No Pie For You!
 

It's no one's fault. Just not enough customers.

We're going through a recession nationwide and it's an inevitable result of the down economy

The article you linked to says nothing about patrons being asked to leave a restaurant mid-meal. Perhaps the article has been updated?

BTW, I agree with analyst quoted in the article that Marie Callender's has lost business over the past several years because they've failed to invest in their stores and haven't kept their menu fresh. They've certainly lost my business for those exact reasons.

This was in our local online newsletter:

"A friend of mine was just at Marie Callender’s and mid-lunch the restaurant shut down. Didn’t even let them finish eating or pay. Apparently they got a fax from HQ that said they had to close immediately."

Looks like customers got kicked out in Seattle as well.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/123743974.html

Not surprising that they're having problems. Ate there a while back (sister needed to get a quick lunch) and both the food and service were fairly bad. No reason to go back. I would guess that their main clientele were local workers who weren't in the mood for "ethnic" food and couldn't decide on anything else. And their pies were, generally, pretty bad too.

The few that there were here in Colorado closed several years ago. I went there a couple of times back in the day. Agree that they didn't seem to be keeping up with the times, as the article stated. Heavy, down-home style cooking. Which is not my favorite type of food.

Legend has it that when the local MC's closed down after lunch one day, the staff were offered the opportunity to carry home the pies on hand as a severance bonus....

I've been to a couple Marie Calenders in the Phoenix area and I was never overly impressed. To me it was the same as Coco's and a place I didn't mind if someone else was paying but for my own dime, I was never thrilled. Still, it seems to have some history behind it so I hope they work things out.

I've never seen it happen during the day like this, I have seen trucks waiting at restaurants for them to close, and then clean the place out and chain it up.

It is a well thought-out but a very difficult decision.

I'm stumped at how throwing out patrons mid-meal is "well thought out"? Strikes me more as deranged.

Wow..

I guess the restaurant was corporately owned..

Wouldn't happen like that if franchisees owned the store.. Not finishing meal and paying that is..

Agreed. There's nothing "well thought out" about chucking someone out mid-meal - unless you are intent on generating horrible PR, which this little stunt seems to have done a good job of doing.

More likely a scared low-level supervisory sort obeying
the letter rather than the spirit, and Corporate being
too dumb to have worded the missive right.

Anyhow, Marie Callender's is/will be no enormous loss.

No great loss. I've seen coupons for MC but have never been tempted enough to go in there.

Someone posted a few years earlier that these low-end restaurants popped up to cater to people who would normally hardly ever eat out because it wasn't really in their budget. Their clientele was marginal (as in ability to afford eating out) at best and with this recession, the clientele ave traded down (or arguably up, for some) to home cooking.