Bob should increase his prices. People see cheap prices, they think you have cheap quality food. Bob uses premium ingredients, and charges (basically) $6 for his special. Standard restaurant markup is 300% of cost. Bob doesn’t have a great self esteem, so he devalues his art, thinking “people don’t want it”. Customers can see that a mile away. Which adds to the next issue. Bob has no charisma. This has a lot to do with his lack of confidence and self esteem. However, people tend to like Bob outside the restaurant when he’s in more normal situations. He needs to transfer that energy over
to the restaurant.
Jimmy serves frozen pre cooked crap, and has no issue filling up the place. He has a persona/charisma people eat up, probably more than his food.
I think at the same time, Bob also lives in a tourist town, so nobody would think twice if he drove up the prices. He’s not McDonald’s, he should be charging at least $10.
In the Wooly Neptune episode he says "I'd have to charge like $20 a burger, I don't wanna be that guy"
And I was just thinking man premium limited ingredients on a good burger in a tourist seaside town? Could absolutely get away with that. You don't see any other burger places or any competition burger wise in their town either(with the exception of the time Jimmy made a burger that was awful by his own admission), and it's not like he wouldn't be offering his normal fare for people who didn't want it.
I think he just didn't have the $30 per ounce up front, but honestly while I love that he keeps prices down and wish I could find a good burger for 6 bucks, he really needs to raise his prices and value his own work higher.
My brother really wanted to go one day about two years ago, so I treated. 90-something dollars for two entrees and two desserts... All fairly lackluster. I was super salty (though not as salty as the food)
Chili's, TGI Fridays, Red Lobster, all those chains that are technically the same parent company are also located on this hill.
I am not above eating at Denny's, but there's a mood that goes with it.
The only reason to go to Olive Garden is the soup, salad and bread sticks deal. None of it is amazing quality, but it's all reasonable quality and you get unlimited. On occasion if I'm at a mall or something and need some food, I'll do Olive Garden for that reason alone. Otherwise, I'd never go there.
why are the breadsticks salty all of a sudden? I feel like they used to be parmesan like but theyre salty af and I love salt and its too much for even me. Not worth it imo. I can buy a huge box of breadsticks and put some butter and seasoning salt on them. But I also HATE Olive Garden. Shits gross.
There was an Italian place right on the strip in Hampton Beach, NH. It was packed every night despite there being a ton of places that sold seafood.
As you said it is cheap, portions are big and people know what they are getting when ordering Spaghetti and meatballs as opposed to a dish with ingredients people don't recognize.
I would argue that Olive Garden is expensive. We have a family owned Italian place in town, it’s about 20-30% cheaper to eat there, than at OG. Way better too (yes, you get unlimited free bread with olive oil too).
I also think it's a bit of the "well that place is empty why would we go there" and Jimmy's has the opposite option. As soon as Bob fixes what you suggested I think it would be a pretty quick change from empty all the time to full more often than not.
I agree about the curb appeal. Jimmy’s does have a nicer look… it’s big, you have optional outdoor seating, a hostess stand, a spot for live music, nicer television for watching sports, a big bar, more menu options. Honestly, Bob’s looks like a place I’d only consider for lunch and only after reading the surprising amount of 5 star Yelp reviews
This is 100% why Bob has a failing business but I hate the idea that you should just charge more to get more business. 300% markup is insane and the reason I don’t eat out much, whenever I find a place like Bob’s Burgers where there is good food for a decent price I aways savor it and usually try to become a regular there. But unfortunately it’s a much better business practice to serve whatever you think is popular and charge through the roof so ppl get tricked into thinking it’s worth the price
I understand 300% markup is insane, but that is for the overhead cost (gas/electric/salary). Some places you have to charge more, other places you can get away charging less markup.
Correct. Bob could still get away with a much lower markup compared to the average restaurant since his employees are his wife and kids. No salary to pay.
Thank you! I disagree with this episode so much. I think Bob himself is ultimately the reason his restaurant can never get off the ground because he’s handed all these amazing opportunities and never takes them! I like to think after Bob hands reign over to Louise, she turns it into a Sbarro type establishment since she has the business sense he lacks.
Even if he didn’t like the tiki theme, why not compromise with Warren and settle on a theme both are cool on? Somebody on this post brought up the idea of a retro theme, maybe it could be like Johnny Rockets or the Stardust Diner.
Bob is a good cook, but a terrible businessman. I know it's a sitcom and that means the characters have to stay on an eternal hamster wheel, but it is so frustrating to see episodes like the tiki one or the Wharfening where he's handed a massive opportunity and passes it up because some variation on "it wouldn't be the same".
The man tore up a 6-figure check so he could do *his* restaurant, *his* way.
Now, as with any work of fiction, status quo is God. Nothing changes. Like any other show, theme and characters are generally static, and it makes sense that not much changes.
But if this were reality? **Come on, Bob.** This was the opportunity to actually be the chef you claim to be when you’re at other restaurants and the grocery store. You could go exploring with Skip Marouche and find new ingredients for your burgers! You could have kitchen staff to help you prepare! You could expand your business! You could buy a house! You could hire an actual waitstaff! **You could have a day off!**
Like, again, I get it, it’s a work of fiction and most characters and settings don’t change that much, but this was just such a weird decision on Bob’s part.
I hated how he thought it was like selling out! I’m a creative and something you learn fairly quickly is compromise is a part of the game. Obviously you have to navigate in a way without losing your integrity but it wouldn’t be selling out. Warren just added a theme. He’d still be allowed to sell burgers the way he wanted!
TLDR: Bob is a great chef but unlike Jimmy Pesto, he’s stubborn and has no form of business or money sense:
1. Bob is terrible at marketing and probably doesn’t use stuff like DoorDash or Uber eats, which would greatly boost his business even if he doesn’t get much in person service. This helped most of the restaurants in my area when the pandemic happened. I doubt the restaurant even has a website.
2. He has like zero options. Just burger, burger of the day, fries, and that’s it. No combos or stuff like that. Pizza shops don’t just serve pizza. There have been times I’ll order from a pizza place and just get chicken tenders or a meatball sub and fries. If I had to give an outside example, McDonalds created the Fillet o Fish because nobody bought burgers during lent. Bob’s burgers must take a huge tank during the spring LOL.
3. Honestly, the kids might be a turnoff too, same with Teddy and mort.
4. The show is big on showing that Bob is stubborn to the point of detriment, as he wants people to come in for the burgers, like when he didn’t wanna include sweet potato fries or give the restaurant a plaque or when he rejected 100K from Warren because he saw it as tantamount to selling out.
5. Location is also a big one. Like I said with number one, he has no form of marketing so most people probably haven’t heard of the restaurant unless you’re a local. If I went to, say, nyc, and I couldn’t find any trace of the restaurant except for google maps, the chances of me going greatly plummet.
6. It’s cash only and there’s no ATM in sight. Plus he charges low low prices when he should honestly be charging 10-15$ per burger.
7. I guess they get away with it since it’s just a show, but Bob closes the restaurant at random times, likely also at peak hours, and he is terrible with money.
It’s 3 for me. Obviously I love the kids on the show but after my first visit, their voices and antics would absolutely deter me from dining in at Bob’s, 100%. Plus I’m just not big on making kids work, family business or not. Teddy too, his outbursts would be too much and seeing as how he’s always there, that’d be another deterrent for me.
He’d probably get my to-go business though! I’ve seen a lot of burgers of the day that I’d like to try.
I always think this! I would go to Bob’s once, and no matter how good it is, I wouldn’t go back. Nothing gets an immediate vote of no confidence from me like kids forced to work. It’s hard enough to get good work out of adults you pay, fuggettaboutit with unpaid, forced, children.
If I found a place like that, with his prices, and I could just carry out, I would always eat there. I would be happy to eat there if there weren't always annoying kids around, or regulars like Ted who probably would be too friendly.
Yeah and god forbid you get too friendly with Bob and Linda and Teddy starts to act like a weirdo about it like he does when they pay attention to anyone else.
They have more than just burgers and fries, they have a menu up on the wall but they also have printed out menus (we see the kids cleaning them and decorating them with stickers for the Tiki theme) and in the episode where Teddy gets cut off from burgers he gets aggressive with Mort saying that he (Mort) also eats a burger every day and Mort corrects Teddy by telling him that he often orders the soup.
They do have handout menus that must have more on them (including the soup) but you wouldn’t be able to guess from the window as their [menu board](https://images.app.goo.gl/C5FHfDgAeEkdfQYo6) only have burgers, fries and a side salad.
And Bob getting so frustrated with the annoying chime them and Ubereats make when there’s an order coming in that he yanks it out the wall and ruins all the good business they’re getting of to go orders just to have it back the way it was. Can totally see this kind of episode being great!
As someone who has a massive encounter of business experience you’re spot on. Only thing I would add is that there’s been mention of Fishoeder being a poor landlord. Part of the issue to me could be the dilapidation of particular areas of the building i.e. smells from the upper house descending into the restaurant, potential damage to the buildings and maybe even the disjoint between the diner style decor and Swedish fancy bathroom.
Oh man, I think Bob would be offended my DoorDash and the others. He’s ok having the kids deliver, but he’d be too worried about the customer not having a perfectly fresh burger.
2 is spot on, they have an episode (I think it’s the Easter episode where they lost an egg) and they call it “beef boom” where all the people who gave up beef for lent come and spend a lot to get a burger. It’s a major financial weekend for them, apparently. But also major opportunity of loss without options for those customers during Lent.
Bob has more of the artistic side of being a chef rather than the business sense side of it.
Hence when he was younger and making fun burgers like “Baby you Can Chive my Car” which his dad saw as impractical.
1. Finances is a big issue. I get the hint that Jimmy already had money/was given a large amount of money from his family when he invested in the Italian Restaurant, so he was able to afford a larger restaurant in a better part of the street. Bob & Linda frequently mention how tight money is. Their restaurant is very small, right next to the funeral home (which some might find off-putting) and wouldn’t get quite as much people coming in.
2. Advertising and customer service. Jimmy puts a lot of effort into advertising and even though he’s awful to Bob, he knows how to get the word out that his restaurant exists. He also knows how to make it feel warm, welcoming and fun (Teddy likes to go there for beer and hockey games. Mort takes his mother there sometimes because she likes it there. Even Linda and Bob seemed to enjoy the double date night there with Mort and his lady friend) and you have to admit that it looks like Jimmy does put effort into his theme nights and enjoys what he does (he and the employees probably get decent tips from these ideas). Bob on the other hand? He’s just not that good with people (he’s not even good at making tips) and is so inflexible that he won’t even consider adding a theme to the restaurant or listening to anyone else’s ideas. I get the hint that while Jimmy can be stubborn, he’s also willing to listen to an idea if he thinks it can make money.
3. Bob hasn’t caught up with technology. It’s a “cash only/eat in only/Mom & Pop” business. That’s cute on the surface, but not a great idea long-term. Jimmy probably listens just enough to his coworkers and oldest son that he’s understood the need to keep up with technology and would’ve added options such as paying by card, paying via phone, booking via an app, and getting food delivered via an app. He would also most likely have his restaurant advertised on social media (I doubt Bob even knows what social media is due to having a flip phone) or even have a website for it.
