system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Were there restaurants/bars/cafes in the Soviet Union?

You always hear about things like "bread lines" and "food shortages" in the Soviet Union, how did restaurants function with these supply issues? Or were there simply no restaurants to speak of?

When McDonalds opened in Moscow they set up their own supply chain, but surely they can't have been the only restaurant in town.
gpt
Yes, there was plenty of bars, restaurants, cafes in the Soviet Union - even in the early days. 

Lenin believed a certain amount of capitalist enterprise was *healthy* for an economy to be efficient. For example, he allowed farmers to sell privately *any* grain they produce over their quota. This incentivized meeting quotas! 

Of course, in the Soviet Union - the realty property was owned by the government, who authorized restaurant permits. This was difficult, even today. In the US, we give permits to just about anyone. In Eastern Europe, you had go through an elaborate process to *prove* your store would be successful, prove your business sense, etc. What you get is a skewed statistic. We look at the US, "oh, over 50% of restaurants fail within the first year!" - but in Russia, it maybe 10% that fail within the first year. However, only the best of the best entrepreneurs get a *chance* to try.

Grocery stores in the Soviet Union were different than here. You would give the clerk your shopping list, and they'd gather the product for you and check you out. All the food was behind the counter.  You can pay for it in cash, and it was expensive, but there's not a particularly long line - no different than entering a bakery in the US for example. 

There was a lot of rationing - and the government would alot a certain amount of bread and milk per family (free at point of pickup). When supplies ran short (usually in the winter.. cause few imports, nothing grows), there was long lines for government bread. The traditional stores still had bread, but it was marked up significantly. Most people waited.

After Gorbachev's Glasnost Policy, the Soviet Union no longer had any trouble with long lines or supply shortages.