{"id":34,"date":"2008-02-13T18:39:39","date_gmt":"2008-02-13T23:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=34"},"modified":"2021-08-30T19:50:06","modified_gmt":"2021-08-30T23:50:06","slug":"brusters-real-ice-cream-beltline-at-forest-sort-of-winter-07","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=34","title":{"rendered":"Bruster's Real Ice Cream, 2313 North Beltline Boulevard at Forest: (sort of) Winter 07"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This one is not a \"real\" closing, but I thought it was kind of odd, so I'm going to note it.<\/p>\n

I had noticed Bruster's Real Ice Cream<\/i> in a few locations before ever stopping by, and it seemed to me that there was always a crowd standing around outside for some reason. When I finally did stop by, I found that the reason is that there is no \"inside\", at least for customers. All the business is done through walk-up windows, even though the buildings are plenty big enough to have counters inside. The ice cream is pretty good, but certainly not noticably better than Baskin Robbins, Ben & Jerry's, Coldstone or Marble Slab, all of which operations have counters and seats inside. I can't really think of why the chain would adopt such a concept, except to \"be different\". It's a concept I can see working well in resort areas, but it seems ill-suited to year-round markets. If you get a hankering for ice-cream in November, are you going to go somewhere warm, or stand outside Bruster's?<\/p>\n

I noticed a month or two ago that the store on Beltline at Forest had been dark a while, and I stopped by to see what was going on. There were signs in the windows saying that they were closed for \"renovations & training\" and would be open again early in 2008. Well, it is now early in 2008, and they are still closed. Since it is a brand-new building, and I have seen no work trucks at the site, the renovations<\/i> angle is puzzling, and I have to wonder what kind of training the staff at this store needed that isn't needed at their other locations, especially since it was a going operation. If I were to speculate, I would say that their business model just doesn't work in the winter at non foot traffic sites. But I would never do that.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 27 March 08<\/b>: Looks like the place is for sale, but for sale as a Bruster's franchise, not as just a building:<\/p>\n

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I wish him(?) luck, but those \"loyal customers\" the \"for sale\" sign references have had half a year to find other creameries..<\/p>\n

UPDATE 31 March 09<\/b>:<\/p>\n

Well, they backed a truck up to the place and loaded all the equipment and took down the signs. That was in January I think and so far nothing has gone in there.<\/p>\n

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UPDATE 8 June 2010<\/b> -- Well, it's going to be a Hibachi Express<\/i> \"soon\", though it seems like the \"soon\" sign has been up a month or so, and there doesn't look to have been any interior work done..<\/p>\n

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UPDATE 23 Dec 20<\/b>-- Hibachi Express<\/i> is open:<\/p>\n

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UPDATE 30 August 2021<\/b>: Updating tags, adding map icon.<\/p>\n

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This one is not a \"real\" closing, but I thought it was kind of odd, so I'm going to note it. I had noticed Bruster's Real Ice Cream in a few locations before ever stopping by, and it seemed to me that there was always a crowd standing around outside for some reason. When I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1707],"tags":[127,3316,269,96,310,34,3,30],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-closing","tag-beltline-boulevard","tag-brusters-real-ice-cream","tag-forest-acres","tag-forest-drive","tag-hibachi","tag-ice-cream","tag-restaurants","tag-richland-mall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}