Canada’s Garfield Restaurant is a Lesson in Ego
The immensely stupid story of Garfield EATS and the founder who learned little.
It’s not uncommon for businesses to fall head-first into memehood. After an ironic incident where Amazon used an image of Bernie Sanders to promote its fee-laden payment service, the lines between promotional and humorous images continue to fade. Still, PR departments seem a bit lost on the limits of “post-irony.”
Chain restaurants are often the worst offenders here. I still periodically shiver when I remember Wendy’s rage-inducing “Like a Boss” ad from 2015. GrubHub is currently under fire for making a nearly unwatchable animated monstrosity. Proper use of meme culture produces ads that improve public image but quickly lose relevance. Companies leverage against this by making commercials that make you furious enough to stay in your head forever.
I believe the best middle ground between memorability and likability is absurdism. I think about the Quiznos “spongmonkeys” commercial far more than I should, nearly two decades after its release. The difficulty in pulling off a surreal ad is that they usually become obnoxious when made intentionally. Enter Garfield EATS, a company whose entire brand is stupid and absurd, and they mean it from the bottom of their heart.
What is Garfield EATS?
It’s a beautiful dumpster fire, a fast-and-loose play on Uber’s copyright, and a wonderful example of the out-of-touch ventures trust fund kids will attempt if left to their own devices. Most importantly, in its own words, Garfield EATS is “the first Garfield quick mobile restaurant.” Largely due to lack of competition, they’re the world’s favorite supplier of loosely Garfield-shaped pizzas, lasagna, and the “Garficcino,” an orange coffee drink whose name I certainly just typed.
What I should say is this was the business model of Garfield EATS before the pandemic. After a strange series of social media attacks on their landlord, they closed their storefront in November. Their current business model “aggressively continues to sell merchandise and Frozen Cow Big Lasagnas only which you can throw in the oven at any time.”
In other words, they’re hemorrhaging money and trying to recoup as best they can by selling Garficcino cups for $20 alongside their only food that hasn’t spoiled.
Nathen Mazri founded the first restaurant in Dubai in 2018, originally as an app-based delivery service, and later as a string of stores. The cartoon’s creator, Jim Davis, filmed a short promotional clip for the brand with all the natural charisma of someone at gunpoint. His mouth begrudgingly opens for the word “Entergagement,” a term Mazri made up to describe apps that are “both entertaining and engaging”. Nevermind that entertainment is meant to engage, but you can’t have an oil heir running a cat-themed startup without new and insufferable corporate jargon.
They claimed 10k App Store downloads, although considering how odd the business is, most of them were probably just for curiosity’s sake. The app is gone now, and it seems what remains of their business is the stockpile sold on their homepage.
Why is Garfield EATS?
Great question, dear reader. I wish I could tell you. My best guess is a mix of affluence, inexperience, corporate bro culture, and a bordering-on-unhealthy obsession with Garfield.
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Nathen Mazri is a colorful eccentric, but I certainly wouldn’t consider him an honest or skillful businessman. About a year ago, he penned an article for Medium titled “Google Reviews Destroy Young Entrepreneurship” in which he goes off about his potential to be the next Steve Jobs, if only it weren’t for those pesky user reviews violating, in his words, “Ethical rights.”
This isn’t the only evidence for Mazri’s beef with Google, several popular YouTubers have documented dozens of phony reviews on his Google business page. This page has also disappeared, though I talked with Teya from Strange Aeons last week and she’s allowed me to use her screencaps:
Uncanny and overly enthusiastic as some of these reviews are, the horror story continues as you get into the one-star reviews. A number of vendors and the building’s landlord claim to be owed debts by Garfield EATS:
Clearly, Nathen Mazri’s opinion piece and his Google review operation weren’t enough to save his business, and many of its financial woes existed before the pandemic began. A uniquely bizarre concept helped him build thousands of followers on social networks and create media buzz, but they weren’t enough to sell his food.
Perhaps the biggest problem with his business model was the market segments it targeted. Though its signage and color scheme don’t hint at anything more than a novelty store, the rest of its branding spreads itself too thin. Garfield EATS is very proud of its farm-to-table ingredients, its charitable efforts, and its delivery service.
If Garfield EATS wants to be a delivery business, it should focus on doing that well. If it wants to be a health-food store, it should brand accordingly. If it wants to be a tourist attraction, it should place its store in the vicinity of tourists. I can’t imagine there’s much overlap between Garfield fanatics, health nuts, children, and Bloorcourt Village locals.
So, What Have We Learned?
Apparently, not a ton. In August of last year, Mazri created a new series of social media accounts titled Scooby-Doo EATS. Even after generally negative reception from food reviewers, local media, and meme queens, Mazri managed to pull off yet another licensing deal, this time with Warner Bros. Pictures.
Though Scooby-Doo EATS doesn’t yet seem interested in a brick-and-mortar store, Mazri’s existing frozen food business doesn’t seem to be going well. You can’t find Garfield EATS lasagnas in grocery stores, and the website only ships them in Toronto.
Though there are Scooby-Doo food products that sell well already, namely Betty Crocker’s “Scooby Snack” fruit chews, Mazri hasn’t yet shown a knack for producing food that actually tastes good, much less one for getting it into stores.
Another glaring issue is corporate buyouts. The reason that Garfield EATS has so much non-food merchandise lying around is that Disney and Viacom, the two companies that have owned the Garfield character in the last few decades, have given them merchandise they’re no longer invested in selling. Though this gives Mazri a cheap supply of Garfield products from different decades, it also means that bad publicity can cause his contract to be dropped before renewal. This issue could still wreak havoc on his Warner deal.
This also gives Nathen Mazri a perfect opportunity. He has a cheap and consistent supply line for Garfield collectibles, many of which are decades old and in pristine condition. There’s a surprising number of Garfield collectors out there, all of whom could easily be targeted through Facebook ads, and I can’t find a website that sells to this market specifically. Better yet, many Garfield-centric content creators love Mazri; he even went out of his way to sort out a shipping disaster while delivering a rare plushie to media critic Quinton Reviews.
Garfield EATS was a mess, and its founder seems intent on repeating its most crucial mistakes. Even with my criticisms, I still believe Nathen Mazri has an exceptional talent for making deals with media companies. If he applies this talent to the food market again, he may damage his business reputation permanently. If he uses it wisely, he can become a figurehead in his niche, revolutionize the industry of collectibles, and have a functional business for years to come.
