The Local Mexican Joint

For the past several years, a local joint has morphed itself from an Arctic Circle to a taco joint, to new management, to the most recent advent: a new restaurant name. I often wonder if they're still serving Actic Circle burgers, and morphing them into tacos? While I doubt that's possible or even tasteful, unless you like your Mexican tacos tasting like quasi-American burgers, I'm wondering what is going on there.

When we arrived in Hyrum, nearly three years ago, the Arctic Circle was in a state of demise. Now, I admit that I didn't sit there and count every customer walk through the door, but their customer base was lacking in numbers, and their food wasn't that bad. Well, compared to the McDonald's one block away, their food was pretty good. I enjoy Arctic Circle food for the most part and would much rather have that than McDonald's. But McDonald's does a damn good job of advertising and is cheap. Arctic Circle does OK advertising (they try to be funny) and are a little more expensive.

I learned an important concept several years ago from an acquaintance who was a former CEO for a large technology company:

There are crappy products out there that sell very well due to great advertising, and there are awesome products that sell very little to due to poor advertising. Averstising takes a lot of time, effot, and money. It is also difficult to measure the returns it can provide. However, advertising is a must for a small, local company.

As I mentioned, the Arctic Circle went out of business. The rumor is the owners couldn't pay their franchise fee, so Arctic Circle Corp. basically arrived at the restaurant, ripped down the sign, and left; all while the restaurant was open! Time for a change.

I don't know who bought the building and started a Mexican food joint (small, local company). I never went their. Never had the time or desire. It just seemed to me another Mexican restaurant (there are several really good Mexican restaurants in Logan, about 10 minutes away). Some of my friends ate there and mentioned that the food was OK. That wasn't convincing enough for me to invest outside of the McDonald's obesity factory, or travel 10 minutes for great Mexican food.

About every week the sign out front displayed a new daily special. It was written in Spanish and since I don't read Spanish I didn't have a desire to check it out (I'm sounding quite pessimistic here). Just kept changing and reading, not understanding, and finally, ignoring the sign. Yep, not interested, until...

Ooh, they are changing their hours! Open everyday, closed Tuesdays. Nope, still not going to go.

I believe from there on out they closed for another remodel, changed the name of the restaurant or changed management... whatever. In the end THEY DID NO ADVERTISING outside of their storefront sign. No radio ads, no local flyers, no TV commercials, no blaring children's music from an old postal truck driving around the neighborhood... nothing. I am predicting their demise again sometime in the near future, especially with the tightening of the economy, increasing prices on food commodities, and Americans closing their wallets.

That would be the perfect time to try their food...