Brief by Central Staff
Rural life – September 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
The August 2 edition of the Wall Street Journal had an article about the Applebee’s restaurant chain. Unlike its major competitors, like Chili’s, T.G.I. Friday’s, and Ruby Tuesday, the Applebee company has been expanding into the small cities of rural markets.
In this context, a rural market is a county with less than 50,000 people; according to the Census Bureau, 2,209 of America’s 3,141 counties fit that category. Among the cities in these small counties is Hays, Kan., population 21,000.:
“Yet its [Applebee’s] most audacious move may be its invasion of towns such as Hays, which sits about 300 miles from Denver and 300 miles from Kansas City in a region known as the middle of nowhere.”
Now we know where the “middle of nowhere” sits, and it’s about 450 miles from Central Colorado.
