5 ms·

Raising prices would reduce the volume of customers, so the restaurant could maintain its quality standard, but Stanich felt his mission was to give back to the

by mujoco 8y ago

Raising prices would reduce the volume of customers, so the restaurant could maintain its quality standard, but Stanich felt his mission was to give back to the local community of regular diners. He didn't want to price out regular, repeat customers from the neighborhood and have only tourists eating there.

craftyguy 8y ago
Others in this thread have suggested that the restaurant give locals a 'locals card', which would allow them to purchase food at a more reasonable price.
- willyt 8y ago
  Burger pass. $30 for a burger pass. Gets you burgers for $4 for the rest of the year. or pay $20 for a burger now. You can secretly give out burger passes to locals when the tourists aren't looking.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jcater 8y ago
    I live in a touristy area with lots of great, but high demand and correspondingly high priced, restaurants. Several of the local places do "frequent diner/visitor" loyalty cards, where the 5th or 9th meal (for restaurants), coffee (coffee shops), etc are free. This offsets the otherwise high prices charged on menu items. Also, once a year (during the off season, of course), the local high school sells a booster card that gets a percent discount off for the entire year at numerous local places. This is of course not unique to a touristy area, but I find myself using them far more often than in other places I've lived.
  - lozaning 8y ago
    Smashburger actually had something close to this for a while. SmashPasss, it was like $100 bucks for the right to get a burger a day for 100 days. https://smashburger.com/smashpass/ https://smashburger.com/smashpass/
  - starshadowx2 8y ago
    This sounds like a super good idea to me, I really love it. Seems pretty simple but just makes a lot of sense. Any person travelling just coming by for the "best burger" probably would not want to spend $34 and not use that card anymore so $20 sounds great. Any regular would probably be super cool with paying that extra $30 knowing they can get a burger once a week or whatever for $4. This works out for the restaurant and the regulars, and like you said they can just hand out those cards to anyone for any reason.
- chaostheory 8y ago
  Why not just look at driver's licenses and student ids instead? Disney parks do the same thing - cheaper prices for locals
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Well, sure, but having the customer flash a card to the employee would save more time than having the customer hand over the card for inspection by an employee.
    - chaostheory 8y ago
      Wouldn't checking an already existing ID card be easier vs printing up and distributing specialized cards?
      - craftyguy 8y ago
        The point is, there are ways to distinguish between locals and non-locals. There are merits and drawbacks to having your own ID card vs. using a state ID card.
    - stickfigure 8y ago
      ...but it would invite a secondary market for these cards. The logistics of fabricating them would suck, and you have to look at an ID to judge if a card should offered anyway. Plus having special cards feels corporate, not homey. Looking at an ID for locals discount is pretty well trodden ground.
      - craftyguy 8y ago
        > but it would invite a secondary market for these cards There are already markets for fake IDs, so unless you're suggesting that small local restaurants purchase scanners to confirm the authenticity of each ID, it would be relatively easy to circumvent this check too. (Some states require IDs to be scanned for selling alcohol, but many, e.g. in Oregon, do not, and the only check is some employee looking at a card in their hands for a couple of seconds) > Plus having special cards feels corporate Not at all. Plenty of local restaurants in my are (Portland, OR) have rewards cards, where you get stamps and a free meal after some amount of stamps.
daveslash 8y ago
What about raising prices (at the exclusion of the locals), and then using the increased revenue to philanthropically give back to the community in a meaningful way?
- geofft 8y ago
  There are some things in a capitalist society that are the domain of philanthropy, and some things that are not. A school or library might be a suitable target of philanthropy, but a burger place or pub or barber shop isn't; there's no way to fund it and have it end up the same sort of place it would be on its own. At best, it can be a target of a GoFundMe or something - but that's just to pay operating costs. The store itself has to operate like a normal capitalist store for the concept to work, accepting customers, charging money, etc. There is no concept in our society of a non-profit burger joint.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    Can't you buy a burger place, reduce the price to give zero profit, adjust the price on the fly to ensure zero profit. Sure you won't necessarily meet demand, but there's no inherent reason quality need suffer(?). Or, have a coop where staff wages soak up all excess revenue, giving zero profit. You'd want a contingency, and a savings account if you seek to expand the business, but they're not profit. We could do that with all businesses I think.
    - dcow 8y ago
      I love this idea: zero profit capitalism. Sure some people would abuse savings accounts more than others, but taxing standing profits on a gradually increasing scale the longer they stand (sure the market already does this at a minute level, but it's not enough to deter wealth hoarding) seems like an effective way to solve the wealth extraction problem corporations introduce.
      - ryneandal 8y ago
        Brings to mind Paul Newman: https://newmansown.com/ https://newmansown.com/
jrochkind1 8y ago
Also... he was just burned out. An experience many here may identify with. That's why the place is still closed. It's possible there was something he could have done to make things good again... if he wasn't too burned out by the experience to figure it out and carry it out.
ryanwaggoner 8y ago
And how did that work out? Maybe a better approach would be to jack prices up sky high for tourists and open another burger joint with a different name for locals.

