No Business in Restaurants

I'd like to think you're kidding, Parker, but I know you're not.....because I've had some experiences that go in that category. We went out to dinner with a couple to an upscale restaurant and they proceeded to order drinks, appetizers, desserts and cappucinos for themselves and then, when the bill came, they suggested we "split the bill".

That's cheap AND greedy. Happened more than once, along the same lines. Friends don't do that to friends. We either announce ahead that the meal is on us or ask for separate checks when we're out with our buds.

It must be always separate checks with us as neither of us drinks or one may have one drink. Many people have several drinks, desserts and coffee which run up the bill. We don't do that, not because we're cheap, but we have better desserts at home that are homemade. The desserts here are mediocre at best and the coffe here is dishwater.

We never order the cheapest meal, in fact we usually order one of the more expensive, example Shrimp or a Filet Mignon. We both love Shrimp and make Baked Stuffed Shrimp at home with Seafood stuffing. Fried is OK too, no grease. I love my Filet Mignons at Laurent and Hacienda.

We had lunch today at Laurent and the espresso afterwards was superb!

David wrote:We had lunch today at Laurent and the espresso afterwards was superb!

David - Seems like you like Laurent. It's one of our groups favorites. I/we have never had a bad meal there. The only complaint I would have is that the menu is a bit small.

I actually like CFE model because it forces us to go to alternative solutions.
Now of course I don't like the bill but if I had PNW US/Canada prices I probably
would not care. Mainecoon is right mexico will have the largest amount of
user generated power at the rate CFE is going up. Something to remember
is we don't have heat or cool bills (ok some of you may but I always live in
west or south facing houses). I have friends who have $500USD gas bills
in the winter up north.

I have no doubt you folks like your pools, me my weakness is good audio
and video. I confess I do have a small two foot deep pool on the property
and I intend to fill it and use it in the hot season but I guess I am not a
pool person. I did rebuild the five bulb dragon lights with new sockets and
CFB's and does the property look nice with the 10 bulbs on. For me this
is my big expense:-) :-)


David : I always enjoy Laurent's. The service and food is top notch. I wish I
could spend more of my resturant budget there.

Z

I share that audio/video weakness. We have a front projection home theater and very powerful audio system. We recently converted to Blue Ray which is just spectacular on a 100 inch screen in full 1080P. Brought back the new blue ray set of Star Wars which we are watching one at a time. It is really something!

The extent of our cooling is a couple fans during April-June. Heating is an occasional fire in the fire place. You really don't have to put on a lot of extra clothes to handle the occasional chills here. I find a sweat suit fills the bill nicely for a few weeks of the year.

You just can't beat this climate. I've lived all over the U.S. and the only thing that comes even remotely close is Southern California where my brother lives. However, he definitely has to heat in the winter.

We love Laurent. We've been dining with him since he first arrived as La Gasconade, best Chef in town IMHO. We have a pool, it's covered now until Feb. We use it often from Feb thru Sep. Were're all solar; hot water, pool, and PV electric.

It is obvious from various posts that swimming pools seem to be an either/or concept. There are those who actually use theirs on a regular basis and feel that they are justified and worth the maintenance and costs. Then there are those who rarely if ever use their pools and would like an easy out on the expense and extra work.

Given the fact that digging up a pool and replacing it with some other option involves a mess and a somewhat major construction project, I was pondering a solution. To my way of thinking, it might be an excellent business opportunity to some enterprising Mexican contractor to come up with a plan to construct an attractive option for a platform to cover pools with a people/pet safe cover. I might agree with John that the inexperienced might consider a pool to be value added when looking for a residence to purchase. On the other hand, I would also be willing to bet that many after experiencing the pride of pool ownership would change their minds and opt for a nice cover.

I've been thinking about converting my pool to a fishing hole.....put bass in there, harvest....save the trip to Tepic ......LMAO

Jim W wrote: I've been thinking about converting my pool to a fishing hole.....put bass in there, harvest....save the trip to Tepic ......LMAO

You laugh JW, but I am giving some serious thought to turning our swimming pool into a koi pond. We raised koi in California and why not do that here? There are some possible problems including our proximity to the lake with its plethora of waterfowl who might consider our garden to be a fine place to catch and consume brightly colored fat fish and other issues such as the lack of a colder season when koi tend to hibernate - with their colors naturally enhanced as a result of the cold weather. On the other hand, if we attracted those beautiful white pelicans who migrate down here in the winter, what a fine show that would be in our garden. Maybe we could cultivate big old goldfish, which are cheap and expendable, to feed the pelicans. Perhaps, on the other hand, we could raise crocodiles and feed them all these stray dogs roaming about the neighborhood and serve two causes at once.

