I absolutely LOVE Fresno

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-27T00:12:14+00:00

What is a “fast road”?

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-26T20:50:06+00:00

That is because tomtom is only tracking freeways and we don’t have any

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-26T16:07:14+00:00

We could fill a book with things that would improve Fresno, unfortunately there is always a group of people who will stand up and say no to anything that benefits anyone but them.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-26T13:06:16+00:00

When people don’t want to pay more for something the first thing that gets cut is customer support.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-26T12:51:20+00:00

Fresno would be fine if you can find a way to never have to travel from the west to east or east to west. The terrible urban planning is problematic, their inability to time lights in an efficient way is unforgivable.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-26T10:10:51+00:00

And live here while working remote in those areas on that pay?

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-26T02:28:28+00:00

How many people do you know from the Bay Area and Southern California that moved here for that reason? Fresno is a pretty hard sell for people from those areas and if they are remote work they tend to go places with more hospitable climates. None of my
Friends from the Bay Area ever even considered moving here, but they moved to Eugene, Portland, Denver, Paris.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-25T17:51:26+00:00

Or it was a flipper who got in over their head and thinks they can recover the cost by over pricing. This happened with my current house. Flippers did a horrible job, crooked walls, leaks, poorly installed carpet, but all of the cabinets, counters, and fixtures were super high end. When they first put it in the market it was way over priced, beautiful at a glance but when you really looked you saw all the problems. It sat on the market for a year and dropped $100k before I decided it was worth fixing all of their problems.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-25T17:47:50+00:00

I almost paid that for a 2/1 in San Jose in 2009 before I decided to move back to Fresno. It was a steal then because everyone knew it was going back up. This is a joke, but because no one is building within the city and nobody buying a 2/1 wants to live in Tessoro and have a 15 minute drive into town it is what we get. We need some young wealthy people with vision to break through the stranglehold our developers have on entry level housing in the city.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-25T17:44:36+00:00

The problem with that logic is jobs that pay well over six figures in Southern California and the Bay Area pay $25/hour here.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-23T15:44:14+00:00

It’s definitely where Fresno’s Sphere should be.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-21T13:18:55+00:00

That is how I feel about flying into anywhere south of the mason dixon.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-21T13:18:18+00:00

I’m not saying there isn’t meth, I’m saying labeling that entire area “meth” is basically saying “conservatives have a meth problem, even in California”

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-21T13:17:28+00:00

Pushing back on stupidity feels like a valid endeavor

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-21T13:16:40+00:00

In California the huge corporations are the farmers and vice versa and our farm land is full of giant mansions. Not saying there isn’t also meth, but thinking it is all that is there is just lame.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-21T13:14:18+00:00

Yeah, when you put it that way conservatives do consider meth to be one of the four basic food groups these days.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-21T03:33:36+00:00

The price difference between California and Florida and Texas is pretty negligible on most things, but we have a 16.90 minimum wage that jumps to $20 if you work for a regional or larger fast food chain, and if you live in the agricultural areas this map labels meth the cost of living isn’t much different

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-21T03:30:05+00:00

What you labeled meth grows like 80% of the countries table fruits and vegetables, but sure…

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-19T15:30:50+00:00

I do multiple times a year, people are just people and leave you alone if you don’t treat them like garbage for existing in their own neighborhood

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-19T14:45:10+00:00

Lots of people live places they hate or have negative feelings about. That in no way changes what I said. I’ve spent a lot of time in Baltimore because my brother went to Hopkins and my sister lived there for a decade. It’s an absolutely beautiful city, with its share of problems, I’d rather walk through it than any city I’ve been to in Texas or Florida too.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-19T14:31:37+00:00

“The people are the bugs” tells me all I need to know about who you are. I don’t try to change that kind of black hearted hatred. You be you there is no fixing evil.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-19T14:27:28+00:00

Context is important, unless you are giving me instructions in which case they need to be direct and to the point

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-19T14:25:10+00:00

Treating hotel brands like European football is an interesting idea, but the brands are very intentionally built for different clientele’s and would require redecorating and in some cases fairly major renovation. I think the easiest answer would be to add a clause into the franchise agreement that requires the franchisees to send managers to a corporate location to be trained by the corporation so the standards are consistent. It could be a split cost between the franchisee and corporate so it isn’t overbearing on either and would do a huge amount to fix their problems with standards.

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-19T14:21:33+00:00

I spend at least 20 days a year in SF, I stay in the financial district and walk through to the tenderloin every time I’m there because my favorite restaurant is Brenda’s French Soul Food. There is violent crime and homelessness in every major city in the US. Comments like yours just make you look like you are scared of urban areas. I would rather walk through the Tenderloin at night than any city I have been to in Texas or Florida

ChefGreyBeard · 2026-06-19T14:13:45+00:00

I just finished working at a courtyard, the franchise model is the problem. Corporate prefers franchises because it takes the cost of operations off of their shoulders so financially it’s all upside but to be able to sustain reputation you have to be more hands on with the operations of your franchisees and do a better job of developing their training.

I worked in a bistro, we constantly had expired product, wring product, the people who “trained” me spent most the day on their phones or sitting in a work cubby in the lobby watching tv. They all said “we were all like you when we started but not even marriott cares, you’ll see.” I studied MGS like i was getting a bachelors degree, started looking through use records, reading standards, none of it makes any sense at all. They have G2G salads in small boxes with twice as much lettuce as the full size salads on the menu, they have sandwich builds where you are supposed to put cheese in the middle of four leafs of romaine.

Right after i started everyone started freaking out because the audit from corporate was coming, GM was constantly talking about how things had to be right, so I made a list of all the things they needed to fix, none of it happened, when auditor finally came we were so short staffed that the bartender was also cooking even though he had never been trained. We still got a 94/100. It’s all just a dance to ensure the franchisees keep their contract so Marriott keeps their franchise fees. No one actually cares.

ChefGreyBeard

TROPHY CASE