There used to be a Friendly's location about a half-mile from my house, but the wife and I would rarely ever go there. The food was crappy, and they would hide the poor quality of their signature ice cream by drowning it under a ton of toppings. I wasn't sorry to see it go. Well, today it sounds like the rest of the chain me soon follow our local franchise into oblivion. Here's Market Watch:
Restaurant chain Friendly's is planning to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and seek a possible buyer, The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday in its online edition, citing people close to the matter. The chain, which has about 10,000 employees and 500 restaurants, could file as early as next week, according to the Journal.Slowly but surely, large American retail and restaurant chains are collapsing as the corrosive effect of Peak Oil gradually grinds down the consumer economy.
We appear to be headed to a bi-polar economy. Two kinds of stores, high margin providers offering high-end, high-quality goods and services to the top 10%, and price-point providers offering low-cost, low-quality goods and services to everybody else.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that the impacts of peak-oil and economic strife are inevitably going to cut into margins. Low-cost providers have less room to deal with margin losses, and they will, in turn, consolidate and fold.
Eventually, one wonders where, or even if, those in the bottom 90% will be able to buy what they need to survive. Makes me think that the growth in the SNAP program ("food stamps") has nowhere to go but up (but, don't worry, I'm sure that somebody on Wall Street has figured out how to make a profit by hedging long on food stamps ;-).
This isn't a pretty picture, and, granted, may be years away, but the process appears to have started, and shows no signs of stopping any time soon.
Truly, I fear for our kids.