Has The Lubbock Restaurant Scene Peaked?

As I drove down 50th street this past week, I thought, "man why can't we still have a Grandy's?"  The building is still there and it's a complete, derelict, eyesore.  I'm starting to think we're going to see more of that.

Texas Land and Cattle shut down. We've lost Jack N' The Boxes. Taco Bueno and Carl's Junior and any other number of restaurants and fast food places. You can blame poor ownership, bad marketing or even underfunded business models all you want, I think it comes down to one thing and that's saturation.  It sure seems like to me that for every one that opens now, one closes.  Am I wrong here? Does no one else think that Saltgrass wasn't the final nail in TL&C's coffin?

Now I do recognize in the case of TL&C that many people said the quality had gone down. Well that quite frequently is part of a snowball effect of when less people are coming in, then there's less tips for good staff, and on and on.  What I'm saying is, the quality could have been squeezed out by the competition.

I think we've outpaced our ability to sustain the number of restaurants that we have in town now. Sure, no one wants to hear that because they're favorite hasn't come to town yet, but your favorite will probably cause someone else's favorite to leave.  Lubbock is a pretty darn lucky place when it comes to dining out, but I think the restaurant business is going to be at least one in-one out for a while.