Evening hours at downtown businesses rant

My discovery of the Mixx deciding to cut their hours of their downtown location to only 11am to 2:30pm today got me thinking about a long time pet peeve of mine. Mixx opened it's doors a little over a year ago and has flexed their hours all around in that time.

Why do restaurants apply a double standard to their downtown location? This seems especially true with a restaurant or retailer with multiple locations. It happens almost like clockwork in downtown KC. A business will give downtown almost token evening/late hours but almost instantly start closing at inconsistent times or all together taking away evening hours. Why? It's not like these businesses are packed at their other non-downtown location. A place like Subway is a great example of this. Have you ever driven by a subway anywhere after lunch? Are they EVER busy? Hardly....yet they stay open in every random strip mall you can find but they don't even give a second thought to closing up shop after lunch rush downtown.

Now I'll admit I've never ran a retail or restaurant operation but if I'm trying to build business, I would try and cater to not just employees but tourists and residents that live downtown. Maybe I'm looking at this with just too big of pro-downtown glasses on but someone explain it to me. OK say you aren't busy at first in the evenings. How much does keeping the lights on and two hourly employees cost for 5 more hours? $50 a day? What is that, 4 diners?

I can't believe this continued hour shifting by new downtown businesses is simply economic. So what is it? Perceived safety of employees? Assumption that there is no one to sell to after the workers eat lunch?

A perfect example of actually trying evening hours and sticking with it comes from the former Cupinis. When they first opened, they stayed open until 8pm. No matter what. Rob stuck with it until they day he closed to be closer to his family. You know what, he got customers in the evening too....not right away, but after people realized he was there and open, people went there.

As a downtown worker and resident, a small piece of advice to any current or future restaurant or retailer. If you truly want to build evening business, post your hours and stick to them. Give it at LEAST one year. Put that in your business plan. It will be slow at first for the traditional "lunch" places like Subway, Quiznos, Ingredient, Mixx, but as people realize you are open, you will build that following. Tell us you are open, you will get our business. If you don't want to commit to that, then don't even tease us with your token evening hours. We will respect your business more if you don't go jerking hours around on us.

Tuesday - Volunteering & Fans arriving

Just got back from fan information volunteering....some of the most fun I have with other fans. Great time telling them about KC, where to eat, etc. You can really see how much they appreciate the suggestions since many of them are from a smaller city than KC....and how great we now have options to give them.

Free practice was today and the first game is tomorrow....fan fest was just getting setup as I walked to the hotel today...looks like it will be a lot of fun if the weather allows it.

I'll do most of my midday updates with twitter which you can follow to the right. Probably once a night I'll update the blog with the day's events.

Most fans I saw today were from Texas Tech (surprising) and Oklahoma State. Mostly 55+ which is expected when the tournament starts on a Tuesday.

First game 11am between Tech and Colorado...expecting a Dallas type crowd....nobody.

Only pic I took today:

Big 12 arriving

Big 12 teams and fans begin arriving today for the tournament in KC.  Should be a great time and I'll be blogging/tweeting live the whole time bringing comments, pics, videos, whatever.  Great time for KC, wish the weather would play nice...but after this winter, at least it's not raining.

Later.  Check back often for updates or better yet jump on twitter and follow @downtownkc as I will be updating that more frequently.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre