This article in yesterday’s Boston Globe is an interesting case study in why some restaurant locations never seem to work out. The place is about to reopen as yet another restaurant after a parade of places that came and went with so much regularity you couldn’t be sure what would be there any time you drove by. The article doesn’t seem to address what I think is the central reason nothing lasts: it’s too far removed from the rest of Davis Square’s assortment of dining choices to attract a walk-in crowd. While the spot worked out well for the bakery cafe that was there for a long time, people walking around looking for lunch or dinner aren’t too likely to wander that far away from the action in the middle of the square. Until it becomes a destination in its own right, which the new chef-owner clearly believes it will, it’s likely to stay a revolving door.
Location doesn’t explain a couple of other similar revolving-door places I can think of in Arlington. Right in the center of the town, along with a cluster of very successful places, there are a couple of spots right on Massachusetts Ave that are as regular as clockwork with the changing of the management. In one particular case, it was actually successful for a while as an Indian place called Punjab; so successful that they moved to a bigger space a couple of doors down and sent their original space back into Cursed Cafe territory. So even a doomed spot can be turned into a success if the right thing happens — in the case of Punjab, there were too many Asian restaurants and no Indians ones, plus they benefitted from the coincidence of a regular program of Bollywood movies at the theater a block away, which brought lots of Indian visitors to the district.
I also find myself wondering what sort of inertia keeps lackluster places going year after year when better ones come and go. I suppose some places develop that vibe of being an institution in their particular geography, but usually those places have SOMETHING to recommend them. In the very same locations where the revolvers I’m talking about live, there are restaurants that seem to exist in some Bizarro world where no traffic equals longevity. Funny thing, the restaurant business.
