GMAT Essays (AWA)

The president of Classy Steakhouse states that opening a new restuarant in the Downtown centre will be successful even though some other restaurants have closed down recently in the same area. Although author's claim may well have merit, his poorly reasoned argument is based on several questionable premises and arguments. Based solely on the evidence provided in the passage, author's conslusion can't be accepted as valid. Below mentioned are the issues in the argument.

Firstly, the president of the Classy Steakhouse states that two restaurants, a burger joint and a chinese restaurant have closed down in the past year. He mentions that this is not a concern and that Downtown Centre is suitable for location for business. The author fails to explain this. If restuarants are closing in a region then there could be less potential to do business in that area. For example, people may not be eating outside because of some epidemic that had spread . Also, there could be a common reasons for restaurants catering to differnt cuisines getting closed in an area like they are too expensive or don't have enough choices, it is possible that the same may be true for the Class Steakhouse restaurant to be opened in the area. This would undermine the president's premises that Downtown Centre is a good choice to open a new restaurant despite the failure of other restaurants.


Secondly, the president mentions about the success of Centre Caf, which has been in business for past twenty-five years. There could be several reasons for the success of Centre Caf such as its brand value, cost effective pricing, popularity of dishes that are exclusive to Centre caf and are different to Classy Steakhouse. This weakens authors assumption that new restaurant of Classy Steakhouse will be successful in the Downtown region.


Thirdly,author mentions the findings of a national report, which suggests that business executives are eating out more. But the author fails to establish how this will benefit the new restaurant that he proposes to open. The report's findings are at national level and doesn't mention specifically about the Downtown Centre. Also, does the new restaurant only cater to business excutives. It could be possible that business executives constitute a very small percentage of people that vist the restaurants in Downtown Centre. This would negate the use of the report as a support for author's decision.


In sum,author's illogical argument is based on unsubstantiated assumptions and unproved premises which render his conclusion invalid. If the author wants to convince his reader's on the issue then he has to provide more details on the reasons for closing down of the two restaurants, success of centre Caf and the details of the national report. In absence of all these he is unlikely to influence the opinion of many people.