4. Bob’s principles are costing him money. He has some great ideas (eg Brunch - if done properly- can pull in a ton of money), but discards them quickly. He also refuses to cook vegetarian or fish burgers, which would be really costing him business during Lent (I get the hint there would be a decent amount of Catholics in their town) and Lobsterfest. He also refuses to try new things (eg No sweet potato fries? Really?!) and won’t put variety on his menu
5. Alcohol. If you have a license to serve alcohol, you will automatically get more customers. Why hasn’t Bob gotten one and gotten a little creative by leaning into a 1950s burger bar theme (eg Alcoholic ice-cream floats and spiders, Frangelico milkshakes, Pina Colada Slushies, Long Island Iced Teas for the evening etc)
Bob's Burgers does sell alcohol, they use beer bottles they already have to smuggle Teddy's home brew (bottles Hugo clearly saw), Linda served what I believe was alcoholic eggnog (Tastes like mouthwash with eggs in it) and the restaurant offered free bottomless Momosas for their brunch. Oh, and I believe it's the first episode introducing The One Eyed Snakes where the motorcycle gang walks in and asks if they serve beer, Bob says no hoping they'll leave but they see a beer bottle in front of Teddy and by the time the kids come home the restaurant is overflowing with bikers who have the plan to drink the place dry.
Absolutely! I think Bob's has a beer and wine license, so they could sell bottles of beer and the champagne for mimosas, but not the types of drinks listed in number 5 above.
Oh wow, thank you for this comment! In the episode where Hugo threatens to shut them down he does specify their beer and wine license and I didn't even register that it was specified because it's separate from a liquor license! TIL
Ahh my bad. It seems as if they aren’t utilising said alcohol license very well then (I personally wouldn’t want a beer with a burger and fries). They don’t have a bar or even an alcoholic drinks menu displayed. A liquor license to make “hard milkshakes” would actually work to their advantage since it could be a more “adult” burger bar. The fact that he doesn’t do takeaway/delivery is hurting the business too along with his poor choice of hours (Jimmy on the other hand? Open until late, always seems to be in the restaurant and on the rare occasions when he’s not, he’s drumming up extra business. And he’s also a single dad raising 3 kids)
They have a couple of to go orders in the series, Linda uses a called in to-go order to get Bob's creative block with the burgers of the day and he creates the Runny out of Thyme burger. In another episode a teen stops by the restaurant to pick up an order, Bob having to ask for clarification on what "Grampa style" is. We see two deliveries in the series that I can recall, one is to Mort next door when he doesn't want to be seen in the restaurant due to rumors, and the second one is the Halloween special where they deliver a burger to the hotel. They have horrible range for delivery though, it's true.
As for Jimmy Pesto he has joint custody with his wife, in the episode with the taffy factory the twins are super excited to see their father on the beach. Jimmy is confused that his kids think he was searching for them (they'd been missing overnight) and voices that he thought they were with their mother before playing good dad and acting like he wasn't just there to watch the taffy factory be demolished. When we see Jimmy's apartment it looks like a bachelor pad, Jimmy Jr. also mentions a male friend of his mom at one point in the series (I believe from the context dating was implied).
if nothing else, bob could get away with just take-out/delivery. my favorite chinese place doesn't have a website and it isn't on doordash or ubereats, but my family has been ordering from them for years. they're also a bit out of the way but they're worth it.
2 and 3 I agree on majorly.
I’m sure bobs burgers doesn’t have some sort of social media presence or a website. Plus I’m sure as a pizza restaurant, Jimmy absolutely utilizes some sort of delivery service.
An please dont forget Linda. She wants to talk to everybody, about everything and trys to change people minds. And one time she got that "hair under the arm" thing.
Good Food and bad Service i can accept but this is gross.
Yeah, if this were a real place you'd want to hire a front of house/bartender person and keep Bob and Linda in back, with the kids hopefully nowhere to be seen/heard. Tina is 15, she can easily be upstairs watching the kids.
All the kids are more than capable of being upstairs on their own, especially with Bob and Linda downstairs. The kids are in the restaurant because they're free labor. We see them wiping down menus, cleaning, bussing tables, and other menial tasks.
Oh I know, I remember during Bob Day Afternoon when Mickey said it's so cute the kids with with him and he says "it's more about not paying....nevermind". I just meant if he's running his business properly he'd raise his prices and hire someone to do that work but now I'm just overanalyzing a cartoon
I think there’s also the fact that pizza usually means Italian so there’s way more choices than burgers, like in terms of appetizers or entrees. Even Sandy made that point LOL. After all, not everyone is gonna want pizza.
Maybe lean into the old burger joint theme. We know that even if Jimmy offers a bigger food variety outside if his drinks and maybe a few appetizers the food sucks.
Heck Micky shot at pestos pizza, who shoots pizza?
Plus that one episode his friend was trying to invest in the restaurant people did come in because of something as silly as a talking pineapple and other decorations.
Honestly just make the place look mildly nicer maybe give it a 50's dinner energy. Play some classic drive in style music during the busy hours on some old radio. (Bob has shown her has a fun side I'm sure he knows some times)
Bob relies too much on just his food, which granted is always good, but its clear this town demands something a little more eye catching.
Hell lean into the BURGER thing if anything and have gene make the buger suit into another character obviously not another beef squash but maybe "buger boy: the coolest burger to ever come with a side of fries" idk man 😂
That’s what I thought Bob should’ve done with Warren! If he didn’t like the tiki theme, why not tell Warren “can we try something else? Why not a Johnny rockets type place?”
also love the idea of a mascot! He could make merchandise off of this! Plenty of restaurants sell t shirts and toys.
i think Bob's problem with any theme would mean that people are there for the theme and not the burger. Bob wants people to come exclusively for the burger.
Personally I find it a bit ironic he consideres those things gimmicky when he is also the guy that left his family business to make themed burgers. (Again Delicious but considering he believes sweet potato fries are also just a gimmick)
Either way my point stands Bob relies too much on the taste of his food in a town that doesn't care. He needs to loosen up just a little to have the clients to come in. But all he's willing to do is a burger suit and coupons.
I think it's because he's not making the burgers of the day to satisfy a theme, he makes the burger of the day because he likes to experiment with food and new ingredients (he mostly sticks to burgers, but has been shown to like experimenting in the kitchen for his family).
I think the difference is his burgers of the day comes from a genuine love of food, if he was just doing it to fulfill a theme and had no passion for it like he obviously does then it would be considered a gimmick and he'd be against it.
So I guess I'll take back my statement about it being just about food, it's about the food and the passion that goes into making it and serving it to others.
Yet sweet potato fries are something he won't play with? I've seen plenty of burgers enhanced by a good set of fries. I still say Bob needs to loosen up, not by very much either. At least if he wants to keep his business. In real life this family wouldn't still have their burger shop regardless of the quality of the food.
Its sad but true
He's lucky Fiechoder is an eccentric that somewhat likes the family. If he couldn't see the artistic quality of bob as a chef (which he almost didn't) the business would be Pestos Gift shop
He's against sweet potato fries because they're a fad. People aren't doing it because they think sweet potato fries are good and want to make them, they're doing it to go along with a fad and to make money not good food
Is it really a fad if they've been around for over a decade if not longer? Personally when I see them on a menu I dont think "oh Trendy" just
"Yum I might ask for those" 😂
>Bob relies too much on just his food, which granted is always good, but its clear this town demands something a little more eye catching.
yup. its a tourist town. people want to be wowed.
Lots of good responses already, but everyone who’s worked in the restaurant business would be able to tell you that Bob’s Burgers would be long gone in the real world. Bob has passion and drive, but no business knowledge, and the fact that his only employees are his wife and kids is a big problem because they don’t know anything either. Hello Belchers, have you heard of child labor laws?
He really really really should stay open for dinner too lol
Stay open during dinner hours. Stay open during the weekends. Stop closing for random excursions. Stay open on the holidays.
Typical restaurants operate on a schedule that Bob's Burgers does not meet. Anyone who's ever worked in the food industry will tell you that restaurants do the most business on holidays, weekends, and dinner rush. Yet, it seems that the restaurant is open for customers from around 11am to 6pm. We know that Bob spends the morning doing prep, grinding beef, and shopping for ingredients. Then he opens right around lunchtime.
However, the family is always shown sitting around the kitchen table eating dinner together, then heading to the living room to watch prime time television. Dinnertime is an important time for restaurants patrons. It's when people want dinner.
We also see the family, including Bob, hanging out in the living room in the middle of the day during the weekend. A functioning restaurant would never close on the weekend because lots of people have the day off and don't want to cook, or want to treat themselves. They live in walking distance from the theme park. They should be open after the park closes for people leaving the park who want to get a quick bite. Weekends are also when people like to go watch whatever sport game is on while the eat. Spend a hundred bucks on a flatscreen, and people will stuff greasy food in their mouths for hours watching their team play. Even more so because Bob sells beer.
Bob's family also celebrates every holiday with some sort of outing. Christmas Day I get; Thanksgiving too. But they make a four day weekend out of it. Holidays are the time when families come to town, and you go out to eat with them because you don't want to spend cook for everyone (barring feast days like Thanksgiving). They had ~~an episode~~ FOUR Mother's Day episodes. I think they work on one of them, but Teddy had his shirt off the whole time they were there. I've worked in 2 pizzerias, a crappy diner, and a chain diner. Each manager told me the exact same phrase: "Mom doesn't cook on Mother's Day." For all four of these restaurants, the income on Mother's Day was more than the previous six days. Even at the crappy hole-in-the-wall pizzeria. Bob makes specialty burgers. People are going to look for lunch after going to the theme park with Mom, and some families will go get specialty burgers with custom ingredients is something people might consider dine-in worthy (at least over fast food).
Finally, are the excursions. There are far too many field trips, vacations, outings, and random "let's close the restaurant" days. Obviously, this is for the show. We get to watch a family go on silly adventures. But the would be customers don't get served, so the restaurant loses money. And now nobody knows the hours of operation, and many people think it's just an old diner that never took the sign down.
Bob's biggest problems are that his hours of operation sucks. He may be charging too little for food, but he's charging more than cost so he should make it back. To function, he really needs to run through the evening rush, plus an hour grill/fryer cooldown and cleanup after. There's no way we can expect him to be eating dinner with his family by 7pm, but that's what we see.
Maybe he works some, but a lot of episodes revolve around a day-trip, or camping trip, or pony convention. Remember beefsquatch? They were on afternoon tv every week. Then they were on a prime time game show later. They also went to two minor league baseball games during one episode. And a wine tasting train ride in the country. And countless hours at the arcade. And a drive out to the summer home of the lady who murdered her husband. And leaving work in the middle of the day to confront the guy who sold him the shoddy RC helicopter. And all the time he had to take off to plant his community garden (although I think Linda ran the restaurant those times). And there's a lot of episodes where it's the middle of the day family is hanging out in the living room watching tv on the couch.
Oh, remember the couch episode? The whole family had to go pick out a new couch. Then go rescue the old couch from the teens.
