Raising Cane's Closing Dining Room

[Alpha8472]

The Oakland, California restaurant has closed its dining room. They claim it is due to crime. There have been many car break-ins and robberies. The drive thru is the only option now. The owner also claims he is having trouble keeping employees.

If people want to risk getting their cars broken into, that is their choice. If you are being robbed repeatedly, then you need you put up bullet proof glass like a bank counter. There is no need to punish other customers by closing the dining room.

I believe there were other drive thru restaurants nearby that had bullet proof glass even at the drive thru and they are still open.

[arizonaguy]

That is an interesting (and not in a good way) area.

I've eaten at the Chipotle in that center before (picked it up with an Uber) and I arrived near the airport a few hours before my flight one time so I spent some time waiting in the parking lot in front of that former Walmart. When I was there (October 2020) a number of semis seemed to use that parking lot as a parking / rest area.

Walmart, or whomever else owns that vacant store, should demolish the building and most of the parking lot. I see it is fenced off now (per GSV). It is a real eyesore and crime magnet.

That whole store illustrates my point I made in another post that Walmart made some ridiculously poor choices in store locations during their "urban" building boom between 2005 - 2015. That spot was never a good spot for a Walmart (crime filled industrial area near an airport) and the large vacant building and parking lot just makes it all the worse.

[Bagels]

Is it about crime? Or is that an excuse? Keeping dining rooms closed equates to big savings. As I've mentioned before, there are several JITB, McDonald's and Wendy's near me that have maintained minimum dining hours -- generally during the corporate lunch hours only.

One thing I liked about RC is that its dining rooms are always open... even if the place is open until 4am or 5am.

[babs]

Who wants to eat in a dining room where the counter is walled off by bulletproof glass? Very inviting!

[storewanderer]

Who wants to eat in a dining room where the counter is walled off by bulletproof glass? Very inviting!

This is common in certain neighborhoods in/around Los Angeles, and also in looking at those closing Burger King units in Detroit area at least 3-4 of the 26 locations had this set up as well.

It is very uninviting.

[storewanderer]

Is it about crime? Or is that an excuse? Keeping dining rooms closed equates to big savings. As I've mentioned before, there are several JITB, McDonald's and Wendy's near me that have maintained minimum dining hours -- generally during the corporate lunch hours only.

One thing I liked about RC is that its dining rooms are always open... even if the place is open until 4am or 5am.

Reading between the lines I think the issue is customers park their car and go inside, then their car gets broken into while they are inside. Customer in turn has a negative connection to Raising Canes because their car was broken into while they were inside the place. So the solution is to close the dining room. This seems like a cop out. There has to be a better way to address this. Perhaps do something in the parking lot so the cars are spaced further apart so break-ins can be seen more easily. I don't know. This parking lot has been having a lot of problems for the past couple years.

Closing dining room equated to bankruptcy for the Steak N Shake operation in Reno... sure they saved money on labor and did wonderful saving money on the power bill keeping all the lights inside the dining area off so the place looked out of business for most of 2022, but now out of business and bankrupt with two previously good locations sitting in a limbo. I think closing dining room works if you are a fast food operator who owns your building or has very low rent so your main expenses are food/labor and maintenance. Or maybe if you pay rent based on percent of sales that works too. But if you are an operator who is paying off loans, has high lease rates that are a fixed amount regardless of your sales, you need revenue to survive and the cost savings benefit from closing dining room does not offset the lost revenue. At least not in the case I cited at the beginning of this paragraph.

The Reno Raising Canes unit has always closed dining room at 10 PM, maybe Midnight on Friday/Saturday. Reno and Sparks Raising Canes during COVID were drive through/take out only for a while then in 2021 as other places reopened dine in they had such staffing problems that they went drive through only then eventually they got dine in reopened and since then have never looked back. One unit has no drive through so it was opened the whole time.

[storewanderer]

That is an interesting (and not in a good way) area.

I've eaten at the Chipotle in that center before (picked it up with an Uber) and I arrived near the airport a few hours before my flight one time so I spent some time waiting in the parking lot in front of that former Walmart. When I was there (October 2020) a number of semis seemed to use that parking lot as a parking / rest area.

Walmart, or whomever else owns that vacant store, should demolish the building and most of the parking lot. I see it is fenced off now (per GSV). It is a real eyesore and crime magnet.

That whole store illustrates my point I made in another post that Walmart made some ridiculously poor choices in store locations during their "urban" building boom between 2005 - 2015. That spot was never a good spot for a Walmart (crime filled industrial area near an airport) and the large vacant building and parking lot just makes it all the worse.

Actually that was a high volume Wal Mart. It was a great location for Wal Mart from a customer perspective. High traffic, good visibility, good freeway access. The crime/theft doomed the store. Or Wal Mart's inability to control it. The fact that all these sub-tenants in the parking lot are still open seems to also demonstrate it is a great location with high traffic that these things can survive without Wal Mart.

The situation seems to have gotten much worse there since 2020. I wonder if the fencing is part of the problem as it pushes all of the fast food customers vehicles very close together and that makes it a lot easier for the lurkers to break in to vehicles and be hidden by other vehicles...

Read the reviews for various businesses there on Google. Look at the pictures. Sort by date. There are far too many people who have had break ins, pictures of busted vehicles, etc. Talk to people who are involved in rental cars at OAK and you will hear this, they are getting multiple vehicles back every day from people who got broken into at this parking lot right before they were headed back to the airport.

[veteran+]

Who wants to eat in a dining room where the counter is walled off by bulletproof glass? Very inviting!

This is common in certain neighborhoods in/around Los Angeles, and also in looking at those closing Burger King units in Detroit area at least 3-4 of the 26 locations had this set up as well.

It is very uninviting.

Really? What neighborhoods?

And wow, why would you be in those types of areas?

[storewanderer]

Who wants to eat in a dining room where the counter is walled off by bulletproof glass? Very inviting!

This is common in certain neighborhoods in/around Los Angeles, and also in looking at those closing Burger King units in Detroit area at least 3-4 of the 26 locations had this set up as well.

It is very uninviting.

Really? What neighborhoods?

And wow, why would you be in those types of areas?

I think I posted a while ago where they were, it was around Western Ave. as I recall. Multiple locations.

[Knight]

The Oakland, California restaurant has closed its dining room. They claim it is due to crime. There have been many car break-ins and robberies. The drive thru is the only option now. The owner also claims he is having trouble keeping employees.

If people want to risk getting their cars broken into, that is their choice. If you are being robbed repeatedly, then you need you put up bullet proof glass like a bank counter. There is no need to punish other customers by closing the dining room.

I believe there were other drive thru restaurants nearby that had bullet proof glass even at the drive thru and they are still open.

The specified location could be on a course for closure. Crime will decrease customer traffic, decrease the number of employees fearing safety concerns like crime, and decrease profitability.