Addressing Gringals post about cheap versus frugal or whatever you wish to call it. Back in the 70's, I lived in Aspen, CO and it was an expensive town even back then. There was a group of locals who had the habit of gathering at a certain local watering hole and then proceeding from there. Our normal group despised the idea of sitting at the table and dividing up what each individual or each couple owed for dinner. Because of that, we had an unwritten rule that ONE person would pick up the tab. While we didn't have a set rotation, people who didn't play the game were left out of the invite to go to dinner.

To this day, I hate the split the tab game!

You know.... if a Restaurant opened with a swimming pool, they'd probably do really well....drinks, great steaks, seafood, served by the poolside... lots and lots of bikini clad girls...

ohh... ohh....


Lifeguard shouts out ta Litt'l Johnny...." Litt'l Johnny, you stop piss'n in the pool..."
Litt'l Johnny says " why. everyone else does it "
Lifeguard says " yeah... but not off of the diving board..."

johninajijic wrote:

hockables wrote:

johninajijic wrote:There is no business in the Restaurants except for maybe weekends. How can they stay in business this way with all their expenses? They all cannot.

What restaurants do you think will be forced to close?

Maybe they can have half price specials for you monthly Bi-Dinner Group...

that ought ta pull em outta the fire...

that and the odd Mex who frequents their joint on week-ends

You have a sarcastic remark that's unneccesary. Our Dinner Group doesn't care about Specials. The only people that do are the Canadians and Mexicans looking for something for nothing. And tipping, that's another whole story.

Whoa! Talk about sarcastic! John, you just slammed two countries in one with that remark. So much for the Christmas spirit there, eh? (Yes, I AM Canadian!)

how did we get here? restaurant business, to electricity to POOLS? returning to topic: i was in new posada tonight. less than 1/3 full. the owner told me there are 45 restaurants in the area. & tango is the ONLY one which is packed. i have to ask her if this happened before or after the "incident" `

hound dog wrote:

Jim W wrote: I've been thinking about converting my pool to a fishing hole.....put bass in there, harvest....save the trip to Tepic ......LMAO

You laugh JW, but I am giving some serious thought to turning our swimming pool into a koi pond. We raised koi in California and why not do that here? There are some possible problems including our proximity to the lake with its plethora of waterfowl who might consider our garden to be a fine place to catch and consume brightly colored fat fish and other issues such as the lack of a colder season when koi tend to hibernate - with their colors naturally enhanced as a result of the cold weather. On the other hand, if we attracted those beautiful white pelicans who migrate down here in the winter, what a fine show that would be in our garden. Maybe we could cultivate big old goldfish, which are cheap and expendable, to feed the pelicans. Perhaps, on the other hand, we could raise crocodiles and feed them all these stray dogs roaming about the neighborhood and serve two causes at once.

Not difficult at all. A neighbor of mine has done this. Requires some modification to the filtration and pumping. Aeration is the main need.

All you have to do is change the sand to a coarser in the filter. I am not sure if there is an advantage as the water needs to be aerated pretty well so the pump would have to be on more than it is now. I guess you save on the chemicals.Water plants are not cheap and neither are good kois.

Actually some of the thread drifts while frustrating to some people are interesting
to others. I consider it a natural thing to happen sometimes.
We probably should have moved the power and pool thing to its own
post.

Regarding Koi fish and new ponds don't learn the lesson we learned in
Oregon and have the Egrets, racoons, etc etc. They thought the
sushi tasted very good. Some of the same birds come down her for the
winter. Live and learn! It is funny now not so funny when it happened.
The racoons left a good tip. :-)

Z

We used to have 3 koi ponds and one hospital tank. The herons used to be there at the crack of dawn but our ponds were very deep and the kois had protection most of the time , they would get small ones mostly. Racoons could not get the kois either as the sides were too straight. The worst ennemies were the cats who would love to tap the wate to attract them and then would flip them out of the water. They could not get the large kois but would scratch them and I had to give them shots of antibiotics.
We lost most our very prized kois to the kois.

One neighbor had hundred of them and his pool was fed by a creek. I used to go down and watch the kois, it was very relaxing, one day I arrived to an empty pool, a family of river otter had moved in and eaten all of them...

how do you connect restaurants to pools & electricity? all these comments should be moved to another topic.

Most restaurants have electricity, some have pools. Start your own board, then you can move things around.

Easy. Some restaurant owners are all wet and can't see the light.

Well said!

which restaurant has a pool? is it heated?

Quetzal on the malecon has a pool

Melanies has a pool.