another one bites the dust in louisville

meant to mention that the other day. We live right by the one on Hurstbourne and saw that it was dark and that the Max and Erma's sign was gone. I just assumed it was that location. Had no idea it was the whole chain! Crazy times.

When on the road, I would make a point to look for a Max and Erma's if I was planning a "right off the highway" stop. Food seemed to be consistently decent. And that's what I expect from a chain - that they are predictably decent. Varied menu too.

All along, it should have been Max's and Erma's, not Max and Erma's. Always bothered me when I saw that on billboards, never affected me when going there because I didn't. Go. Ever.

In a local, independent market as vibrant as this one, when one of these vapid monoliths fall ... does anyone even hear it?

Say it isn't so....I can't believe it.

All along, it should have been Max's and Erma's, not Max and Erma's. Always bothered me when I saw that on billboards, never affected me when going there because I didn't. Go. Ever.

In a local, independent market as vibrant as this one, when one of these vapid monoliths fall ... does anyone even hear it?

Max and Erma's closed? Really? I missed it! Dang it!

When on the road, I would make a point to look for a Max and Erma's if I was planning a "right off the highway" stop. Food seemed to be consistently decent. And that's what I expect from a chain - that they are predictably decent. Varied menu too.

I hear you.

Ruth and I were driving to Toronto. We crossed over in Detroit and by passed all the MceeDees etc... so that we could eat lunch on the road in Canada. Some really quaint foreign spot, worthy of the scrapbook. We got out on that huge open plane to Toronto and there was nothing. Nada. Not even a Wendy’s. I’m starting to want to eat my elbow. We see a sign.. some town about 15 kilometers, down some small ass side road.. we take it.
Quaint.. Starting to feed my fantasy of a foreign dinning experience. We see a pizza place and a diner. I opt for the diner, fearing they were serving some sort of Hunts Brothers thing at the pizza place. Go in- 1:30 and it was empty. We order two burgers to go...
We start down the road and Ruthie sets me up with a burger as I drive. I put the thing to my mouth and I think ... that is an interesting smell.. I take a pretty good bite as I am so freaking hungry... oh my..what is that I am eating?! Really, I have never tasted anything like it before. well I give it another try. .. At the same time Ruthie is putting mayo, pickles and so forth on her burger.. she keeps looking at me funny..like I farted or something. She smells something, only it aint me... She takes a nice bite of her burger and almost faints. Immediately she rolls down the window and hurls out the burger, the bag and anything else she can get her hands on. Mean while, I am desperately trying to swallow the three greedy bites I have in my cheeks. Gagging. I pull over and look at the burger. Tiny grayish pellets. Not sure to this day what it was. Rotten, caribou???... Awful...
The moral. You takes your chances.... Bad meal, wonderful memory worthy of the scrapbook.

We did get our chance at great dinning experience at the Drake in Toronto http://www.thedrakehotel.ca/
Awesome boutique hotel with a great dinning room. We ate three meals there.

In a local, independent market as vibrant as this one, when one of these vapid monoliths fall ... does anyone even hear it?

I feel quite certain that all the local folks who lost their jobs right at Christmas heard it.

I agree. The Scrooge-like corporate timing in this instance truly reeks. But the lost jobs will be absorbed back into the vital local, independent dining scene, and more money can stay here and not be shipped elsewhere.

While I admit there are several chains that I will eat at this wasn't one of them. To start with their menu had nothing out of the norm that you can find in hundreds of other restaurants and their prices were higher than they should've been for what you were getting. Not wishing any restaurant bad luck but I don't understand why this one stayed around as long as it did.

In a local, independent market as vibrant as this one, when one of these vapid monoliths fall ... does anyone even hear it?

Yes.

And, before anyone else turns this into a chain vs indie thread, I wish the best for everyone in Louisville associated with Max and Erma's.

In a local, independent market as vibrant as this one, when one of these vapid monoliths fall ... does anyone even hear it?

What Michelle said...and Kyle. I'm really-really biting my tongue on this one.

Schadenfreude.

I'm a devout locavore, CSA supporter and patronize independent restaurants 99% of the time. Right now though, I'm only thinking of the hundreds of line cooks, servers and hostesses that are facing the holidays with no job.

I'm sure the local vital dining scene will step up and hire all these workers. Now I would also imagine that most of the local vital dining scene is aware of the Hotbytes site and have a plethora of openings waiting for these newly freed former monolith slave labor.

but funny thing the last job posting placed here was for managers, well that leaves 99 percent of those freed labor out of the running.

before that a host/hostess, now that was three weeks ago

I dont think there is as much need for staff in the local vital dining scene as some might think.

I see two possibilities economically:

1. In the current economy, there arent enough dollars to go around and some restaurants are going to close. In that case, I think its better for Louisville if it was M&E instead of locals. The Max and Erma dining dollars getting spread around may allow some locals on the bubble to survive. It sucks if you worked at M&E but, big picture, the difference between 100 employees laid off here vs there makes no difference.

2. M&E closed for national reasons, not local, which seems to be the case. If that is the case, the dining dollars they were getting will get spread around and assuming that there is a roughly constant dining$/restaurant employee ratio (market wide, not individual restaurant) then the jobs lost will be replaced thruout the industry. It still sucks for the SPECIFIC employees laid off, but on a macro scale makes no difference.