We just finished a big, long Roadster Factory thread 5 or 6 weeks ago, and
here we go with another one. This one started with Fred Thomas innocently
passing along some news about TRF closing their restaurant. The restaurant
was, in my opinion, a nice dream, but I questioned it when it opened and am
not surprised that it's closing. You need year-round clientele for such a
venture, not just in the summer when people can drive their LBCs to the
place.
Closing the restaurant is a good thing from a business viewpoint. It was
probably bleeding dollars that Charles needs for the parts business. We've
all seen many companies do exactly that in the past few years -- shedding
non-related subsidiaries and getting back to their core business, which in
this case is selling parts for our cars. Many of these companies are much
larger and more professionally managed, and they made some of the same
mistakes, and they are correcting them in much the same way.
Will TRF go belly-up in the near future? It's possible of course, but this
most recent change makes it less likely. To conclude, let's not make this
possibility a self-fulfilling prophesy. We should all continue to support
TRF, because it's still our best source of Triumph parts.
Sumner Weisman
62 TR3B
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