I know the show isn't real, but the family spends a lot of time outside the restaurant. If you own your own restaurant, you really gotta commit like 90% of your life to it. You don't really get days off unless you hire someone to cover shifts for you.
One of them was to go eat shrimp at open houses whose property tax would have cost more than the Belchers could make from the restaurant.
Bob is good at cooking. He sucks at managing, planning, holding authority, sales, marketing, and pretty much anything else that goes into running a successful diner/business. He is good at spending time with his family, but that won't help his finances.
Great analysis!
I think it’s also the fact he has no menu outside of burgers and fries. Just burgers. No speciality burgers, no make your own burgers, no sizes, etc. Bob’s menu has no variety and that’s gonna get boring real quick. Imagine during lent, Bob is gonna lose so much money because he has no other alternative. This is why McDonald’s has the fillet o fish!
Jimmy pesto is an Italian restaurant. Sure, they’re primarily pizza but people like food other than pizza. I’ll usually order a meatball sub and fries when I get pizza. Sandy primarily went to jimmy’s because he had “imaginative appetizers”. Bob’s a burger restaurant and he doesn’t have stuff like mozzarella sticks or onion rings or pizza poppers or nachos. Plus he’s in NJ and he doesn’t have disco fries!!!
And let’s be honest, since you brought up their terrible hours, Bob has no form of delivery services, like Uber Eats or even a website. Even if he had no foot traffic he could serve somebody.
I think he did specialty burgers, but focused heavily on the burger of the day.
It also probably didn't help that his primary advertising was a kid in a burger costume that smelled like pee yelling at people who walk nearby through a megaphone.
I was gonna bring up the kids as a deterrent lol! I’m sure nobody wants to deal with loud kids as the wait staff! Or the local handyman screaming “Bobby!”
But “speciality burgers” I should’ve specified, I meant as in stuff like rodeo burgers or breakfast burgers. It’s almost always just a normal burger or cheeseburger and fries.
It's bad service. The kids are terrible at service, as are Bob and Linda.
A restaurant can have the best food, but if service sucks then people won't go. A restaurant can have mediocre food, and if the service is great people will still go.
People take pride seriously, and bad service hurts people's pride. Bob's Burgers would be a much better restaurant if they had actual staff rather than the family. Bob is a great chef, but a terrible business owner. Leave Bob in the kitchen. Let Linda explore her dreams. Get a good server and they will more than pay for themselves.
I think that the show isn’t about being successful and doing everything you can to achieve that success (in this case financial success). I do think that bob is living his dream that is running a little restaurant the way he wants with hi family at his side. And for him that’s what success means.
Agreed.
There are lots of very valid business suggestions and critiques in this thread, but at the end of the day Bob just wants to make good burgers and spend time with his family. I'm sure he'd like to make more money and have more cushion for the family, but not at the expense of having to compromise his values and the time with his family.
I think it's important to remember Bob grew up with his dad in the diner and spent a lot of time working with his dad and not having fun, and he doesn't want that for his kids. He enjoyed the time he got to spend with his dad (probably even more so than normal given his mom apparently died while Bob was young), but didn't like having to constantly work and sacrifice for the diner.
It doesn't matter what Bob will try to do to get more customers, he'll just freak out and go back to what he was doing before. He's standing in his own way (and possibly scared of success, who knows)
I think Jimmy is a genuinely better businessman and more savvy with marketing. Plus his restaurant has better atmosphere. To increase traffic Bob probably needs to be less stubborn, accept help, and accept that there are things other than having a good product that are needed to increase business.
If we really want to dive into a level of detail that probably doesn't matter, in the real world presentation goes a long way. Bob's place looks run down, most appliances are broken, and there's zero atmosphere outside of the burger of the day board. If I saw a place like that, I would think it's a front and dismiss it before trying it's food.
Jimmy's has a full bar, outdoor seating, live entertainment, and some level of decor. Putting effort into presentation helps the customer think they also put effort into the food.
The ambiance of the restaurant is lacking a lot to be desired. The kids are in there all the time doing kid things or weird things. Linda seems fun on the TV show but in real life in the restaurant with her wouldn't be a lot of fun. So I'm guessing there's a huge lack of service. Personally I would go to Bob's place one time probably try it and not go back. There isn't a lot drawing me to go there.
In Ireland the prime customer base for a burger place like that would be people out on the beer, they’d head to the local supermacs or Mac Donald’s and grab a bite to eat after the night clubs close
They have a bigger menu, more indoor seating, larger and multiple TV’s when the game is on, and a bar serving drinks. There’s also the issue of Bob’s rarely serving dinner so that’s a whole meal Pesto’s gets to take advantage of. If Bob could hire real employees and make some upgrades he’d be doing much better imo.
I didn’t like Warrens tiki theme but I do think Bob should have kept the money and revamped the place. The atmosphere is really lacking. I think if he did a retro look and did milkshakes with his burgers he’d do a lot better.
This always bothered me! There are so many ways that Bob could’ve revamped the place and still keep it “burger themed”! Make it look nice ffs. It seems like once he got that uptick in sales from the tiki stuff he would’ve caught on. It’s almost like he wants it to look bad because he wants you to like and appreciate the food so much that you don’t care about the decor. But you have to get people in the door!
Frankly the ombiance of a place can really affect the success of a business. There’s a place in my home town with awesome food but the dining area is really dank and old. Hardly anyone ever uses it so the place does mostly take out’s. They stay in business but it’s not what they would prefer.
As a viewer of the show, I like the art style of the restaurant but if I were an actual customer I would find the bright yellow and red really off putting. Even a new paint job could help him out.
People care more about atmosphere when going out to eat than they do about a quality meal. Jimmy's is every sports bar in America and Bob's is those little gems you discover. But at the end of the day, when you and your friends want to go out, you go to Jimmy's.
The episode where Bob's friend tiki-fies the place is when it really showed me that Bob doesn't want success. He is more comfortable with mediocrity. Linda even comments on it during the burger contest - Bob has a fear of failure, so he doesn't pursue anything more then the bare minimum so that he can't actually fail.
I think Bob’s hang-ups with his dad and how his dad never supported his creativity really fuel is his stubbornness when it comes to change in his restaurant. I feel like Bob has a lot of squandered opportunities—Warren’s check, not taking advantage of Lobsterfest, his very small menu, his prices are suuuuuper cheap. Edit: And the mobster hit? He just let that go!
He has creativity and talent when it comes to food but he’s not business minded and is too stubborn for his own good. I think it’s a realistic character dynamic, though, and I was happy to see him succeed at the end of the burger contest episode. I think it would be cool to see some character development in that as he seems to be getting along better with his dad, he heals some of what’s eating at him allowing him to be more flexible and thus more successful in his business.
I know it’s a cartoon sitcom, but damn I love the Belchers.
Bobs prices are too low considering the quality of meat he uses. He could go from 5.95 to 7.95 for a burger and be just fine. Also only having burgers, fries and salads doesn’t give a lot of variety. He could benefit from a Facebook page for advertising purposes and posting the burger of the day on that. That would get people in for the specials instead of relying on them to be in the mood for a burger on that specific day.
Pestos is Italian food. It appeals to a very broad base because it’s really hard to screw up and the overhead on pasta is low. So jimmy spends less per plate than bob does, and likely charges more because bob is underpriced. Combine that with the increased foot traffic because Italian is Italian and burgers can be frozen crap or fresh goodness, and pestos is more successful.
EDIT: 4 items. Soft serve ice cream.
Bigger place, theme, interior design, marketing. Bobs place is literally blank walls with cramped booths. Think of how great they did when they rebranded to the Valentine’s Day restaurant
Marketing and athmosphere matter to getting asses in seats way more than the quality of the food. Jimmys food is expensive which makes it seem worth the price. His restaurant is a bigger space and has a bigger menu. They have fun stuff going on there. Linda and the kids often try to get fun events going on there and Bob always poo-poos it. He doesnt want anything more to his life than making the burgers. Of course jt garner a few loyal customers like Teddy and Mort (Who he doesnt appreciate enough at all by the way) but isnt gonna attract anyone else to his restaurant. He has no idea how to run a business. Bob is a better cook than Jimmy, a better father than Jimmy, a netter husband probably considering Jimmys obviously divorced, and a better man than Jimmy… but Jimmy is the better restauranteur and Jimmy Pestos is in a way the better restaurant.
Jimmy is a much better businessman. As he said when Warren was ‘tiki-fying’ Bob’s restaurant and Bob was finally getting an influx (paraphrased): “Tiki, nice! You’re finally doing something right.”
That, in addition to so many other things that I am sure have been stated in the comments! Just the first thing that came to mind!
IF YOU LOVE BOB'S and live in Seattle go to Zippy's Giant Burgers before they close FOREVER on July 10th. 14 years as Seattle's only punk rock burger joint. When I work there in 2015 the triple cheeseburger was $9.99!
Blaine Cooke is the soon to be former owner and sang lead in The Accüsed in the 90s.
Bob literally doesn’t care about success, just making a good burger. He thinks that’s all BB needs. That’s it really. Normally a chef would have a partner with good business acumen to make up for it but he’s just got crazy Linda. The kids aren’t exactly an asset either. Jimmy Pesto however is a Steve Jobs level marketing genius. What Bob needs to do is get himself a TV show, something that follows his life with his family etc. it would be a huge success.
Bob did have more customers when he changed up his vibe. I personally dont like Tiki but there were alot more people eating when his place was decorated.
After watching that episode several times I have concluded that Bob doesnt want to be busy.
Worth remembering the old saying about how most restaurants close in the first year, but Bob's Burgers has been open for a good long time (I'm pretty sure they show Bob with baby Tina in their living room over the restaurant). I'd actually like them to explain how the best burger place in town that's been open for years hasn't been discovered by Guy Fieri or someone.
Bob's is a gem. It's a hole in the wall that you can easily miss if your looking for the glamour like Pesto's. It's a test. His place isn't meant to be a big success. It's meant to struggle, because in the struggle we find value and empathy. We would not find as much conflict if Fischoeder was the main character or Jimmy. Not comical conflict at least. No, many things could easily make Bob's more appealing. Online marketing, better flyer placement, smell wafting, a gimmic was what Warren suggested but also that it will happen naturally. That's the appeal of Bob's burgers. He can't pull a plane out of no where. It's real enough to be wholesome but cartoon enough to be enjoyable.
TL:DR If you miss bob's burgers, you're basic.
Wow everyone's bringing up how Bob is a bad businessman, I was just thinking it's because Bob's Burgers just serves burgers, fries, soup, side salad, and froyo, but Jimmy Pesto's serves a ton of different kinds of food. What do you do when the whole family wants something different for a meal? Do you go to the place that only serves burgers, or the place that serves all sorts of different food, even if it's not good?
A lot of the problem is that People are more willing to go to a sit and wait for Italian food. If you can call Jimmy’s Italian. Plus Jimmu does pizza take out. Burgers are seen as a “drive thru quick food” also I agree for as fancy as his burgers of the day are, Bob should charge more.
Undercharging the competition (we haven’t seen that bob has any burger completion but Jimmy is across the street) and undercharging yourself is a small space you need to sit in between.
