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Michelin Man's New Business Plan: Give Stars to Faraway Restaurants to Force Tire Sales
(thelemmy.club)
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2026
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Does it actually make money for them somehow? Or does it just keep their name in the public's collective mind?
Maybe it associates their name with high quality as well.
It helped them sell more tires, it associated the tires name with higher quality, it made money by itself, and it pushed the mascot into an icon capable of making money by itself.
All for something that sounds like a dr. Doofenshmittz plan.
You have to remember that Michelin is a French company, so the Michelin star guide was originally about getting the French public to drive to French restaurants.
The French car-owning public... In 1900. So basically getting the ultra rich to drive to very expensive restaurants.
Even a restaurant with one star nowadays is a $60 seat minimum. The best restaurants in the world are expensive.
They also have given stars to hole in the walls and hawker stalls. Like this one
https://guide.michelin.com/en/article/travel/behind-the-scenes-the-world-s-first-michelin-starred-street-food-stall
There's one in Hong Kong that is famously inexpensive for a 1 star, like $10-15 USD for a meal of dim sum. I think I read somewhere it's the cheapest 1 star restaurant in the world.
Is that the one in the airport? It's fantastic.
The one I had in mind was Tim Ho Wan in Sham Shui Po, but they have restaurants throughout the city. But looking at the current Michelin Guide, I see it's just "Michelin recommended" as opposed to 1 star. I'm not sure if the rating has been changed since I went or if I'm mixing it up with a different one, but either way it was very good and service was crazy efficient! Gonna have to check out the one in the airport if I'm ever in HK again. The whole food scene in HK is great, never had a bad or even average meal there.
They were famous for referencing good restaurants, not only stared ones.
The state/county/province/whatever pays several million dollars for the guide to judge its restaurants.
Its a very valuable tourism and service industry development tool.
They make a bunch of money selling the guides.
It’s become a whole side business.
It's leeching money. The fine dining bills are through the roof. The cost of the guides, that few people actually buy, stand in Pqle comparison of having to buy multiple courses in the most expensive restaurants in the world.
Got a source for your claim Michelin loses money on the guides?
The source is the podcast 'no such thing as a fish', which is generally well sourced.
https://podcasts.musixmatch.com/podcast/no-such-thing-as-a-fish-01gv2bv14079rhv1ch6dvacmgt/episode/no-such-thing-as-fishing-in-the-sea-of-tranquility-01jdv42kt341n4r3tk1d3qpe9y
The quote in particular is from a Chicago chef, and it's localized. However the sales of the book themselves are marginal considering the cost of the system.
A bit of a tangential aside, but I always disliked that podcast name. Fish is a reasonable morphological and ecological term and the fact that people have tried to stretch it into a phylogenetic term is silly. Morphology is a perfectly legitimate way to describe something; it just gives you a different set of information.
Yeah it's a bit of an unfortunate name. They call it 'fish' for short, which is a bit contradictory too, as there now is a thing called fish.
I don't think they previsioned the shows succes
Shrugs. I have never eaten at a starred restaurant and I have never specifically purchased tires from Michelin.
I have, because they’re amazing tires for my climate- the cross climate ones.
Meanwhile the Michelin OEM tires on my car were the worse tires i ever had. Didnt last 20k miles and they didnt have much grip on dry pavement from day one.
OEM tires are engineered for gas mileage, not usefulness. It's all about the epa rating
You'd think after ford and firestone was sued for faulty tires they would change that.
I have both accidentally eaten at a Starred restaurant and unintentionally bought their tires. Happened to eat at a restaurant around the corner from a hotel in Spain that was Starred and only found out after. And got the garage to put new tires on and asked for the not totally cheapest but affordable and got their All Seasons.
Michelin tires are fine, I bought many of them because my favourite tire place sells a shitton of heavy truck tires from them so they have great discounts. And I've eaten at a starred restaurant because it was my friends'. Haven't loved the latter tho.
I would think it would be really hard for them to tell if it's working or not, but at this point the restaurant ratings are kind of their own institution and there would probably be a backlash if they shut it down.
The cost of eating in the finest establishments in the world, together with hotels, air-fare and double blind secrecy makes that it's a net money sink.