Food Writing 101: The Food Business

Disclaimer: Submitted this for my Food Writing class at Stanford. This is the original with no copywriting edits made. Grade: A

Ferran Adria presenting one of their creations at elBulli. San Francisco, 2011

Death of elBulli: The Ruthless Business of Food
            In 2009, I submitted my recommendation report for my Advanced Marketing elBulli case study for my final exam in business school at Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands. At that time, elBulli, located in Catalonia, Spain, was heralded as the “World’s Best Restaurant.” My classmates and I discussed its promising future and planned when we could enjoy elBulli’s 30-course “last supper” as we fondly called it.
Two years later, however, elBulli shocked the world when its chef/owner, Ferran Adrià, a culinary genius, announced that the restaurant was going to shut down. The Economist reported that elBulli made losses of approximately $700,000 per year[1]. For Fortune 500 companies, this might not sound like a huge loss. Nevertheless for a restaurant with elBulli’s stature- exclusive, always full-house, Michelin 3-star, best restaurant of the world year over year - this amount is very surprising and undoubtedly frustrating for Chef Adrià despite having earned the accolade as Chef of the Decade in 2010[2].
It boiled down to lackluster financials. With 2 million requests for one of the 8,000 dining seats per season in which elBulli is open for just 6 months a year and an average meal costing $325, elBulli was still not able to offset operating costs. Evidently, The Guardian best sums up elBulli’s problems in an article entitled “If the World’s Greatest Chef Cooked for a Living, He'd Starve,” stating that the restaurant was operating at a loss since 2000[3].
Not only is the restaurant industry plagued with the notion that 60% of restaurants fail in the first year of business, but also the death of elBulli is a perfect example that regardless of its world renowned culinary experience, great customer service and top ratings and awards, achieving a profitable restaurant business is difficult to do. Therefore, if you’re thinking about opening a restaurant as a business or as an investment, think again. Comparatively, you might be better off investing in or creating a startup where unprofitable yet popular, young companies, such as Instagram and Groupon, are acquired in billions of dollars or go public, rewarding early staged investors and founders.   
Moving forward, Chef Adrià publicized last year during his book tour in San Francisco, California their plans for recreating the defunct restaurant space into the elBulli Foundation, a culinary think-tank of sustainability and creativity set to open in 2014. The elBulli Foundation has tapped large corporations as investors and partnered with top MBA schools in Europe and the U.S. for students to work on a case study competition about elBulli Foundation’s long-term strategy; now, Chef Adrià and his team are taking a different, business-focused approach for their new endeavor.


[1] M.S, Creativity and business studies: From liquid raviolis to illiquid businesses. http://www.economist.com/whichmba/creativity-and-business-studies-liquid-raviolis-illiquid-businesses (Oct 2011).

[3] If the World’s Greatest Chef Cooked for a Living, He’d Starve, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/futureoffood/story/0,,1969713,00.html (2007).

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