Quan Ju Fu on Clement Street [SF]

[Cynsa]

The flyer hanging on my door knob offers dim sum all day — and "World Famous Peking Duck". If you're seeing a movie at the Four Star, take it with Duck; Peking $34.95, Smoked Tea $15.95, Roast $24.95, or Salt & Pepper Duck $15.95
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie/2012/06/quan_ju_fus_salt_and_pepper_fr.php
http://richmondsfblog.com/2012/06/18/...

[kairo]

What I don't understand is: Why would a restaurant with 1.5stars on yelp open a second location?? (See Chinatown Restaurant http://www.yelp.com/biz/chinatown-res...
)The long positive review on yelp for Quan Ju Fu sounds fake, and the other from a poor tourist mark.
Is there a way to make money out of running a restaurant into the ground? Maybe like how in Germany you can get tax write-offs for making a movie that fails to perform in the box-office.
All very odd.
And are they suggesting you eat your 35dollar duck in the theater?

[Cynsa]

If the question is "Do they have one good dish?", then "What is it?"
note: just ignore the movie and a duck comment, don't take it so seriously, please. duck tongue in cheek.

We might start a new thread, "One Good Dish" if you had to eat there. Only risk-takers need reply.

[Chandavkl]

Well clearly based on the Clement St. location they're not aiming at tourists. Washington St. location is clearly geared towards unsuspecting tourists, and the food is accordingly dumbed. So perhaps owners actually want to try to run a legitimate Chinese restaurant here.

[shanghaikid]

the monie$$ in chinese restaurants is in the wedding banquets, red egg/ginger parties, association celebrations/banquet, new year parties and the like.

regular diners have little in put with this business model. yelp is also irrelevant.

[kairo]

shanghaikid: That does seem true. Yet doesn't really explain the inordinately heavy amount of promotion.

Cynsa: I wasn't taking the Duck at the 4star seriously... I was curious if it actually said that on the flyer though. Sounds kind of great to me (maybe at the castro not the 4 star).

It definitely seems like the gist of these replies are suggesting I give it the benefit of the doubt. I'm still skeptical.

[shanghaikid]

promotion is to draw attention that there's a new banquet option. it's all about getting to the person responsible for booking the wedding banquet, that anniversay dinner, that get-togerher, etc. the association biz is probably in the bag already.

no, not expecting you to give up your qualms, just explaining Q's probable business model.

[bigwheel042]

Sounds kind of like the airlines that roll out the red carpet for business travelers (where all the profit comes from) while gleefully punishing the tourists flying on super savers at every possible opportunity. There are $50 off $100 coupons for QJF all over the free weeklies, but Yelp reports note that they don't mention that this excludes dim sum, there's a $1/person charge for all tea, and the prices seem inflated to take the promo into account.