Turkish Restaurant Bids us Goodbye - Why oh Why?

[The Choonies]

The Turkish restaurant has gone. It wasn't that long ago it opened. It started slowly but then it quickly improved. I used it often and Thomas, Mary and I loved it there.

I can't believe it's gone - but gone it has and moved to Dalian. How did we allow this treasure to escape so easily.

They spoke English, they worked hard to please the foreign community - they couldn't be nicer, they were our friends.

We, our community, should have supported them more. We should have organised events there,we should have promoted them more, they should have had a presence on CCF website, we should have made it difficult for them to leave us. 

We only find out they are gone because the premises are empty, the doors are locked and a farewell note is stuck to their window. Were they even members of CCF?

So what does Dalian have that we don't have?

We should be able to influence things here but we don't even notice most of the time.

Their is a big community of foreigners here and we have all the tools we need to attract and support all sorts of ventures, especially restaurants that cater for us and give the community another choice.

What a damn pity! 

[Downtown David - 白大伟]

The Turkish restaurant was aware of CCF, In fact I was in there the second day they opened and let them know about using this website to communicate with the foreign community.  I let Aussie Matt know about the place and a review was posted in CCL a week later.  

But I dont think they closed because of a lack of business, they was a good lunchtime crowd there and dinner sometimes there was no tables at all.  There was a good cross section of the foreign community always there and they all seemed to be happy, but the Chinese people I spoke with sometimes gave it mixed reviews. Not their cup of tea or the meat was too dry for them.   

We were lucky we had a good restaurant for a few months and it will sorely be missed.

BTW, Paul's Pizza may be closing in a few weeks, (Paul is immigrating to Montreal) so everyone should go there to get there great pizza before we lose them too.

[The Choonies]

Well the way most people here do it is by creating a blog like this one and/or posting a status.

The problem is it can get lost depending on it's popularity. If people pick up on it - like this blog then everybody gets to know about the Turkish restaurant as word will spread easily now.

But I think we are asking the same question- how can we structure say this tool CCF to collate information in a useful way and garner all that information that the members have.

[Kim Tonkin]

I know the Turkish restaurant didn't fail,and I've seen the restaurant guide and the survival guide and they're both great. It was just that this conversation got me thinking that there must be so many cool places that members of the foreign community know about but that don't get talked about outside of a persons group of friends and so don't get a mention on any websites.

I'm not sure how the restaurant guide hears about restaurants but if I happened to stumble on a new pizza / Indian /Mexican/ Turkish / whatever restaurant in some out of the way part of town and I didn't know the person who run the website I'm not sure I'd be able to put the word out there. Or not quickly and easily at least.

The same goes for if, for example, I found a shop selling marmite and vegemite. I know most Kiwis and Aussies would love to know about it and obviously the shop owner would want me telling everyone too, but I'm not sure it'd be an easy thing to do.

If there was an easy way for people to let everybody else know about these places I think it would benefit everyone.

[The Choonies]

Plus Changchun Live do a restaurant guide but I'm not sure they invite the restaurants to get involved with CCF. We just need to get these links in place. We also have groups to deal with finding things in Changchun but again they are somewhat buried and easily forgotten. We need some way of structuring our groups as many are good ideas but rarely visited or updated - I have a few myself that I should delete.

[Chris Knight]

There is already a group for that, The Changchun Survival Guide,

http://richardroman.ning.com/group/the-changchun-survival-guide

The business wasn't failing, Kim. It was always busy.

[Kim Tonkin]

I think a lot of the places that come and go fail because nobody knows they are there. They rely on word of mouth or people walking past the place and seeing their sign as their main form of advertising. If they want to reach the foreign community they should be advertising on CCF but maybe they don't know that.

Maybe CCF could consider setting up a function on the site where members who find a new place could post the details here. Not just restaurants, shops that sell things foreigners want to buy eg; shoes / clothes in larger sizes. Everyone would benefit from it.

[The Choonies]

I like the idea of asking Tolga. It would be nice to know if we could have done something. His note shows he did care and as someone said, usually most just disappear without a note.

So send an email Jeff or post it here and we can send a joint email wishing him great success in Dalian and getting some feedback on why the restaurant closed.

And it's great to see you on CCF so frequently Alex - we need you back here.

[Alex]

Yes, King. I had the pleasure to met the guy and eat there few times. But is not a close friend. Please share the article. Martin, you're right. For me the biggest disappointment was of course the departure of the Italian chef at Milano, the restaurant in wal mart at chongqin Lu. That still hurts. And yet with SHOGHI we tried to keep him bu we didn't not have enough funds to open something for him to perform. What to do?

[The Choonies]

Of course it's not CCF's fault. It's just another missed opportunity.

What I am saying is we should structure ourselves so we can attract restaurants such as this. We watch so many come and go and I think we could influence this more.

Yes, Alex we've had great Indian restaurants, French, Mexican, etc and we could at least invite them into Changchun Friends and help them contact our membership. Maybe RIchard's idea of a discount card would be perfect.

I suppose because Changchun is now my home, I want these restaurants to stay more than most. Remember, variety is the spice of life.

[CCF Beijing]

Alex- do you actually know Tolga? I just wrote an article about his Turkish restaurant. Give me your e-mail and I will send you the link. I am going to show everyone the article at the World Life Club tonight.