Second Restaurant

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At a large, popular restaurant, a reduction of 25 percent in the number of patrons each night would allow the management to get rid of the common long lines of people waiting to eat dinner. A second, partner restaurant, a 25 minute drive away, would, if refurbished, be an attractive alternative for half of the patrons who visit the first restaurant. Nevertheless, a waiter at the restaurant is confident that refurbishing the partner restaurant would not end the long lines at the original location.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to justify the waiter's position?

Refurbishing the second restaurant would require not only redecorating and new furniture, but also the creation of a menu suitable to that location's chef, which would be a substantially different menu from that of the original location.

A third location, next door to the first one, would be a perfectly attractive alternative to patrons of the first location, if minor adjustments to the storefront were made.

The second restaurant is located on a relatively undeveloped property which might be home to other attractive businesses--especially if traffic to the restaurant there were to grow.

If a patron has to wait to be seated at a given restaurant, there is an increased chance that that same person will not return again to the restaurant.

The first restaurant is inside the same shopping mall as a popular movie theater.

Review: Second Restaurant

Explanation

Reading the question: devouring the prompt, we learn about a popular restaurant, a partner restaurant, and an opining waiter. We're told that, if we can divert 25% of folks to restaurant #2, we get rid of the lines at restaurant #1. The question is, can we do it by improving the look of restaurant #2? The opining waiter says no. And our job is to justify the opining waiter's opinion.

Creating a filter: we can try using a basic relevance filter. Namely, which answer choice supports the waiter's opinion that the refurbishing won't work?

Applying the filter: Answer choice (A) is irrelevant to whether or not restaurant #2 can attract people away. Choice (B) doesn't matter: whether hypothetical restaurant #3 could draw people away doesn't impact whether restaurant #2 could draw people away. Choice (C) doesn't matter: it concerns what would happen after the plan worked, and we are concerned with whether it would work. Choice (D) tells us that lines ultimately lose customers. Maybe so, but restaurant #1 is good enough that even with the loss, the lines stay long. And it doesn't have anything to do with whether restaurant #2 can draw away patrons from #1. So (D) is out. What about (E)? We're wondering whether we can draw enough people to restaurant #2. Maybe the movie theater is enough of a magnet that they don't want to go over to #2. And we note, reviewing the prompt, maybe they don't want to drive. They have already parked for the movie, for example. It's the only option with a basic relevance to the waiter's position.

Logical proof: We can use the negation test to justify choice (E). If you negate directly, you get "The first restaurant is not inside the same shopping mall as a popular movie theater." That seems quite irrelevant. But in general, if a negated statement doesn't seem to make sense, you can try a more general or more specific version of the statement to see its impact on the argument. For example, "The first restaurant is not near any other customer attraction that would pull customers near restaurant #1 and make them want to stay nearby." Whether that statement is true makes a critical difference in the waiter's argument. The correct answer is (E).

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Second Restaurant