urbanSTL

While the owner of Labeebee's was quoted, they have since closed their Downtown location. However, per a discussion with him when it was open, it was due landlord problems, not Culinaria.

Just adding that in case anybody accidently makes an incorrect association.

I find it hard to believe that the same people who were eating a bowl of soup at The Soup Man are now getting their fix at Schnucks. The price and quality points are so vastly different that it just doesn't make sense.

"Hmmm, I think I'll forgo this rather expensive yet superdelicious Mulligatawny for some cheap and crappy Cream o Broccoli soup at Schnucks."

My complaint and the reason I didn't return to TOSM is that I didn't want to buy fruit and chocolate with my soup for $9.

I think the novelty of the Culinaria prepared foods will wear off to some extent. I mean, who wants to eat lunch at a grocery store every day?

When I walk through other downtowns I often see proprietors working the sidewalk in front of the store. Sign out announcing today's specials, hand full of free bite size samples, etc. Are shop owners getting more aggressive in their sales strategies?

Cliffnotes on Kleancut:

Im a 24 yr old business owner. I didnt come from money. I had saved up money from when I was in the Air Force. I joined at 18.
The first year of my business being open, I had showed great profits. Yay..

Nope. American business dream kicked right in the nuts.
Im too damn young to sit, literally a decade to see this part of city to do something.

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:

kleancut wrote:Schnucks has put out multiple business'. Yea thats a no brainer, very healthy for downtown.

Name one.

even though I broke my delete key, trying my hardest not to type unnecessary comments due to such statement, i will simple answer it.

Business that closed:
Espresso Mod
Pasta House
10th St Italian
Kitchen K
Pizza joint on 9th and Pine
Lions Choice
Thai food spot where Everest locates now.
Fish & BBQ place on where Aqua Pizza was.

These are 8 that I could think about off the top of my head.
These places were closed recently after our almighty one stop shop had opened.
Is it a coincidence that 8 or maybe more fall out right after Schnucks popping up.

Let me guess. Some brainaic will point out flaws on why each one closed, rather than admitting Schnucks f'ed everyone.
Is it a coincidence that all these business sucked at the same time. and shut down together?

Hopefully my post wont be deleted because it doesnt involve praising downtown.

1. As a baseline, how many downtown restaurants closed in each of the 5 years before Culinaria arrived?

2. Can you describe the economy in 2009/2010? If not a recession, it was certainly worse than the years of 2006-2008. Clearly there are more closings during bad economic times and it's not possible to blame it all on Culinaria.

I'd like to suggest you take something more out of your first experience running a business than 'Schnucks screwed me' even if they did.

lukethedrifter wrote:I find it hard to believe that the same people who were eating a bowl of soup at The Soup Man are now getting their fix at Schnucks. The price and quality points are so vastly different that it just doesn't make sense.

"Hmmm, I think I'll forgo this rather expensive yet superdelicious Mulligatawny for some cheap and crappy Cream o Broccoli soup at Schnucks."

My complaint and the reason I didn't return to TOSM is that I didn't want to buy fruit and chocolate with my soup for $9.

From everything I've read, the Original Soup Man soup is shipped out to their franchisees from a central industrial kitchen. If I'm going to buy warmed over food, I'll buy it from the one who sells it at prices appropriate for warmed over food.

kleancut wrote:Cliffnotes on Kleancut:

Im a 24 yr old business owner. I didnt come from money. I had saved up money from when I was in the Air Force. I joined at 18.
The first year of my business being open, I had showed great profits. Yay..

Nope. American business dream kicked right in the nuts.
Im too damn young to sit, literally a decade to see this part of city to do something.

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:

kleancut wrote:Schnucks has put out multiple business'. Yea thats a no brainer, very healthy for downtown.

Name one.

even though I broke my delete key, trying my hardest not to type unnecessary comments due to such statement, i will simple answer it.

Business that closed:
Espresso Mod
Pasta House
10th St Italian
Kitchen K
Pizza joint on 9th and Pine
Lions Choice
Thai food spot where Everest locates now.
Fish & BBQ place on where Aqua Pizza was.

