One day last week, I had to drive by the Westfield Mall in Culver City so I stopped and had me a Five Guys burger. Very good. My other missions at that shopping center took me past the mall's recently-refurbished Food Court and I noticed that (a) they'd really improved the selection up there, (b) a couple of those places look darned good and (c) it didn't matter insofar as my own dining is concerned. If I'm eating there, I'm eating at the Five Guys downstairs. They're about to open a Lucille's Smokehouse Barbecue there too…and while I like those too, it won't matter either. Because if I'm dining at the Westfield Culver City Mall, I'm dining at the Five Guys. I know me.
I also know where I definitely won't be dining there: Sbarro. The Food Court was full of all these really nice little eateries but for some reason, the Italian stall was a Sbarro. In your whole life, have you ever heard anyone say, "Hey, you know where they have great food? Sbarro!"? One of the first rules of marketing is not to name your product something that's difficult to pronounce. I think Sbarro has gotten away with breaking that rule for a long time because they know no one is ever going to recommend their food to anyone…so it's okay if they can't say the name.
I used to wonder if "Sbarro" was Italian for "only option." They always seem like places that get business only because they're situated in a mall or airport where it's either that or something worse. In New York City, they have a lot of them where it's like, "I could eat at Sbarro's or I could walk two blocks to decent pizza…and I don't feel like walking the two blocks." The cuisine usually looks impressive enough and it's all ready to serve so it'll be fast. So I sometimes have to remind myself, "You've never liked the food at Sbarro."
Nobody I know ever has. This article about their recent bankruptcy filing makes that point. In fact, on my drive home from Culver City, I started mentally writing a long blog post about Sbarro and that article says most of the things I was going to write. So I'll just add that I suspect the company is trapped in a vicious circle: The worse their sales get, the more likely that the food on display in a Sbarro's steam table has been sitting there quite a while. And the more likely it is that the food's been sitting there quite a while, the worse it'll be for the hapless passer-by who does order the ziti and that will lead to their sales getting even worse.
And don't you just know that at this very minute, the Sbarro executives are in a meeting somewhere, discussing how to save their company and considering things like a new advertising campaign and how to stuff more cheese into the product?