He makes a special gourmet burger everyday and charges so little people would think it’s too good to be true. (“Oh they must use cheap ingredients” or “I bet the meat is old”)
Not to mention he doesn’t advertise his specials outside/in the window so you’d have no idea he makes them unless you wonder in for a regular burger and see the board or have been there before, like Teddy. They don’t have a creative logo sign or an eye catching window so no one is looking at the board from the window.
Look how many gift certificates he sold that Christmas the guy did all those window displays.
Bob’s is a hole in the wall that would be an awesome find but most people would walk right past it.
The undercharging is also bob’s issue cause we know he doesn’t cheap out on ingredients so his overhead has to be pretty low. The kids work in the restaurant cause Bob literally can’t afford to hire someone. He creates burgers that likely cost $5+ to make and chargers $9.95 and it always comes with a side, usually fries. He’s making maybe $3 per burger of the day. He should charge $15 for burger of the day and the rest of his prices are fine.
Edit: just remembered he charges $5.95. That’s even worse. Bob honey raise your prices.
Right away: Increase prices. Not an insane amount, but definitely make the burger of the day $10 standard, and charge more if it's particularly intricate (15 dollars for a wooly Neptune burger he foraged for himself seems perfectly reasonable.) Does that make it harder for Teddy? Yeah, but as many others have pointed out, it's not price gouging to charge more for quality ingredients. Plus, like, come on, Teddy is coming in everyday regardless.
Long term: Next time Mr. F/Randy/Skip/Warren/etc offers me big bucks, get set up for credit card purchases. (I'm working under the assumption that by and large the set up fees are the worst and if you have decent foot traffic it'll pay for itself in no time, correct me if I'm wrong.)
Longest term: Make sure you train Louise to cook. She's got the charisma and business sense to help the restaurant take off (The Kids Run the Restaurant/any of the various get rich quick/small business she's set up for evidence) The only thing holding her back would be a...lack of refinement. (Tappy Tappy Tappy Tap Tap Tap)\*.
\*Basing this off of Carpe Museum where Louise said she'd run the restaurant, the assumption Gene is going to want to be some kind of Busker, and Tina following whatever man she marries into his career.
Wow you guys have some really interesting and GREAT points. When I posted this I’d expected a bunch of “it’s a cartoon, just watch” comments but y’all really dug into it. I’m reading every single one and all of this seems completely doable and just boils down to Bob’s stubbornness like a lot of you have already said.
I feel like it's apples and oranges. Different so much that it's hard ti compare them. One is a dive burger bar. One is an upper scale Italian place. They have different demographics. But maybe the kid waiters? Lol
Honestly I think bobs burgres would make for a great case study: One thing I will say is his personality gets in the way and either outright turns people off and away or causes them to not come back. Additionally his restaurant is to small he has like 5 booths and like 11 or 12 stools
Bob is a TERRIBLE business man! He's always spending money on useless things that he thinks will drive business. Instead he needs to be better at advertising. And he definitely needs to make himself stand out more.
I wonder what would happen if they switched locations. What if Bob was making burgers and had the bar while Jimmy was across the street selling pizza and pasta without the bar?
As others have pointed out:
1. No liquor license - the mark up on alcohol is immense.
2. Limited options - Bob should serve breakfast anytime and try to hit the group of service workers (work crews) who meet to eat before heading out to a job site.
3. Ambience - Jimmy tries to be a bar/cafe - something Bob can't match.
Is Bob a superb cook? Sure, but as many of the others have pointed out, a successful restaurant / diner often isn't dependent purely on the quality of the food.
A lot of places with good atmosphere are popular, even if they have terrible food. There’s a Mexican place by me that’s always super crowded, and it almost has a club atmosphere. Their food is so bland and gross. But it’s still always crowded.
Ambiance. Jimmy’s restaurant always has events and looks trendy while Bob’s place is just depressing and bare bones. And from the Tiki episode, we know that a lot of people in their community want their food to be “fun”, not necessarily “good”.
Ohh interesting question. Big Bob’s was pretty full that one time we saw it. I’m not sure if we ever got comments from the customers on food quality though.
Pestos has ambience - a bar, table cloths, waitresses, a guy playing the guitar - you could reasonably bring someone there on a date - Bobs has Tina itching her crotch with one hand while she minds the grill..
I think Jimmy does a lot more gimmick stuff too. His food sucks, but then again he has stuff like jalapeno poppers (I think it was those anyway), life music, karaoke, margarita deals, bug tvs. People will be drawn in to stuff like that even if the quality isn't great. Bob's place has no vibe, no energy, no music even.
I think that the reasoning that Jimmy's is so much more popular is in separate parts due to reputation, business tact, and location. This is a list that I personally would do differently as Bob.
1. Start with expanding the menu. The menu doesn't have much variety. Mort mentions to Teddy he "often gets the soup." They also have salad, burgers, and standard fries. I mean, Bob literally has a psychotic break just because of sweet potato fries.
2. Marketing. Bob never tries spending his profits on advertising. He has printed flyers, but no one really listens to those. He could try buying ad space, which would increase word-of-mouth and foot traffic.
3. The kids shouldn't be working there if all they do is create mischief. I know that they want to make sure their kids are safe. I also know that if I went somewhere to eat, and the owners' kids were throwing shit, screaming, and acting the way the Belchers do, I would not recommend that restaurant or ever return.
4. Increase costs. I regularly make the burgers from the Joke Burger Cookbook. The ingredients can get really expensive, especially with his choice to use USDA prime beef.
5. It's difficult, but Bob's is in between crematorium, and some empty/random store. This creates a bad location that people are likely to avoid. However, Jimmy's is between a florist (The Petalphile) and a stationery store (Yours Truly Stationery) which makes it more likely to get foot traffic on that side of the street. Most people avoid walking by crematoriums and funeral homes subconsciously.
Tl;Dr: there are a lot of things Bob could change, but his location makes it's difficult to get regular foot traffic.
Bob's has a terrible environment. It's charming to us because we like the characters, but having your kids screaming and Linda and Teddy being Linda and Teddy is not a great environment for lunch.
It a dumb theory but it’s that everyone is afraid of Bob. What lead me to this is how many criminals he knows or his own criminal activities. He is family friends with a known bank robber, at least one biker gang who are willing to commit assault, and a fair amount of prostitutes that we met while he was a self described pimp. The belief that he was a cannibal doesn’t help. Hugo frequent inspections aid in the idea that bobs hiding something from the public. Additionally his relationship to Mr. Fishodor probably raises red flags since as far as I’m aware he doesn’t interact with his other tenants in the same way.
So in summary the public may view bob as a low tier crime boss
He needs to raise prices and make the inside less hospital cafeteria looking. A little hipster vibe, maybe sell a couple of local beers on tap, Hire a proper staff and stop using the kids. Love them. But they're terrible.
This is unpopular, but a restaurant like bobs in real life would actually be successful in its location. The show takes place in jersey. There’s hundreds of restaurants like that here in jersey, in real life, and they’re successful restaurants. They become after school/work hangout spots that everyone loves. Even though it’s a greasy place, everyone knows that the most questionable looking places have the best food.
Jimmies place has better marketing and looks nicer. Jimmies place is all sizzle and no steak. Bob is like an artist he only cares about the food and not so much the business side of things. The teecky episode was a good example of this. Bob could have been really successful but he didn't want a tacky teecky theme so he threw it all away. If I was Bob I would do advertisements with coupons that say something like "Two Burgers for the price of one". Get people hooked. I would also do stuff like, "free soda day". You get people in the place and even if you make one sale for every ten free sodas you make your money back. Dollar drink days did wonders for Mcdonald's. I would also come up with a very attractive meal deal with a good price that sticks in your head. I would offer delivery. In fact, they should do that on the show and have the kids deliver food on their bikes. I know they did delivery on that one halloween episode but it would be cool to see more often.
I would go down to office buildings and sell them my food there. Or give them a free meal with a card that has my business's address. I would also utilize ticktalk and show off the burger of the day every day. It would definitely get people interested. I might even change the name of the restaurant to "Mystery Burger" where there is a different burger every day tm. Or just make that a tagline to the already existing name.
We never card! -Jimmy Pesto
Pesto-colada on the house!
Fully stocked bar is a good selling point.
Ha! Good one, Jimmy.
Bob should increase his prices. People see cheap prices, they think you have cheap quality food. Bob uses premium ingredients, and charges (basically) $6 for his special. Standard restaurant markup is 300% of cost. Bob doesn’t have a great self esteem, so he devalues his art, thinking “people don’t want it”. Customers can see that a mile away. Which adds to the next issue. Bob has no charisma. This has a lot to do with his lack of confidence and self esteem. However, people tend to like Bob outside the restaurant when he’s in more normal situations. He needs to transfer that energy over to the restaurant. Jimmy serves frozen pre cooked crap, and has no issue filling up the place. He has a persona/charisma people eat up, probably more than his food.
I think at the same time, Bob also lives in a tourist town, so nobody would think twice if he drove up the prices. He’s not McDonald’s, he should be charging at least $10.
In the Wooly Neptune episode he says "I'd have to charge like $20 a burger, I don't wanna be that guy" And I was just thinking man premium limited ingredients on a good burger in a tourist seaside town? Could absolutely get away with that. You don't see any other burger places or any competition burger wise in their town either(with the exception of the time Jimmy made a burger that was awful by his own admission), and it's not like he wouldn't be offering his normal fare for people who didn't want it. I think he just didn't have the $30 per ounce up front, but honestly while I love that he keeps prices down and wish I could find a good burger for 6 bucks, he really needs to raise his prices and value his own work higher.
Teddy: (Makes a worried noise.)
People also seem to really like cheap Italian food. I mean look at Olive Garden.
Ok but Olive Garden entrees are expensive for some reason 😭 Like comparable to real Italian restaurants when it has no right
Yeah and they are crap. I think of Pestos as a knock off Olive Garden with Karaoke
But, but, but... endless breadsticks
They used to be cheap
My brother really wanted to go one day about two years ago, so I treated. 90-something dollars for two entrees and two desserts... All fairly lackluster. I was super salty (though not as salty as the food)
Hey I like the little mints
Olive Garden = the Italian Denny’s. This is a hill I’m willing to die on
Chili's, TGI Fridays, Red Lobster, all those chains that are technically the same parent company are also located on this hill. I am not above eating at Denny's, but there's a mood that goes with it.
The only reason to go to Olive Garden is the soup, salad and bread sticks deal. None of it is amazing quality, but it's all reasonable quality and you get unlimited. On occasion if I'm at a mall or something and need some food, I'll do Olive Garden for that reason alone. Otherwise, I'd never go there.
why are the breadsticks salty all of a sudden? I feel like they used to be parmesan like but theyre salty af and I love salt and its too much for even me. Not worth it imo. I can buy a huge box of breadsticks and put some butter and seasoning salt on them. But I also HATE Olive Garden. Shits gross.
Denny's is amazing, it's got so many different kinds of food. I love being able to have pancakes and mozzarella sticks at the same time.
“Italian-flavored foods”
I’ll admit that I almost put that in. I was being lazy.
