CR- When Bob's Bistro opened in the town of Monstrose...

[kyma343]

When Bob’s Bistro opened in the town of Montrose last year, the proprietors of Andrew’s Eatery, the only other restaurant in town, feared that their business would suffer. Surprisingly though, in the past year the average number of meals per day served at Andrew’s Eatery has actually increased significantly.

Which of the following, if true, provides the best explanation for this occurrence?
A) The meals at Andrew’s Eatery are substantially lower in price than those offered at Bob’s Bistro.
B) Bob’s Bistro is closed on Sundays, and so for Sunday brunch residents of Montrose would either go to Andrew’s Eatery or venture to a neighboring town.
C) The profit per meal is higher, on average, at Bob’s Bistro than it is at Andrew’s Eatery.
D) Bob’s Bistro attracts a large number of patrons that had never dined in Montrose before, and on many days Bob’s Bistro attracts more customers than it can seat.
E) Andrew’s Eatery serves considerably more meals on weekends than it does on weekdays, which is not the case at Bob’s Bistro.

I chose E because i would think a better reason, the fact that they serve more would have a correlation to it still doing better than Bob's Bistro (because it has more time for customers to come in for a meal.) HOwever, the answer is D and i am not sure why.

Please explain if you can at your earliest convenience.

Thank you,
~KM

[htchanit]

I prefer "D" to "E" in this case. My reason is if Andrew’s Eatery serves variety of food on weekend then it is not relevant to the event of Bob’s Bistro's opening last year.

[jkandas]

How does answer choice D help explain the increase in number of meals at Andrew's eatery? I was looking A.

Could you please confirm if D is the official answer?

[kyma343]

The correct answer is D but i am not sure why.

[kevinmarmstrong]

If D is true, where do hungry diners go Bob's is full ?

[gsingh058]

I will also choose D. The argument says Andrew Eatery had anticipated that Bob's Bistro would have negative impact on its business but actually Bob Bistro has impacted positively as average no. of meals/day at Andrew has increased. The only option which has positive outcome on Andew Eatery is D because Bob's Bistro has attracted new customers who perhaps would not have visited Montrose if Bob's Bistro had not been there. It has attracted the new customer so overall customer pool has increased and these new customers are not only going to eat at Bob's Bistro but also at Andrew's Eatery(Andrew Eatery is only other restaurant). This has impacted Andrew's business positively.

A : We don't know if price is the criterion for customers. We can't take this assumption. It is not mentioned in the argument and we have to bind ourselves strictly with what has been given in the argument.
B. Only 1 day can't affirm that overall average/day has increased. Also it says the customers might go to Andew or another town. We don't have any concrete numbers to decipher it.
C. We can't deduce anything from it as we don't know the relation of average meal with revenue or costs. If we think far , this is infact weakening the argument.
D This is the correct option
E. if Andrew E serves more meal that doesn't mean more custmers.

Thanks,
Gags

[kyma343]

But if you serve more meals than your competitors, doesn't it mean more customers will come at all hours to come to eat therefore increase in business?

[RonPurewal]

when you get questions like this, the first thing you should do is paraphrase the question into simpler terms.

let's do that here:
we need to figure out why MORE people ate at andrew's after bob opened a competing restaurant.
that's pretty much it -- this is the crux of the question. on the other hand, figuring this out is actually the hard part of the question!
to the two users who got wrong answers -- did you figure this out?

--

How does answer choice D help explain the increase in number of meals at Andrew's eatery? I was looking A.

the problem with choice (a) is that it doesn't explain the INCREASE in customers at andrew's.

if the prices at andrew's are substantially lower than those at bob's, then that's enough to explain why the number of customers would not decrease -- i.e., it gives sufficient justification for the statement that andrew's current customers would not defect over to bob's -- but it gives no justification whatsoever for an actual increase in the number of customers.

the only choice that justifies the presence of additional customers is choice (d), which states explicitly that the opening of bob's brought new customers into the downtown area.

--

But if you serve more meals than your competitors, doesn't it mean more customers will come at all hours to come to eat therefore increase in business?

read the question carefully!

it appears that several posters on this thread misread choice (e) as saying that andrew's actually serves more meals than bob's.

that's totally not what the statement says.
choice (e) says only that andrew's serves more meals on weekends than on weekdays (and that the reverse is true for bob's), an idea that has nothing to do with anything in the argument.

[akhp77]

I agree with D because Bob’s Bistro attracts more customers than the availability of seat it had. So, rest of the customers has gone to Andrew’s Eatery.

E - weekends and weekdays are not mentioned in statement

[RonPurewal]

I agree with D because Bob’s Bistro attracts more customers than the availability of seat it had. So, rest of the customers has gone to Andrew’s Eatery.

E - weekends and weekdays are not mentioned in statement

yep.

see my post above for more detail.

[abhishek.gautam01]

Hey Ron,

I really liked the way you simplified the problem by paraphrasing it.

Kudos

[mschwrtz]

Yes, nice work Ron.

[watzmyname]

I agree with D because Bob’s Bistro attracts more customers than the availability of seat it had. So, rest of the customers has gone to Andrew’s Eatery.

How can it be assumed that if Bob's Bistro is full, the remaining customers WILL go to Andrew's Eatery only?

[aliassad]

In this question we need to use our common sense to figure out such stuff. The stem mentions that there are only two eateries in town if , for instance, someones goes out to eat and cannot find the place at Bob's bistro then that person will go to Andrew's eatery rather than do nothing.


Plus in verbal questions, unlike quantitative problems, it is not helpful to look at the answers in isolation. We need to choose the best or least worst option.

[RonPurewal]

How can it be assumed that if Bob's Bistro is full, the remaining customers WILL go to Andrew's Eatery only?

this is the wrong way to think about the task at hand.

your job is not to prove anything. rather, your job is simply to pick the choice that could reasonably explain the weirdness of the observed phenomenon, within the sphere of foreseeable common-sense / real-world possibilities.

if you are thinking about "explain the situation" problems in terms of what MUST happen or what DEFINITELY WILL be true, then, well, you won't be able to solve any of them.