On my way to work this morning I walked past the restaurant Vinzee's that was being demolished. Now you might remember the story. This spot used to be a Dairy Queen and attached Laundromat that this old Italian couple had owned for forty years. They put their kid through Georgetown and medical school while wearing the same pair of sweatpants. So when they were getting ready to retire their kid convinces them to let him open up a restaurant. They insist that it have ice cream like their old place so he opens up this joint that has hot dogs and burgers and ice cream. But nobody would go in.
The old lady stopped me one day as I was walking by and said "Why a you no a going into my sons store. What did I ever do to you?" I replied "Senora nobody loves not dogs more than me. Not even skinny Japs in a hot dog eating contest. I stop every day on my way to the store for a slice of pizza. I would do that for a hot dog. But not for a five dollar hot dog. That's your problem."
Plus they had no experience in running a joint like this. They were way overstaffed. A cook. A cashier. Two waitresses. A manager. You needed to run that joint with one person who spoke English to take the money and a Mexican to do all the work. Then they might have survived.
But they didn't and now they are ripping out all the brand new fixtures and equipment that they put in when they started. I estimate that they spent around $300,000 to fix if up in the first place. Some hipster asshole who has a joint on Smith St that was very popular in a very small space is moving in. Not my kind of place.
It is just a sin that so much money go wasted. A sin I tell you.