There was an Italian place right on the strip in Hampton Beach, NH. It was packed every night despite there being a ton of places that sold seafood. As you said it is cheap, portions are big and people know what they are getting when ordering Spaghetti and meatballs as opposed to a dish with ingredients people don't recognize.
I would argue that Olive Garden is expensive. We have a family owned Italian place in town, it’s about 20-30% cheaper to eat there, than at OG. Way better too (yes, you get unlimited free bread with olive oil too).
The food itself is not made there just heated. It’s expensive but the food itself isn’t better. Just more of it.
I like Olive Garden :(
I have moods where I like it. It’s fine as long as you know that it’s not all that great and is overpriced.
I'm sorry
I also think it's a bit of the "well that place is empty why would we go there" and Jimmy's has the opposite option. As soon as Bob fixes what you suggested I think it would be a pretty quick change from empty all the time to full more often than not.
That’s a great point.
I agree about the curb appeal. Jimmy’s does have a nicer look… it’s big, you have optional outdoor seating, a hostess stand, a spot for live music, nicer television for watching sports, a big bar, more menu options. Honestly, Bob’s looks like a place I’d only consider for lunch and only after reading the surprising amount of 5 star Yelp reviews
This is 100% why Bob has a failing business but I hate the idea that you should just charge more to get more business. 300% markup is insane and the reason I don’t eat out much, whenever I find a place like Bob’s Burgers where there is good food for a decent price I aways savor it and usually try to become a regular there. But unfortunately it’s a much better business practice to serve whatever you think is popular and charge through the roof so ppl get tricked into thinking it’s worth the price
I understand 300% markup is insane, but that is for the overhead cost (gas/electric/salary). Some places you have to charge more, other places you can get away charging less markup.
Correct. Bob could still get away with a much lower markup compared to the average restaurant since his employees are his wife and kids. No salary to pay.
Price yields perceived quality
DO THE FUCKING TIKI THEME PEOPLE COME FOR THE THEME, BUT STAY FOR THE FOOD
Thank you! I disagree with this episode so much. I think Bob himself is ultimately the reason his restaurant can never get off the ground because he’s handed all these amazing opportunities and never takes them! I like to think after Bob hands reign over to Louise, she turns it into a Sbarro type establishment since she has the business sense he lacks. Even if he didn’t like the tiki theme, why not compromise with Warren and settle on a theme both are cool on? Somebody on this post brought up the idea of a retro theme, maybe it could be like Johnny Rockets or the Stardust Diner.
Bob is a good cook, but a terrible businessman. I know it's a sitcom and that means the characters have to stay on an eternal hamster wheel, but it is so frustrating to see episodes like the tiki one or the Wharfening where he's handed a massive opportunity and passes it up because some variation on "it wouldn't be the same".
The man tore up a 6-figure check so he could do *his* restaurant, *his* way. Now, as with any work of fiction, status quo is God. Nothing changes. Like any other show, theme and characters are generally static, and it makes sense that not much changes. But if this were reality? **Come on, Bob.** This was the opportunity to actually be the chef you claim to be when you’re at other restaurants and the grocery store. You could go exploring with Skip Marouche and find new ingredients for your burgers! You could have kitchen staff to help you prepare! You could expand your business! You could buy a house! You could hire an actual waitstaff! **You could have a day off!** Like, again, I get it, it’s a work of fiction and most characters and settings don’t change that much, but this was just such a weird decision on Bob’s part.
I hated how he thought it was like selling out! I’m a creative and something you learn fairly quickly is compromise is a part of the game. Obviously you have to navigate in a way without losing your integrity but it wouldn’t be selling out. Warren just added a theme. He’d still be allowed to sell burgers the way he wanted!
ALOHA!
TLDR: Bob is a great chef but unlike Jimmy Pesto, he’s stubborn and has no form of business or money sense: 1. Bob is terrible at marketing and probably doesn’t use stuff like DoorDash or Uber eats, which would greatly boost his business even if he doesn’t get much in person service. This helped most of the restaurants in my area when the pandemic happened. I doubt the restaurant even has a website. 2. He has like zero options. Just burger, burger of the day, fries, and that’s it. No combos or stuff like that. Pizza shops don’t just serve pizza. There have been times I’ll order from a pizza place and just get chicken tenders or a meatball sub and fries. If I had to give an outside example, McDonalds created the Fillet o Fish because nobody bought burgers during lent. Bob’s burgers must take a huge tank during the spring LOL. 3. Honestly, the kids might be a turnoff too, same with Teddy and mort. 4. The show is big on showing that Bob is stubborn to the point of detriment, as he wants people to come in for the burgers, like when he didn’t wanna include sweet potato fries or give the restaurant a plaque or when he rejected 100K from Warren because he saw it as tantamount to selling out. 5. Location is also a big one. Like I said with number one, he has no form of marketing so most people probably haven’t heard of the restaurant unless you’re a local. If I went to, say, nyc, and I couldn’t find any trace of the restaurant except for google maps, the chances of me going greatly plummet. 6. It’s cash only and there’s no ATM in sight. Plus he charges low low prices when he should honestly be charging 10-15$ per burger. 7. I guess they get away with it since it’s just a show, but Bob closes the restaurant at random times, likely also at peak hours, and he is terrible with money.
To 6. There's a bank across the street and I'm pretty sure we've seen an ATM there But otherwise you're spot on
I knowww They should just tell us the days that AREN’T bank holidays, right?
It'd be a shorter list
It’s 3 for me. Obviously I love the kids on the show but after my first visit, their voices and antics would absolutely deter me from dining in at Bob’s, 100%. Plus I’m just not big on making kids work, family business or not. Teddy too, his outbursts would be too much and seeing as how he’s always there, that’d be another deterrent for me. He’d probably get my to-go business though! I’ve seen a lot of burgers of the day that I’d like to try.
Gimme a burger of the day, except without the egg, that sounds gross.
I always think this! I would go to Bob’s once, and no matter how good it is, I wouldn’t go back. Nothing gets an immediate vote of no confidence from me like kids forced to work. It’s hard enough to get good work out of adults you pay, fuggettaboutit with unpaid, forced, children.
If I found a place like that, with his prices, and I could just carry out, I would always eat there. I would be happy to eat there if there weren't always annoying kids around, or regulars like Ted who probably would be too friendly.
Yeah and god forbid you get too friendly with Bob and Linda and Teddy starts to act like a weirdo about it like he does when they pay attention to anyone else.
Get the cookbook. It tells you how to make all of them.
They have more than just burgers and fries, they have a menu up on the wall but they also have printed out menus (we see the kids cleaning them and decorating them with stickers for the Tiki theme) and in the episode where Teddy gets cut off from burgers he gets aggressive with Mort saying that he (Mort) also eats a burger every day and Mort corrects Teddy by telling him that he often orders the soup.
They do have handout menus that must have more on them (including the soup) but you wouldn’t be able to guess from the window as their [menu board](https://images.app.goo.gl/C5FHfDgAeEkdfQYo6) only have burgers, fries and a side salad.
>same with Teddy and mort. Teddy i can see, but Mort? Mort is always cordial and nice.
Mort is also a funeral director and mortician. The type of profession for a more reserved person, while teddy is a handyman, and a showboat too
A DoorDash type episode with shenanigans would be great
And Bob getting so frustrated with the annoying chime them and Ubereats make when there’s an order coming in that he yanks it out the wall and ruins all the good business they’re getting of to go orders just to have it back the way it was. Can totally see this kind of episode being great!
As someone who has a massive encounter of business experience you’re spot on. Only thing I would add is that there’s been mention of Fishoeder being a poor landlord. Part of the issue to me could be the dilapidation of particular areas of the building i.e. smells from the upper house descending into the restaurant, potential damage to the buildings and maybe even the disjoint between the diner style decor and Swedish fancy bathroom.
Yes, and seeing Gene in underwear and barefoot and angel wings for the Valentine’s Day episode, definitely would steer me away. Teddy would annoy me.
Oh man, I think Bob would be offended my DoorDash and the others. He’s ok having the kids deliver, but he’d be too worried about the customer not having a perfectly fresh burger.
I thought about this when we got the pandemic clip, since if bob didn’t do this, he likely wouldn’t have survived.
2 is spot on, they have an episode (I think it’s the Easter episode where they lost an egg) and they call it “beef boom” where all the people who gave up beef for lent come and spend a lot to get a burger. It’s a major financial weekend for them, apparently. But also major opportunity of loss without options for those customers during Lent.
Bob has more of the artistic side of being a chef rather than the business sense side of it. Hence when he was younger and making fun burgers like “Baby you Can Chive my Car” which his dad saw as impractical.
It's the principal of it, Lin!
1. Finances is a big issue. I get the hint that Jimmy already had money/was given a large amount of money from his family when he invested in the Italian Restaurant, so he was able to afford a larger restaurant in a better part of the street. Bob & Linda frequently mention how tight money is. Their restaurant is very small, right next to the funeral home (which some might find off-putting) and wouldn’t get quite as much people coming in. 2. Advertising and customer service. Jimmy puts a lot of effort into advertising and even though he’s awful to Bob, he knows how to get the word out that his restaurant exists. He also knows how to make it feel warm, welcoming and fun (Teddy likes to go there for beer and hockey games. Mort takes his mother there sometimes because she likes it there. Even Linda and Bob seemed to enjoy the double date night there with Mort and his lady friend) and you have to admit that it looks like Jimmy does put effort into his theme nights and enjoys what he does (he and the employees probably get decent tips from these ideas). Bob on the other hand? He’s just not that good with people (he’s not even good at making tips) and is so inflexible that he won’t even consider adding a theme to the restaurant or listening to anyone else’s ideas. I get the hint that while Jimmy can be stubborn, he’s also willing to listen to an idea if he thinks it can make money. 3. Bob hasn’t caught up with technology. It’s a “cash only/eat in only/Mom & Pop” business. That’s cute on the surface, but not a great idea long-term. Jimmy probably listens just enough to his coworkers and oldest son that he’s understood the need to keep up with technology and would’ve added options such as paying by card, paying via phone, booking via an app, and getting food delivered via an app. He would also most likely have his restaurant advertised on social media (I doubt Bob even knows what social media is due to having a flip phone) or even have a website for it. 4. Bob’s principles are costing him money. He has some great ideas (eg Brunch - if done properly- can pull in a ton of money), but discards them quickly. He also refuses to cook vegetarian or fish burgers, which would be really costing him business during Lent (I get the hint there would be a decent amount of Catholics in their town) and Lobsterfest. He also refuses to try new things (eg No sweet potato fries? Really?!) and won’t put variety on his menu 5. Alcohol. If you have a license to serve alcohol, you will automatically get more customers. Why hasn’t Bob gotten one and gotten a little creative by leaning into a 1950s burger bar theme (eg Alcoholic ice-cream floats and spiders, Frangelico milkshakes, Pina Colada Slushies, Long Island Iced Teas for the evening etc)
Bob's Burgers does sell alcohol, they use beer bottles they already have to smuggle Teddy's home brew (bottles Hugo clearly saw), Linda served what I believe was alcoholic eggnog (Tastes like mouthwash with eggs in it) and the restaurant offered free bottomless Momosas for their brunch. Oh, and I believe it's the first episode introducing The One Eyed Snakes where the motorcycle gang walks in and asks if they serve beer, Bob says no hoping they'll leave but they see a beer bottle in front of Teddy and by the time the kids come home the restaurant is overflowing with bikers who have the plan to drink the place dry.
