RoadsideOnline

Doc's Little Gem Diner in Syracuse, New York is up for sale. Once again, we have yet another diner case study on how not to run your diner. Another "I told you so". Despite all efforts from diner people for over a decade, Doc argued for too long that people should be able to smoke in his diner, and as a result he lost alot of customers. From my own experiences, and having spent considerable time in Syracuse, I never ate at Doc's because of the smoking. I spent my diner $ elsewhere.

Doc also disliked Syracuse, New York Fire Dept regulations too, so instead of finding a more eye-pleasing solution, he bludgeoned his diner to spite them all — cutting awful holes in the Formica ceiling and installing an unsightly sprinkler system — the cheapest type he could install — just to prove his point. Ugly, exposed bare, unpainted metal pipes running the length of the diner ceiling. The only thing he accomplished was making his diner feel even more depressing inside. Low rent.

The news about the Miss Adams Diner makes for some interesting reading. Some very telling lines. I especially like the math.

Whenever I think "justice" may have finally prevailed, I'm all too often wrong. More wishful thinking than reality.

Case in point: Jae Chung. He bought the Miss Adams for $98K, then re-fianaced it to a value apparently exactly 200% -- double what it was really worth, then ran it into the ground and walked away. That sure reads like Jae pocketed the $ 72gs difference. So that numbered company is bankrupt, and that's that. That's simplifying matters, but I'm sure alot of Jae's math is like that.

The 1998-2008 real estate boom finally imploded. A house of cards. The legacy of Jae Chung is textbook. Here's a guy who bought buildings and left them empty, bought things and ran them into the ground. A guy who wrecked what he had. All the while, the banks were falling over each other to lend lend lend people like Jae more money. After all, real estate was a license to print money, right? 20% or more equity growing every year. Yesssir. A scenario that was out of control, and obviously unsustainable.

In the end, it is the locals who will pay for the lending officer's greed. They will make all their customers pay for their bad decisions. And Jae will be reappear somewhere else, and do it all over again.

So the Miss Adams is bought by realtors who are not restauranteurs, not diner operators, but opportunists. Hmmm, what's the first item on the new menu? I believe the recipe calls for disaster...

Poor little diner.

My worst thoughts have now been confirmed -- the interior has suffered a great loss as well. Part of the Mayfair counter ripped out. Floor patched up with tile. New booths match ext. roof. Melrose is next.

Wow, do these guys have money to burn. Instead of just running these two diners well, they've run them down in only 2-3 years, after a half century of good management. Because of this, and due to their inept management, they've created the need to make major changes to the 55-year old diner as if the diner building is the problem. Funny that is. Jack Mulholland and his family ran the place exactly as it was, and from what I heard grossed $3M a year with people lined up out the door.

How ironic (and certainly not surprising) that Sysco and US Foodservice -- the same self-serving companies that sold themselves as the friend of the mom & pop diner owner / operator --- would ultimately be in part, the cause of their demise.

The Sysco program is the same slippery slope as was de-regulating the airlines. Sure, the immediate result were cheap airline tickets. But the devolution of air travel was cemented the day deregulation began.  Same for the diner.  The day you sign on to Sysco, you've turned your diner into every other place serving the same glop.

I stand by every thoughtful word I carefully wrote. I happen to support Carol, and the struggle I see firsthand with many diner operators. But Carol already collected the RI sales tax money once. If the issue were in regard to the collection of income tax, I would accept the position that these could be delayed, and that a forced close of the business would be heavy handed and too much. Over the top. But in this case, Carol not only has unpaid income tax, but she has also collected sales tax that she has not remitted. That money was never her money. There is a difference. I am sympathetic, but there are limits.

Like Dutch Elm disease, the Liberty Elm is rotting from within. I'm guessing we share many of the same views on Carol's situation. Yes, we sympathize and support her. Feel bad for her. But I'm left with an underlying annoying uneasy feeling about the $25,000 in sales tax she collected, then spent. I understand the scenario, and I hope her bail out plan works. But this business of donation cash jars and customers giving her money to pay the RI state she ALREADY collected once from her customers is messy and a sorry scene.