"The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab" – a "study"

I am definitely guilty of sometimes clicking "reply" and then reading the linked article to check that I'm not about to essentially tell you what you'd have read or worse, tell you something the article actually debunks.

"study" is already in scare quotes

Also a type of collider bias in causal inference, which generates all sorts of Simpsons paradoxes

Comments of this quality are getting frustrating.

The grand parent post clearly stated it is the poster's "rule of thumb". By definition they are aware that the rules are [likely] "not mutually exclusive". Starting with "these are not mutually exclusive", is what makes this comment so unnecessary. Don't be proud of having listed exceptions to someone's rule of thumb.

Had you started with, "I like that; these are a few exceptions I've observed to your rules that I find interesting", that would be a productive way to start a conversation.

But starting with "these are not mutually exclusive" makes you seem like an ass for having pointed at an exception to something that by definition has exceptions.

It's right in the posting guidelines [1.]

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

[1.] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Is Katz's actually a great location? It is for some--well, many/most places in Manhattan are a great location for some given the density--but it's hell and gone from Midtown, UES, etc. As someone who has visited Manhattan semi-regularly over the years (and even lived there for a summer) I think I've been to Katz's once and would never have described it as convenient.

ADDED: These days, sure, close to Lower East Side and Orchard Street but that sure wasn't primo real estate a few decades ago (including When Harry Met Sally was filmed).

Probably one of the most famous examples is Jiro sushi which is in a subway station.

these examples are all exceptions. how much do the exceptions contribute to the discussion?

They're not mutually exclusive because they're a triangle.

Cost, Convenience, Quality: Pick 2

This isn't that deep either - convenience and quality are 2 things that cost the restaurant money (either via higher rent, or more expensive ingredients).

You can't do all 3 because you'll never make a profit.

You can't do only 1 or you'll never get any customers.

Two is just right for both buyer and seller.

> restaurants in hotels are usually mediocre to bad

This varies strongly region to region (and price level). In America and much of Europe, in most cases, yes. (Exception: tier 1 cities.)

In parts of Asia it varies from being almost rule to being a solid way to avoid great food. Put another way, go where the food-obsessed locals go. If the locals are dining at hotel restaurants, go there. If they're avoiding them for street food, do that.

On a parallel note, crappy little hotel bars are something of a delight to visit, particularly in your home town. You get to meet randos seeing your familiar through fresh eyes and for the first tie, and even if you don't meet anyone interesting, the people watching alone is usually paydirt.

Does not apply to the very top end where many luxury hotels also have Michelin starred fine dining restaurants

I remember reading an article that had the theory that Thai restaurants in hotels were usually very authentic under the assumption that the parents were immigrants who wanted the child to inherit the business, but the kid wanted to run a restaurant instead. It would certainly explain why you get Thai restaurants attached to random hotels in the middle of nowhere, at least.

It does vary. Some are more independent of the hotel than others. And the rule of thumb probably tends to be less true outside of the US.

Hotel restaurants are feature placebo. They are give the impression of added value/fanciness, even if they are rarely accessed by value-conscious guests.

This falls apart a bit if providing better food costs more. Restaurants with better food may earn more revenue all else being equal but their costs may be higher. People are willing to pay more for the same quality of food in a better location. It makes sense for a the restaurant with worse food to outbid a restaurant with better food because the location is more important to them and they are allocating more money towards towards rent rather than food quality so they have more to spend.

You lost me at point 4. Why would more revenue mean a higher willingness to pay rent unless it made them more profit?

My rule. Check TripAdvisor!

Actually OP found a very small correlation between railway proximity and Google rating. The study didn't actually measure "quality"...

Also, the lowest scoring outliers were the closest proximity, which I think is noteworthy.

> but you can clearly see that the bottom-right quadrant of the plot is basically empty, which is an important insight.

I don't think so? It's mostly a result of the fact that (obviously) the best place to sell food is where there are people, which is also the best place to put a metro station. So on average the kebabs are pretty good and on average they're near a station. In Figure 9 one of the worst reviewed restaurants is over 3km from a metro.

You're likely seeing a pattern where there isn't one, which is normal for humans.

There's one obvious place to go around here for a good kebab, it's a few minutes walk to the station, but the way you can tell it's the best place for a kebab is how late it's open every night. Long after other kebab places are dark they're still doing enough business to justify remaining open.

The best place for pizza in my city is very close to a train station but that's a total accident, they park (it's a van, no really, best pizza in the city but they hated owning a restaurant so they put their oven in a van instead) in the car park of a railway station's pub about five minutes walk from me.

> "You can sell good kebabs anywhere, but you can only sell bad kebabs near a train station."

Insightful!

97.38% of bad studies measure the wrong variable.

Do drunk french people buy kebabs? In my city one central late night kebab place has great kebabs. Anecdotally I remember one great kebab cart serving at least one drunken customer in Nice (France) - not near a station and a long way from the Paris metro!

I think there's some population selection flaws. Drunk people don't leave reviews. In foreign countries it is difficult to know the correct search term.

I suggest an alternative study: how much lager does it need to make a train station kebab taste great?

The original data includes "train and metro stations", but figure 9 filtered the data to only include train stations and arrived at the same conclusion.

That saying in France is usually understood to be for cities outside of Paris and only referring to "Gares" (that word is used for train stations, not for subway stations). Anecdotally, I'd say it holds true in general in most cities I've visited (with Paris being an exception)

At the end of article it's shown that only considering train stations didn't really change the result.

True. Everyone has the one thing they care about. I care about ambience. I barely notice the food.