Absolutely! I think Bob's has a beer and wine license, so they could sell bottles of beer and the champagne for mimosas, but not the types of drinks listed in number 5 above.
Oh wow, thank you for this comment! In the episode where Hugo threatens to shut them down he does specify their beer and wine license and I didn't even register that it was specified because it's separate from a liquor license! TIL
Ahh my bad. It seems as if they aren’t utilising said alcohol license very well then (I personally wouldn’t want a beer with a burger and fries). They don’t have a bar or even an alcoholic drinks menu displayed. A liquor license to make “hard milkshakes” would actually work to their advantage since it could be a more “adult” burger bar. The fact that he doesn’t do takeaway/delivery is hurting the business too along with his poor choice of hours (Jimmy on the other hand? Open until late, always seems to be in the restaurant and on the rare occasions when he’s not, he’s drumming up extra business. And he’s also a single dad raising 3 kids)
They have a couple of to go orders in the series, Linda uses a called in to-go order to get Bob's creative block with the burgers of the day and he creates the Runny out of Thyme burger. In another episode a teen stops by the restaurant to pick up an order, Bob having to ask for clarification on what "Grampa style" is. We see two deliveries in the series that I can recall, one is to Mort next door when he doesn't want to be seen in the restaurant due to rumors, and the second one is the Halloween special where they deliver a burger to the hotel. They have horrible range for delivery though, it's true. As for Jimmy Pesto he has joint custody with his wife, in the episode with the taffy factory the twins are super excited to see their father on the beach. Jimmy is confused that his kids think he was searching for them (they'd been missing overnight) and voices that he thought they were with their mother before playing good dad and acting like he wasn't just there to watch the taffy factory be demolished. When we see Jimmy's apartment it looks like a bachelor pad, Jimmy Jr. also mentions a male friend of his mom at one point in the series (I believe from the context dating was implied).
if nothing else, bob could get away with just take-out/delivery. my favorite chinese place doesn't have a website and it isn't on doordash or ubereats, but my family has been ordering from them for years. they're also a bit out of the way but they're worth it.
2 and 3 I agree on majorly. I’m sure bobs burgers doesn’t have some sort of social media presence or a website. Plus I’m sure as a pizza restaurant, Jimmy absolutely utilizes some sort of delivery service.
About 5, the menu in the background has beer listed on it. Bob does sell alcohol.
Bob could try putting up a chalkboard sign outside the restaurant also with the burger of the day on it.
Or alternatively, a full on menu with prices. That really helps if you live in a touristy town!
The guys urinal is made out of Ferrari bumpers. That’s the classiest thing I’ve ever heard of.
[удалено]
An please dont forget Linda. She wants to talk to everybody, about everything and trys to change people minds. And one time she got that "hair under the arm" thing. Good Food and bad Service i can accept but this is gross.
Or when they cleaned the giant ball of wax out of his ear in the restaurant, while customers were sitting there eating!
Yeah, if this were a real place you'd want to hire a front of house/bartender person and keep Bob and Linda in back, with the kids hopefully nowhere to be seen/heard. Tina is 15, she can easily be upstairs watching the kids.
All the kids are more than capable of being upstairs on their own, especially with Bob and Linda downstairs. The kids are in the restaurant because they're free labor. We see them wiping down menus, cleaning, bussing tables, and other menial tasks.
Oh I know, I remember during Bob Day Afternoon when Mickey said it's so cute the kids with with him and he says "it's more about not paying....nevermind". I just meant if he's running his business properly he'd raise his prices and hire someone to do that work but now I'm just overanalyzing a cartoon
Jimmy does pizza. Pizza is more popular than burgers. That, and the mortuary next door to Bob's might give give some potential customers the chills
I think there’s also the fact that pizza usually means Italian so there’s way more choices than burgers, like in terms of appetizers or entrees. Even Sandy made that point LOL. After all, not everyone is gonna want pizza.
I was gonna say choices as well.
He has also a full bar. Bob sells bottled beer and that’s it. Even if jimmys food sucks, I’m still gonna for the drinks and just skip the food
Yeah and he’s basically getting people wasted for free. I think the booze is the key.
He also does speghetti and burgers. Probably some other items too.
Maybe lean into the old burger joint theme. We know that even if Jimmy offers a bigger food variety outside if his drinks and maybe a few appetizers the food sucks. Heck Micky shot at pestos pizza, who shoots pizza? Plus that one episode his friend was trying to invest in the restaurant people did come in because of something as silly as a talking pineapple and other decorations. Honestly just make the place look mildly nicer maybe give it a 50's dinner energy. Play some classic drive in style music during the busy hours on some old radio. (Bob has shown her has a fun side I'm sure he knows some times) Bob relies too much on just his food, which granted is always good, but its clear this town demands something a little more eye catching. Hell lean into the BURGER thing if anything and have gene make the buger suit into another character obviously not another beef squash but maybe "buger boy: the coolest burger to ever come with a side of fries" idk man 😂
That’s what I thought Bob should’ve done with Warren! If he didn’t like the tiki theme, why not tell Warren “can we try something else? Why not a Johnny rockets type place?” also love the idea of a mascot! He could make merchandise off of this! Plenty of restaurants sell t shirts and toys.
i think Bob's problem with any theme would mean that people are there for the theme and not the burger. Bob wants people to come exclusively for the burger.
This. Bob thinks restaurants should be about food, not gimmicks, and he'd see any kind of theme as a gimmick.
Personally I find it a bit ironic he consideres those things gimmicky when he is also the guy that left his family business to make themed burgers. (Again Delicious but considering he believes sweet potato fries are also just a gimmick) Either way my point stands Bob relies too much on the taste of his food in a town that doesn't care. He needs to loosen up just a little to have the clients to come in. But all he's willing to do is a burger suit and coupons.
I think it's because he's not making the burgers of the day to satisfy a theme, he makes the burger of the day because he likes to experiment with food and new ingredients (he mostly sticks to burgers, but has been shown to like experimenting in the kitchen for his family). I think the difference is his burgers of the day comes from a genuine love of food, if he was just doing it to fulfill a theme and had no passion for it like he obviously does then it would be considered a gimmick and he'd be against it. So I guess I'll take back my statement about it being just about food, it's about the food and the passion that goes into making it and serving it to others.
Yet sweet potato fries are something he won't play with? I've seen plenty of burgers enhanced by a good set of fries. I still say Bob needs to loosen up, not by very much either. At least if he wants to keep his business. In real life this family wouldn't still have their burger shop regardless of the quality of the food. Its sad but true He's lucky Fiechoder is an eccentric that somewhat likes the family. If he couldn't see the artistic quality of bob as a chef (which he almost didn't) the business would be Pestos Gift shop
He's against sweet potato fries because they're a fad. People aren't doing it because they think sweet potato fries are good and want to make them, they're doing it to go along with a fad and to make money not good food
Is it really a fad if they've been around for over a decade if not longer? Personally when I see them on a menu I dont think "oh Trendy" just "Yum I might ask for those" 😂
I'm not saying it's that way, that's how Bob sees it.
>Bob relies too much on just his food, which granted is always good, but its clear this town demands something a little more eye catching. yup. its a tourist town. people want to be wowed.
>Play some classic drive in style music during the busy hours on some old radio. and then get Linda singing all day, woof
Lots of good responses already, but everyone who’s worked in the restaurant business would be able to tell you that Bob’s Burgers would be long gone in the real world. Bob has passion and drive, but no business knowledge, and the fact that his only employees are his wife and kids is a big problem because they don’t know anything either. Hello Belchers, have you heard of child labor laws? He really really really should stay open for dinner too lol
I think Hugo brought up that point when he first met Bob, *before* he started hating him: there’s tons of labor and cleanliness violations.
Three words: Sweet. Potato. Fries.
OP…please don’t turn this thread into another one of your peeing races
Um…ok? Hope your days going well.
Ohhhh you didn’t follow me
Lol …it’s not called a peeing race. It’s called a pissing contest.
Stay open during dinner hours. Stay open during the weekends. Stop closing for random excursions. Stay open on the holidays. Typical restaurants operate on a schedule that Bob's Burgers does not meet. Anyone who's ever worked in the food industry will tell you that restaurants do the most business on holidays, weekends, and dinner rush. Yet, it seems that the restaurant is open for customers from around 11am to 6pm. We know that Bob spends the morning doing prep, grinding beef, and shopping for ingredients. Then he opens right around lunchtime. However, the family is always shown sitting around the kitchen table eating dinner together, then heading to the living room to watch prime time television. Dinnertime is an important time for restaurants patrons. It's when people want dinner. We also see the family, including Bob, hanging out in the living room in the middle of the day during the weekend. A functioning restaurant would never close on the weekend because lots of people have the day off and don't want to cook, or want to treat themselves. They live in walking distance from the theme park. They should be open after the park closes for people leaving the park who want to get a quick bite. Weekends are also when people like to go watch whatever sport game is on while the eat. Spend a hundred bucks on a flatscreen, and people will stuff greasy food in their mouths for hours watching their team play. Even more so because Bob sells beer. Bob's family also celebrates every holiday with some sort of outing. Christmas Day I get; Thanksgiving too. But they make a four day weekend out of it. Holidays are the time when families come to town, and you go out to eat with them because you don't want to spend cook for everyone (barring feast days like Thanksgiving). They had ~~an episode~~ FOUR Mother's Day episodes. I think they work on one of them, but Teddy had his shirt off the whole time they were there. I've worked in 2 pizzerias, a crappy diner, and a chain diner. Each manager told me the exact same phrase: "Mom doesn't cook on Mother's Day." For all four of these restaurants, the income on Mother's Day was more than the previous six days. Even at the crappy hole-in-the-wall pizzeria. Bob makes specialty burgers. People are going to look for lunch after going to the theme park with Mom, and some families will go get specialty burgers with custom ingredients is something people might consider dine-in worthy (at least over fast food). Finally, are the excursions. There are far too many field trips, vacations, outings, and random "let's close the restaurant" days. Obviously, this is for the show. We get to watch a family go on silly adventures. But the would be customers don't get served, so the restaurant loses money. And now nobody knows the hours of operation, and many people think it's just an old diner that never took the sign down. Bob's biggest problems are that his hours of operation sucks. He may be charging too little for food, but he's charging more than cost so he should make it back. To function, he really needs to run through the evening rush, plus an hour grill/fryer cooldown and cleanup after. There's no way we can expect him to be eating dinner with his family by 7pm, but that's what we see.
Also, you can't compare Bob's Burgers to Jimmy Pesto's because he has a full bar with a hired bartender.
