‘Zombie Restaurants’? Really?
Once again we find a journalist using ‘Zombie’ as a casual, and remarkably poorly-informed, insult:
When OC-based Real Mex Restaurants, operator of Chevys, El Torrito, and Acapulco, filed for bankruptcy protection in October, it closed only 30 of its 156 locations. Sbarro, the Italian fast-food chain, shuttered just 31 of its 429 U.S. stores. This is why the chain restaurant business has been struggling: Too many operators and too little demand. It’s good news for customers because the restaurants, desperately trying to keep the cash flowing, are lowering their prices. But it’s also creating zombie restaurants, which can barely cover expenses.
In the old days, you might call describe this phenomenon, far more accurately, as putting something on ‘life support’. Where’s the ‘Zombie’ angle? By definition here, customers would see no dramatic change in these restaurants; indeed, the main criticism being made here is that there’s too MUCH sameness, too much continuity, not some abrupt transformation.
If anything these are the opposite of ‘Zombie’ restaurants; they’re Survivor restaurants, dragging themselves onward, one dreary, hopeless day at a time, with no real plan for a better life.
Also, please keep in mind there are actual, Zombie-themed restaurants out there; we talked about one of them here previously on the ZRC blog.
Some day we may even get a Zombie Friendly one.
About The Author
I was googling Zombie Cafe a while back and found a reference to my card game in a blog post saying that someone had bought several copyrights for the phrase Zombie Cafe, I think it was the parent company of the Resident Evil games, and were planning something along the lines of Japanese “Maid” restaurants where the waitresses are zombie. It specifically mentioned my game, which was cool, but I now can’t find the reference as someone has come out with an iOS game called Zombie Cafe and the Google ranks are flooded with links for it.