There used to be a time when the best restaurants in town were the best kept secrets in town. That wasn’t really a ‘plan’ though, it wasn’t on purpose… It’s just that the place was so good, it didn’t need to do any advertising.
So, you only knew about it if someone told you about it. The place was so good, that if you ate there, that’s all you could talk about the next day… how good it was. Good things leave lasting impressions.
But most people spend their time complaining, instead of the talking about the good things in life. So… you will never hear about this restaurant if you hang around most people, because there was nothing to complain about… only things to praise about.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking people who complain. There’s lots to complain about. I am however pointing out that unless there is also some ‘praising’ all the good things remain secrets.
Seriously, the food at this one place was so good, the service was impeccable, the atmosphere divine, it is a ‘secret gem’!
Places like this are usually pretty small, pretty packed, and almost always pretty ‘exclusive’… The fact that it’s so good spreads the word around ‘organically’, and because it ‘doesn’t disappoint’, the recommendation stands again and again.
This causes a sort of ‘exclusivity’ often dictated by simple supply and demand. This one place I’m talking about was only open one night a week, and seating was limited. The chef was incredible. He would make his weekly menu based on the best ingredients he could find for that week. One week he made a Sturgeon that was so incredible I remember it 20 years later.
This is how things used to be… before the internet…
Lots of things are still like this… but most people live life somewhat through the internet these days.
It’s no secret that when something is really really good… some people think to themselves… oh, I should share this with everyone I know. Some people think differently though… they think… I should keep this a secret, because if everyone knows about it, it will turn to shit in some way.
That happens a lot with things… more people often ruin special things. Like that restaurant that everyone knows about now and takes 100 years to get a table… or the quality of the place has just gone way down as they changed to meet the quantity…. think about the idea of McDonalds, how good can 1 billion hamburgers be?