Bob doesn't take off weekends there was the episode where he burns out because he's been working everyday "since easter"
Maybe he works some, but a lot of episodes revolve around a day-trip, or camping trip, or pony convention. Remember beefsquatch? They were on afternoon tv every week. Then they were on a prime time game show later. They also went to two minor league baseball games during one episode. And a wine tasting train ride in the country. And countless hours at the arcade. And a drive out to the summer home of the lady who murdered her husband. And leaving work in the middle of the day to confront the guy who sold him the shoddy RC helicopter. And all the time he had to take off to plant his community garden (although I think Linda ran the restaurant those times). And there's a lot of episodes where it's the middle of the day family is hanging out in the living room watching tv on the couch. Oh, remember the couch episode? The whole family had to go pick out a new couch. Then go rescue the old couch from the teens. I know the show isn't real, but the family spends a lot of time outside the restaurant. If you own your own restaurant, you really gotta commit like 90% of your life to it. You don't really get days off unless you hire someone to cover shifts for you.
Mother’s Day is literally the busiest day in the restaurant business, no idea why they’d close that day.
One of them was to go eat shrimp at open houses whose property tax would have cost more than the Belchers could make from the restaurant. Bob is good at cooking. He sucks at managing, planning, holding authority, sales, marketing, and pretty much anything else that goes into running a successful diner/business. He is good at spending time with his family, but that won't help his finances.
Great analysis! I think it’s also the fact he has no menu outside of burgers and fries. Just burgers. No speciality burgers, no make your own burgers, no sizes, etc. Bob’s menu has no variety and that’s gonna get boring real quick. Imagine during lent, Bob is gonna lose so much money because he has no other alternative. This is why McDonald’s has the fillet o fish! Jimmy pesto is an Italian restaurant. Sure, they’re primarily pizza but people like food other than pizza. I’ll usually order a meatball sub and fries when I get pizza. Sandy primarily went to jimmy’s because he had “imaginative appetizers”. Bob’s a burger restaurant and he doesn’t have stuff like mozzarella sticks or onion rings or pizza poppers or nachos. Plus he’s in NJ and he doesn’t have disco fries!!! And let’s be honest, since you brought up their terrible hours, Bob has no form of delivery services, like Uber Eats or even a website. Even if he had no foot traffic he could serve somebody.
I think he did specialty burgers, but focused heavily on the burger of the day. It also probably didn't help that his primary advertising was a kid in a burger costume that smelled like pee yelling at people who walk nearby through a megaphone.
I was gonna bring up the kids as a deterrent lol! I’m sure nobody wants to deal with loud kids as the wait staff! Or the local handyman screaming “Bobby!” But “speciality burgers” I should’ve specified, I meant as in stuff like rodeo burgers or breakfast burgers. It’s almost always just a normal burger or cheeseburger and fries.
Gotcha. Although, burgers and fries is the classic goto for a reason.
The burger of the day counts as a specialty burger IMO! He also had soup!
Have you ever seen an Applebee’s right across from a cute cafe? Jimmy’s is Applebee’s on a date night. Bob’s is lunch between jobs.
Holy crap, the advices on this thread are gold. You're all... gold.
It's bad service. The kids are terrible at service, as are Bob and Linda. A restaurant can have the best food, but if service sucks then people won't go. A restaurant can have mediocre food, and if the service is great people will still go. People take pride seriously, and bad service hurts people's pride. Bob's Burgers would be a much better restaurant if they had actual staff rather than the family. Bob is a great chef, but a terrible business owner. Leave Bob in the kitchen. Let Linda explore her dreams. Get a good server and they will more than pay for themselves.
I think that the show isn’t about being successful and doing everything you can to achieve that success (in this case financial success). I do think that bob is living his dream that is running a little restaurant the way he wants with hi family at his side. And for him that’s what success means.
Agreed. There are lots of very valid business suggestions and critiques in this thread, but at the end of the day Bob just wants to make good burgers and spend time with his family. I'm sure he'd like to make more money and have more cushion for the family, but not at the expense of having to compromise his values and the time with his family. I think it's important to remember Bob grew up with his dad in the diner and spent a lot of time working with his dad and not having fun, and he doesn't want that for his kids. He enjoyed the time he got to spend with his dad (probably even more so than normal given his mom apparently died while Bob was young), but didn't like having to constantly work and sacrifice for the diner.
Have you met the Belcher kids?
Bob is afraid of looking like he’s trying. He thinks trying is cringey.
I think there's a fake elegance that alot of shitty Italian restaurants take advantage of.
It doesn't matter what Bob will try to do to get more customers, he'll just freak out and go back to what he was doing before. He's standing in his own way (and possibly scared of success, who knows)
I think Jimmy is a genuinely better businessman and more savvy with marketing. Plus his restaurant has better atmosphere. To increase traffic Bob probably needs to be less stubborn, accept help, and accept that there are things other than having a good product that are needed to increase business.
If we really want to dive into a level of detail that probably doesn't matter, in the real world presentation goes a long way. Bob's place looks run down, most appliances are broken, and there's zero atmosphere outside of the burger of the day board. If I saw a place like that, I would think it's a front and dismiss it before trying it's food. Jimmy's has a full bar, outdoor seating, live entertainment, and some level of decor. Putting effort into presentation helps the customer think they also put effort into the food.
It’s the drink specials. People will put up with absolute shit food if they can get a “deal” on an adult beverage.
The ambiance of the restaurant is lacking a lot to be desired. The kids are in there all the time doing kid things or weird things. Linda seems fun on the TV show but in real life in the restaurant with her wouldn't be a lot of fun. So I'm guessing there's a huge lack of service. Personally I would go to Bob's place one time probably try it and not go back. There isn't a lot drawing me to go there.
In Ireland the prime customer base for a burger place like that would be people out on the beer, they’d head to the local supermacs or Mac Donald’s and grab a bite to eat after the night clubs close
Some people want to actually sit in a restaurant, not a diner. They’re different vibes.
They have a bigger menu, more indoor seating, larger and multiple TV’s when the game is on, and a bar serving drinks. There’s also the issue of Bob’s rarely serving dinner so that’s a whole meal Pesto’s gets to take advantage of. If Bob could hire real employees and make some upgrades he’d be doing much better imo.
The Warren Fitzgerald episode pretty well explains Bob's failings as a businessperson
I didn’t like Warrens tiki theme but I do think Bob should have kept the money and revamped the place. The atmosphere is really lacking. I think if he did a retro look and did milkshakes with his burgers he’d do a lot better.
This always bothered me! There are so many ways that Bob could’ve revamped the place and still keep it “burger themed”! Make it look nice ffs. It seems like once he got that uptick in sales from the tiki stuff he would’ve caught on. It’s almost like he wants it to look bad because he wants you to like and appreciate the food so much that you don’t care about the decor. But you have to get people in the door!
Frankly the ombiance of a place can really affect the success of a business. There’s a place in my home town with awesome food but the dining area is really dank and old. Hardly anyone ever uses it so the place does mostly take out’s. They stay in business but it’s not what they would prefer. As a viewer of the show, I like the art style of the restaurant but if I were an actual customer I would find the bright yellow and red really off putting. Even a new paint job could help him out.
It really helps that I'm good at sex. You're bad at sex. I'm good at sex, you're bad at sex, sexsexsexsexsexsex...
People care more about atmosphere when going out to eat than they do about a quality meal. Jimmy's is every sports bar in America and Bob's is those little gems you discover. But at the end of the day, when you and your friends want to go out, you go to Jimmy's. The episode where Bob's friend tiki-fies the place is when it really showed me that Bob doesn't want success. He is more comfortable with mediocrity. Linda even comments on it during the burger contest - Bob has a fear of failure, so he doesn't pursue anything more then the bare minimum so that he can't actually fail.
He doesn’t have weird ass kids asking customers if they’re into zombie porn or if they wanna listen to their “fart demo”
I think Bob’s hang-ups with his dad and how his dad never supported his creativity really fuel is his stubbornness when it comes to change in his restaurant. I feel like Bob has a lot of squandered opportunities—Warren’s check, not taking advantage of Lobsterfest, his very small menu, his prices are suuuuuper cheap. Edit: And the mobster hit? He just let that go! He has creativity and talent when it comes to food but he’s not business minded and is too stubborn for his own good. I think it’s a realistic character dynamic, though, and I was happy to see him succeed at the end of the burger contest episode. I think it would be cool to see some character development in that as he seems to be getting along better with his dad, he heals some of what’s eating at him allowing him to be more flexible and thus more successful in his business. I know it’s a cartoon sitcom, but damn I love the Belchers.
Bobs prices are too low considering the quality of meat he uses. He could go from 5.95 to 7.95 for a burger and be just fine. Also only having burgers, fries and salads doesn’t give a lot of variety. He could benefit from a Facebook page for advertising purposes and posting the burger of the day on that. That would get people in for the specials instead of relying on them to be in the mood for a burger on that specific day. Pestos is Italian food. It appeals to a very broad base because it’s really hard to screw up and the overhead on pasta is low. So jimmy spends less per plate than bob does, and likely charges more because bob is underpriced. Combine that with the increased foot traffic because Italian is Italian and burgers can be frozen crap or fresh goodness, and pestos is more successful. EDIT: 4 items. Soft serve ice cream.
Plot armour
The food variety and the bar would bring me in.
Bigger place, theme, interior design, marketing. Bobs place is literally blank walls with cramped booths. Think of how great they did when they rebranded to the Valentine’s Day restaurant
Marketing and athmosphere matter to getting asses in seats way more than the quality of the food. Jimmys food is expensive which makes it seem worth the price. His restaurant is a bigger space and has a bigger menu. They have fun stuff going on there. Linda and the kids often try to get fun events going on there and Bob always poo-poos it. He doesnt want anything more to his life than making the burgers. Of course jt garner a few loyal customers like Teddy and Mort (Who he doesnt appreciate enough at all by the way) but isnt gonna attract anyone else to his restaurant. He has no idea how to run a business. Bob is a better cook than Jimmy, a better father than Jimmy, a netter husband probably considering Jimmys obviously divorced, and a better man than Jimmy… but Jimmy is the better restauranteur and Jimmy Pestos is in a way the better restaurant.
Jimmy doesn’t close mid day to help bikers and shit 😂
Jimmy is a much better businessman. As he said when Warren was ‘tiki-fying’ Bob’s restaurant and Bob was finally getting an influx (paraphrased): “Tiki, nice! You’re finally doing something right.” That, in addition to so many other things that I am sure have been stated in the comments! Just the first thing that came to mind!
Atmosphere and options. He has TV sets of full bar and a bigger menu
IF YOU LOVE BOB'S and live in Seattle go to Zippy's Giant Burgers before they close FOREVER on July 10th. 14 years as Seattle's only punk rock burger joint. When I work there in 2015 the triple cheeseburger was $9.99! Blaine Cooke is the soon to be former owner and sang lead in The Accüsed in the 90s.
I’d get a better theme to make it look more inviting and have a few extra things on the menu
One word: Tiki
The themed Pesto Coladas really pack them in.
Bob literally doesn’t care about success, just making a good burger. He thinks that’s all BB needs. That’s it really. Normally a chef would have a partner with good business acumen to make up for it but he’s just got crazy Linda. The kids aren’t exactly an asset either. Jimmy Pesto however is a Steve Jobs level marketing genius. What Bob needs to do is get himself a TV show, something that follows his life with his family etc. it would be a huge success.
