof lowers the resale value (everyone will always think it looks like a Pizza Hut), and changing it can be an expensive construction project. The more generic your design, the more resale value it has. It's a well documented fact that, at the corporate level, McDonald's is a real estate business above all else. And even if you don't plan on selling, increased property value means increased equity to borrow against.

This is especially true in times of economic weirdness, when the ability to move, open, and close franchise locations with speed and efficiency could become critical with little notice/reason.

 

[CleverNickName]

An old school Pizza Hut roof is iconic. But reusing the building with that roof lowers the resale value (everyone will always think it looks like a Pizza Hut), and changing it can be an expensive construction project. The more generic your design, the more resale value it has. It's a well documented fact that, at the corporate level, McDonald's is a real estate business above all else. And even if you don't plan on selling, increased property value means increased equity to borrow against.

That would be a great argument for generic architecture...something I never considered. PNW Regional Modern isn't exactly "generic" but it is trendy, and trendy is good if you are hoping (or needing) to sell something fast. It's basically the House-Flipper's Playbook, but for commercial zoning.

That doesn't explain the operational changes, though...like the changes in workflow at FedEx that @Whizbang Dustyboots and I had mentioned. I do believe the real-estate motivation that you described is plausible, but I also think a lot of it is just shareholders chasing the latest bandwagon.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My understanding is that it's less about wanting to look like everyone else, it's about being able to sell your real estate to everyone else with minimal work.

An old school Pizza Hut roof is iconic. But reusing the building with that roof lowers the resale value (everyone will always think it looks like a Pizza Hut), and changing it can be an expensive construction project. The more generic your design, the more resale value it has. It's a well documented fact that, at the corporate level, McDonald's is a real estate business above all else. And even if you don't plan on selling, increased property value means increased equity to borrow against.

This is especially true in times of economic weirdness, when the ability to move, open, and close franchise locations with speed and efficiency could become critical with little notice/reason.

I’ve seen numerous small, family-owned businesses that have converted other restaurants’ spaces to their own. I know of a German restaurant housed in an old Taco Bell. An Arabic one, too, in a different suburb.

There’s an Irish pub that became a pan-South American place. About a third of their menu is Argentinian fare. THEY still have Celtic knot work motifs in the decor.

Which reminds me of this place, where they painted sombreros on the pandas in the murals: