Blogs
To charge or not to charge?
We recently saw a restaurant come under fire in a Twitter feud after charging for extra gravy with its roast dinners. The restaurant, Pinion Bistro, in Prescot shared a picture of its Sunday menu, listing sides such as roast potato, Yorkshire pudding and extra gravy, for £1 – the restaurants was dubbed by one Twitter user as #stingy.
The Tweets sparked further debate in our office, with some feeling that extra condiments should be free however extra veg could potentially be charged for, although the majority didn’t think any extras should be charged for at all. We decided to ask our guests what they thought and a staggering 94% said that they do not expect to pay for extras.
But shouldn’t this be on a case by case basis? Some restaurants make gravy from scratch, taking up to three days to make whereas others use branded box gravy. Some operators charge more for their roasts, so are customers demanding more simply savvy guests ensuring they get their monies worth?
And should there be different rules for regular customers where providing a bit of extra veg or gravy is simply another form of loyalty discount? After all, if a regular guest asks for more, charging them and extra £1 could see them feeling unvalued and head to a competitor for their next Sunday roast.
We’d love to hear from our clients about your thoughts on this topic.