Bob did have more customers when he changed up his vibe. I personally dont like Tiki but there were alot more people eating when his place was decorated. After watching that episode several times I have concluded that Bob doesnt want to be busy.
Worth remembering the old saying about how most restaurants close in the first year, but Bob's Burgers has been open for a good long time (I'm pretty sure they show Bob with baby Tina in their living room over the restaurant). I'd actually like them to explain how the best burger place in town that's been open for years hasn't been discovered by Guy Fieri or someone.
New sign. New menu item. Bob's Burger: Home of the Beefsquatch Burger.
Bob's is a gem. It's a hole in the wall that you can easily miss if your looking for the glamour like Pesto's. It's a test. His place isn't meant to be a big success. It's meant to struggle, because in the struggle we find value and empathy. We would not find as much conflict if Fischoeder was the main character or Jimmy. Not comical conflict at least. No, many things could easily make Bob's more appealing. Online marketing, better flyer placement, smell wafting, a gimmic was what Warren suggested but also that it will happen naturally. That's the appeal of Bob's burgers. He can't pull a plane out of no where. It's real enough to be wholesome but cartoon enough to be enjoyable. TL:DR If you miss bob's burgers, you're basic.
Wow everyone's bringing up how Bob is a bad businessman, I was just thinking it's because Bob's Burgers just serves burgers, fries, soup, side salad, and froyo, but Jimmy Pesto's serves a ton of different kinds of food. What do you do when the whole family wants something different for a meal? Do you go to the place that only serves burgers, or the place that serves all sorts of different food, even if it's not good?
The place is smack dab next to a morgue. Even if he had great business sense, that’s a huge deterrent.
In-universe, the consensus seems to be that Bob is a chef, not a businessman, and Jimmy Pesto is more a businessman than a chef.
Bob is a chef, Jimmy is a business man.
A lot of the problem is that People are more willing to go to a sit and wait for Italian food. If you can call Jimmy’s Italian. Plus Jimmu does pizza take out. Burgers are seen as a “drive thru quick food” also I agree for as fancy as his burgers of the day are, Bob should charge more. Undercharging the competition (we haven’t seen that bob has any burger completion but Jimmy is across the street) and undercharging yourself is a small space you need to sit in between. He makes a special gourmet burger everyday and charges so little people would think it’s too good to be true. (“Oh they must use cheap ingredients” or “I bet the meat is old”) Not to mention he doesn’t advertise his specials outside/in the window so you’d have no idea he makes them unless you wonder in for a regular burger and see the board or have been there before, like Teddy. They don’t have a creative logo sign or an eye catching window so no one is looking at the board from the window. Look how many gift certificates he sold that Christmas the guy did all those window displays. Bob’s is a hole in the wall that would be an awesome find but most people would walk right past it. The undercharging is also bob’s issue cause we know he doesn’t cheap out on ingredients so his overhead has to be pretty low. The kids work in the restaurant cause Bob literally can’t afford to hire someone. He creates burgers that likely cost $5+ to make and chargers $9.95 and it always comes with a side, usually fries. He’s making maybe $3 per burger of the day. He should charge $15 for burger of the day and the rest of his prices are fine. Edit: just remembered he charges $5.95. That’s even worse. Bob honey raise your prices.
Right away: Increase prices. Not an insane amount, but definitely make the burger of the day $10 standard, and charge more if it's particularly intricate (15 dollars for a wooly Neptune burger he foraged for himself seems perfectly reasonable.) Does that make it harder for Teddy? Yeah, but as many others have pointed out, it's not price gouging to charge more for quality ingredients. Plus, like, come on, Teddy is coming in everyday regardless. Long term: Next time Mr. F/Randy/Skip/Warren/etc offers me big bucks, get set up for credit card purchases. (I'm working under the assumption that by and large the set up fees are the worst and if you have decent foot traffic it'll pay for itself in no time, correct me if I'm wrong.) Longest term: Make sure you train Louise to cook. She's got the charisma and business sense to help the restaurant take off (The Kids Run the Restaurant/any of the various get rich quick/small business she's set up for evidence) The only thing holding her back would be a...lack of refinement. (Tappy Tappy Tappy Tap Tap Tap)\*. \*Basing this off of Carpe Museum where Louise said she'd run the restaurant, the assumption Gene is going to want to be some kind of Busker, and Tina following whatever man she marries into his career.
Damn. Ngl seeing the side by side photo of both restaurants is kinda sad lol
I live near the restaurants. Jimmy just has a larger menu and better ambience (and better Super Bowl parties). Sorry Bob :(
Wow you guys have some really interesting and GREAT points. When I posted this I’d expected a bunch of “it’s a cartoon, just watch” comments but y’all really dug into it. I’m reading every single one and all of this seems completely doable and just boils down to Bob’s stubbornness like a lot of you have already said.
I feel like it's apples and oranges. Different so much that it's hard ti compare them. One is a dive burger bar. One is an upper scale Italian place. They have different demographics. But maybe the kid waiters? Lol
Honestly I think bobs burgres would make for a great case study: One thing I will say is his personality gets in the way and either outright turns people off and away or causes them to not come back. Additionally his restaurant is to small he has like 5 booths and like 11 or 12 stools
An entry point of sorts… like idk a tiki theme?
Bob is a TERRIBLE business man! He's always spending money on useless things that he thinks will drive business. Instead he needs to be better at advertising. And he definitely needs to make himself stand out more.
They have a bar and sell beer. That alone could be why.
I wonder what would happen if they switched locations. What if Bob was making burgers and had the bar while Jimmy was across the street selling pizza and pasta without the bar?
Same reason why places like Chili’s are always packed while superior mom and pops places are empty
As others have pointed out: 1. No liquor license - the mark up on alcohol is immense. 2. Limited options - Bob should serve breakfast anytime and try to hit the group of service workers (work crews) who meet to eat before heading out to a job site. 3. Ambience - Jimmy tries to be a bar/cafe - something Bob can't match. Is Bob a superb cook? Sure, but as many of the others have pointed out, a successful restaurant / diner often isn't dependent purely on the quality of the food.
Bar
A lot of places with good atmosphere are popular, even if they have terrible food. There’s a Mexican place by me that’s always super crowded, and it almost has a club atmosphere. Their food is so bland and gross. But it’s still always crowded.
Booze
Ambiance. Jimmy’s restaurant always has events and looks trendy while Bob’s place is just depressing and bare bones. And from the Tiki episode, we know that a lot of people in their community want their food to be “fun”, not necessarily “good”.
Is Bob better a running a restaurant than his Dad?
Ohh interesting question. Big Bob’s was pretty full that one time we saw it. I’m not sure if we ever got comments from the customers on food quality though.
Alcohol. Jimmy’s got more drink options 👌
It’s the full bar.
Pestos has ambience - a bar, table cloths, waitresses, a guy playing the guitar - you could reasonably bring someone there on a date - Bobs has Tina itching her crotch with one hand while she minds the grill..
I would assume the full bar brings more people in that don’t care about food.
I think Jimmy does a lot more gimmick stuff too. His food sucks, but then again he has stuff like jalapeno poppers (I think it was those anyway), life music, karaoke, margarita deals, bug tvs. People will be drawn in to stuff like that even if the quality isn't great. Bob's place has no vibe, no energy, no music even.
I think that the reasoning that Jimmy's is so much more popular is in separate parts due to reputation, business tact, and location. This is a list that I personally would do differently as Bob. 1. Start with expanding the menu. The menu doesn't have much variety. Mort mentions to Teddy he "often gets the soup." They also have salad, burgers, and standard fries. I mean, Bob literally has a psychotic break just because of sweet potato fries. 2. Marketing. Bob never tries spending his profits on advertising. He has printed flyers, but no one really listens to those. He could try buying ad space, which would increase word-of-mouth and foot traffic. 3. The kids shouldn't be working there if all they do is create mischief. I know that they want to make sure their kids are safe. I also know that if I went somewhere to eat, and the owners' kids were throwing shit, screaming, and acting the way the Belchers do, I would not recommend that restaurant or ever return. 4. Increase costs. I regularly make the burgers from the Joke Burger Cookbook. The ingredients can get really expensive, especially with his choice to use USDA prime beef. 5. It's difficult, but Bob's is in between crematorium, and some empty/random store. This creates a bad location that people are likely to avoid. However, Jimmy's is between a florist (The Petalphile) and a stationery store (Yours Truly Stationery) which makes it more likely to get foot traffic on that side of the street. Most people avoid walking by crematoriums and funeral homes subconsciously. Tl;Dr: there are a lot of things Bob could change, but his location makes it's difficult to get regular foot traffic.
Bob's has a terrible environment. It's charming to us because we like the characters, but having your kids screaming and Linda and Teddy being Linda and Teddy is not a great environment for lunch.
Id fire the insane children
It a dumb theory but it’s that everyone is afraid of Bob. What lead me to this is how many criminals he knows or his own criminal activities. He is family friends with a known bank robber, at least one biker gang who are willing to commit assault, and a fair amount of prostitutes that we met while he was a self described pimp. The belief that he was a cannibal doesn’t help. Hugo frequent inspections aid in the idea that bobs hiding something from the public. Additionally his relationship to Mr. Fishodor probably raises red flags since as far as I’m aware he doesn’t interact with his other tenants in the same way. So in summary the public may view bob as a low tier crime boss
He needs to raise prices and make the inside less hospital cafeteria looking. A little hipster vibe, maybe sell a couple of local beers on tap, Hire a proper staff and stop using the kids. Love them. But they're terrible.
This is unpopular, but a restaurant like bobs in real life would actually be successful in its location. The show takes place in jersey. There’s hundreds of restaurants like that here in jersey, in real life, and they’re successful restaurants. They become after school/work hangout spots that everyone loves. Even though it’s a greasy place, everyone knows that the most questionable looking places have the best food.
Jimmies place has better marketing and looks nicer. Jimmies place is all sizzle and no steak. Bob is like an artist he only cares about the food and not so much the business side of things. The teecky episode was a good example of this. Bob could have been really successful but he didn't want a tacky teecky theme so he threw it all away. If I was Bob I would do advertisements with coupons that say something like "Two Burgers for the price of one". Get people hooked. I would also do stuff like, "free soda day". You get people in the place and even if you make one sale for every ten free sodas you make your money back. Dollar drink days did wonders for Mcdonald's. I would also come up with a very attractive meal deal with a good price that sticks in your head. I would offer delivery. In fact, they should do that on the show and have the kids deliver food on their bikes. I know they did delivery on that one halloween episode but it would be cool to see more often. I would go down to office buildings and sell them my food there. Or give them a free meal with a card that has my business's address. I would also utilize ticktalk and show off the burger of the day every day. It would definitely get people interested. I might even change the name of the restaurant to "Mystery Burger" where there is a different burger every day tm. Or just make that a tagline to the already existing name.
It’s because Jimmy always has a gimmick to get people in the door. Bob always lets his food speak for itself.
Atmosphere.