Genki Buffet

[terracore]

"Had lunch at Lemongrass today; Genki's price has dropped to 12.99 all day, instead of the higher price at dinner. Still was empty."

Sounds like they are on life support and heading towards a flat line. That killer strip mall rent is combining with no sales, high food costs, and oppressive taxes and insurance fees to create the perfect storm of financial ruin. If they don't want to spend the rest of their lives licking their wounds they can try to quickly reinvent themselves with a substantial name and menu change.

As we pointed out in the beginning of this thread, the last thing that Keaau location needs is another bland Asian restaurant drowning in a sea of nearby bland Asian restaurants. Even if their buffet was "awesome" the place was probably doomed to failure. For it to succeed another nearby bland Asian restaurant would have to go out of business. That is an awful business strategy unless you are a huge corporate chain that can afford to take a loss in one location potentially for years until you can drive your competitors out of business. And... Pahoa has #1 Chinese BBQ and other bland restaurant options without that parking lot/traffic nightmare the Keaau location has. I live exactly in between the two locations and would never consider driving to Keaau for bland food.

If they want to continue pushing their bland-Asian-food business model their only hope for survival is to offer delivery to the huge subdivisions nearest to them (HPP, Orchidland, Ainaloa) that have no food delivery options because frankly, the only way I would eat disappointing bland Asian food is if somebody brought it to my door. Well, I live in OLE on an unpaved road... I meant gate.

I'm sure the Genki name right now is not working to their advantage and digging their heels in with bland, poorly-reviewed food and service is a recipe for continued disaster.

I do wish they prove me wrong and I wish them luck (but I won't eat there).

[Linchpin]

quote:

---

Originally posted by terracore
...is another bland Asian

...nearby bland Asian restaurants.

...another nearby bland Asian restaurant

...other bland restaurant options

...for bland food.

...their bland-Asian-food business

...disappointing bland Asian food

...with bland, poorly-reviewed food

---

BUT HOW IS THE FLAVOR?!?!?!

[terracore]

LOL, I understand it to be ordinary, dull, lackluster, boring, plain... mediocre at best.

[randomq]

A friend that walked by told me they now have cheaper takeout and cook to order stir-fry, not sure if that's part of dine-in or what. Sounds like they are trying to adjust. Now if they'd just do fajitas...

[kalakoa]

another bland Asian restaurant drowning in a sea of nearby bland Asian restaurants

I suggested this location to the owner of Lucy's, thinking a taqueria would make for great contrast against the incumbent asian flavors.

Her response: "They want way too much rent for that space."

Subway already took the spot next to Coffee Bean, so once Genki fails, we can look forward to several more months/years of vacancy before the next corporate name-brand chain restaurant occupies the space briefly. Maybe we'll get a Jamba Juice next time.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

"They want way too much rent for that space."

How do you justify exceptionally high rents for Keaau Shopping Center store locations?
A high volume of traffic on Highway 11 and Highway 130.
How do you maintain that traffic, with all of those potential customers?
No PMAR.

Bonus Yelp review of Genki Sushi Keaau:

Some of the worst food I have ever eaten. Couldn't tell weather it was chicken, beef, pork or something else. Had 10 bites and gave the rest to the dog, who wouldn't really eat it. I got sick

[Carey]

Back when Hokulanis closed, there was a discussion here of the rent & costs... I can't image that this new venue clears 1/10th of what would be needed to stay afloat, if their costs are the same...
'course I have yet to understand their Hilo ramen business model either...
Only thing I can come up with is a venture capital that needed to increase their loss ratio with these business models & have worked hard to make sure their venues could not succeed....

http://www.punaweb.org/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=14675

[Punatic007]

Gotta be a write off. Anyone know who owns it? I wonder if the owner would mind if s/he had limited access to decent restaurants because of write off scams or simply the lunacy and greed of exorbitant rent plus percentage? Where's the love? And what's with the cuisine, can you actually call it a cuisine of low end quasi-Asian food served in Puna?

[Lee M-S]

You would think the idea of all-you-can eat would go over big here; people seem to like big portions.

Remember how popular the Mongolian Wok place was (where Lucy's is now), then they started putting more and more restrictions on how much you could eat because they were losing money?

><(((*< ... ><(("< ... ><('< ... >o>

[terracore]

Well if the rent was $5000 in 2012 lets just guestimate and say it's $5500 in 2016. At $12.99 per buffet guest hey would need to sell about 425 buffet guests per month just to cover RENT, but then they would still need to come up with the money to pay for the food, labor, utilities, insurances, taxes, and payments on startup costs.

Food costs vary by restaurant type but based on my past experience working in restaurants, I'd estimate their food costs are 35% of the $12.99 price, maybe more if there are a lot of fresh ingredients (which I'm guessing there is due to being a bland Asian restaurant), but maybe there are a lot of cheap noodles and other fillers so lets stick with 35%. Labor is usually about 25% though we don't know if its family run, a lot of people might not be getting paid anything but guessing 25%. That takes us up to 60% of the $12.99 price just on food and labor. I can't even guess utilities, insurances, banking / credit card fees, taxes, repayment on startup costs, etc but lets be conservative and say 20%.

So from each $12.99 guest 80% or about $10.40 goes to operating costs so they clear $2.60 per guest and they still have to pay rent. So they have to sell 2,115 buffet tickets, or 70 per day to break even. Even if the percentages used in the guestimate are way off, adjusting the 70 figure by 10 or even 20 wouldn't effect the outcome.

Based on the reviews I've seen they are probably getting few return customers so it doesn't sound sustainable.

In most, maybe all the restaurants I worked in, the kitchens consistently lost money. Sometimes we would have 1 or 2 months per year where we broke even. Every time it looked like we were going to have a month in the black the fryer and dishwasher would break and need a partial rebuild or some other financial catastrophe happened. The profits were made on beverage / alcohol sales.