These are 8 that I could think about off the top of my head.
These places were closed recently after our almighty one stop shop had opened.
Is it a coincidence that 8 or maybe more fall out right after Schnucks popping up.

Let me guess. Some brainaic will point out flaws on why each one closed, rather than admitting Schnucks f'ed everyone.
Is it a coincidence that all these business sucked at the same time. and shut down together?

Hopefully my post wont be deleted because it doesnt involve praising downtown.

I'm not going to say that Culinaria hasn't had an impact on other downtown restaurants, because it clearly has. But there were also other factors playing into the closing of a few of the restaurants you listed.

Kleancut you seem to be looking for a fantasy world in which business downtown will be thriving but chains, even local ones like Schnucks, will completely ignore it.

I'm sorry but that's simply being unrealistic.

If we have a dead downtown, chains will stay away (as well as independent stores)

If we have a thriving core chains WILL realize there's a buck to be made and open up shop there.

It really is that simple.

All I am going say is that Sh*t happens so get over it. Culinaria is there. Maybe downtown needs some compition to bring more stores downtown and create a better product for the customers. I have also talk to people that live in the suburbs and they heard about the culinaria downtown and went there to check it out. They also walked around down there and notice all the place within walking distance and thought that downtown could be a great place to live and work.

kleancut,
I think your comments on this board prove why your business might not be doing well. Whiners whine because they want to pass the blame to someone else instead of sucking it up/ trying to change.

I do not shop at Culinaria for any prepared foods because they are quite horrible to my standards. Now if you are saying Culinaria is stealing away your customers, well you must not have had a great product to start out with or maybe your customer service was beat out by them. (By the actions on this board I find that very plausible)

The only argument that I find valid is the city giving them subsidies and not allowing smaller mom and pop places to get the same treatment. However, giving a company subsidies does not make them successful. And it seems like Culinaria is becoming on the verge of successful.

you know what.

You guys are right.

I <3 Schnucks now.

jmstokes wrote:

The Central Scrutinizer wrote: Business that closed:
Espresso Mod
Pasta House
10th St Italian
Kitchen K
Pizza joint on 9th and Pine
Lions Choice
Thai food spot where Everest locates now.
Fish & BBQ place on where Aqua Pizza was.

How exactly did Schnuck's put them out of business? Did Scott Schnuck nail their front door shut? Did he cut their electric and phones lines? Did he kidnap people off the street and force them to go to Schnuck's? Is this part of the "bullying" you claimed was going on?

I agree. Plus, from the list, most of those placed sucked anyway, so I wouldn't attribute it to Schnucks as much as I would to just being crap.

That was clearly the case with the pizza joint and the fish/bbq place (and Aqua Pizza). They would have gone under regardless of whether Culinaria was there or not.

Kitchen K had a great run downtown and is rebranding I believe. How on earth would a fine dinning restaurant be negatively affected by a grocery store?

10th Street Italian is close both downtown and in Valley Park. Did Culinaria kill the Valley park location too?

Expresso Mod and the Pizza Place are legitimately on the list for sure.


What, if any, businesses have opened since/because of Culinaria? Clarkson Eyecare? Ozzies? Jive and Wail? Over Under? Shiver? Crack Fox?

The Central Scrutinizer wrote: Maybe Scott "Bully" Schnuck pushed him down and took all his flyers.

OMG!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Your bully jokes got me slapping my knee all day dude, keep em coming!

Since this thread seems to be gathering some attention, I've placed a reference to it and a poll on our Facebook Fan Page. If you haven't officially "liked" us on Facebook, be sure to do that now and vote!

Moorlander wrote:Kitchen K had a great run downtown and is rebranding I believe. How on earth would a fine dinning restaurant be negatively affected by a grocery store?

The P-D quoted the owner of Kitchen K a few weeks ago as saying the reinvented restaurant was off and he was getting out of the restaurant biz altogether.

Honestly it seems the deal here is Culinaria is causing business owners to have to step up their game and sell a higher end product. Those who were going for the lowest common denominator (case in point that pizza place that didn't even bother to get their name out until they were scraping it off their store window) can't do that anymore because that's where Schnucks hits and with their economies of scale they're going to win. Long term I can't see this as anything but a good thing.