L.A. Restaurants Are Expanding To Saudi Arabia, But They Don’t Want To Talk About It

5 Likes

On one hand, great business opportunity on the other hand :face_vomiting:

5 Likes

Eugh. If I were taking money THAT dirty, I’d wanna keep quiet about it too…

I mean, I kinda get it. Someone points you toward a neverending firehose of cash, I don’t know that I would be above “well, just this once. I can make so much I can fund good stuff for the next 10 years!” rationalizing.

But no, I wouldn’t go telling too many folks.

Then again, half the movies I see are funded at least in part by Chinese or Saudi money in some for or other. The super-rich have their ways of getting into, (and thus taking a piece of) just about anything they want, because they can do so through so much obfuscation it’s not always apparent WHERE the $$ ultimately comes from.

I WANT to be able to be angrier than I am about this, but it seems too… inevitable.

14 Likes

That part. :100:

3 Likes
1 Like

What’s hard here is we’ve had 2+ years of limited revenue due to the pandemic and this seems like an easy cash cow.

That’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

1 Like

They’re probably getting paid Vegas-level money to open up there. Like an oil-rich Saudi Prince buying up a collection of brand restaurants the way he would pick and choose a collection of exotic zoo animals for his compound.

2 Likes