Shops on Main Street in Santa Monica have such a high turnover that it’s become a slightly morbid hobby of mine to do a quick run around the grid in my head and guess how long each new one will last. 

I thought Bareburger would last a year - pinning their impending doom to the cost and working capital implications of their menu and brand positioning — but I think they lasted two. My crude analysis:

The restaurant offered every kind of burger, bun, topping and side imaginable, using only the finest ingredients. Yet pricing was pretty reasonable. I saw a couple of challenges:

a) Choice paralysis for customers who took one look at the menu and had an aneurysm. 

b) High costs keeping fresh supplies of a huge variety of expensive ingredients, and likely high waste because of low demand caused by (a), without the premium pricing to compensate. 

Throw in the extortionate rent and lackluster service and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Key lessons: 

1. Every business is an inter-connected whole - all the parts need to fit together (hint hint, read the grid).

2. Making choice hard for customers usually ends in tears - they either choose someone else, choose nothing at all, or choose whatever they had last time, never exploring your broader range of offerings.

See this post on LinkedIn