by mujoco 8y ago

craftyguy 8y ago

Others in this thread have suggested that the restaurant give locals a 'locals card', which would allow them to purchase food at a more reasonable price.

willyt 8y ago
Burger pass. $30 for a burger pass. Gets you burgers for $4 for the rest of the year. or pay $20 for a burger now. You can secretly give out burger passes to locals when the tourists aren't looking.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jcater 8y ago
  I live in a touristy area with lots of great, but high demand and correspondingly high priced, restaurants. Several of the local places do "frequent diner/visitor" loyalty cards, where the 5th or 9th meal (for restaurants), coffee (coffee shops), etc are free. This offsets the otherwise high prices charged on menu items. Also, once a year (during the off season, of course), the local high school sells a booster card that gets a percent discount off for the entire year at numerous local places. This is of course not unique to a touristy area, but I find myself using them far more often than in other places I've lived.
- lozaning 8y ago
  Smashburger actually had something close to this for a while. SmashPasss, it was like $100 bucks for the right to get a burger a day for 100 days. https://smashburger.com/smashpass/ https://smashburger.com/smashpass/
- starshadowx2 8y ago
  This sounds like a super good idea to me, I really love it. Seems pretty simple but just makes a lot of sense. Any person travelling just coming by for the "best burger" probably would not want to spend $34 and not use that card anymore so $20 sounds great. Any regular would probably be super cool with paying that extra $30 knowing they can get a burger once a week or whatever for $4. This works out for the restaurant and the regulars, and like you said they can just hand out those cards to anyone for any reason.
chaostheory 8y ago
Why not just look at driver's licenses and student ids instead? Disney parks do the same thing - cheaper prices for locals
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Well, sure, but having the customer flash a card to the employee would save more time than having the customer hand over the card for inspection by an employee.
  - chaostheory 8y ago
    Wouldn't checking an already existing ID card be easier vs printing up and distributing specialized cards?
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      The point is, there are ways to distinguish between locals and non-locals. There are merits and drawbacks to having your own ID card vs. using a state ID card.
  - stickfigure 8y ago
    ...but it would invite a secondary market for these cards. The logistics of fabricating them would suck, and you have to look at an ID to judge if a card should offered anyway. Plus having special cards feels corporate, not homey. Looking at an ID for locals discount is pretty well trodden ground.
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      > but it would invite a secondary market for these cards There are already markets for fake IDs, so unless you're suggesting that small local restaurants purchase scanners to confirm the authenticity of each ID, it would be relatively easy to circumvent this check too. (Some states require IDs to be scanned for selling alcohol, but many, e.g. in Oregon, do not, and the only check is some employee looking at a card in their hands for a couple of seconds) > Plus having special cards feels corporate Not at all. Plenty of local restaurants in my are (Portland, OR) have rewards cards, where you get stamps and a free meal after some amount of stamps.

daveslash 8y ago

What about raising prices (at the exclusion of the locals), and then using the increased revenue to philanthropically give back to the community in a meaningful way?

geofft 8y ago
There are some things in a capitalist society that are the domain of philanthropy, and some things that are not. A school or library might be a suitable target of philanthropy, but a burger place or pub or barber shop isn't; there's no way to fund it and have it end up the same sort of place it would be on its own. At best, it can be a target of a GoFundMe or something - but that's just to pay operating costs. The store itself has to operate like a normal capitalist store for the concept to work, accepting customers, charging money, etc. There is no concept in our society of a non-profit burger joint.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Can't you buy a burger place, reduce the price to give zero profit, adjust the price on the fly to ensure zero profit. Sure you won't necessarily meet demand, but there's no inherent reason quality need suffer(?). Or, have a coop where staff wages soak up all excess revenue, giving zero profit. You'd want a contingency, and a savings account if you seek to expand the business, but they're not profit. We could do that with all businesses I think.
  - dcow 8y ago
    I love this idea: zero profit capitalism. Sure some people would abuse savings accounts more than others, but taxing standing profits on a gradually increasing scale the longer they stand (sure the market already does this at a minute level, but it's not enough to deter wealth hoarding) seems like an effective way to solve the wealth extraction problem corporations introduce.
    - ryneandal 8y ago
      Brings to mind Paul Newman: https://newmansown.com/ https://newmansown.com/

jrochkind1 8y ago

Also... he was just burned out. An experience many here may identify with. That's why the place is still closed. It's possible there was something he could have done to make things good again... if he wasn't too burned out by the experience to figure it out and carry it out.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago

And how did that work out? Maybe a better approach would be to jack prices up sky high for tourists and open another burger joint with a different name for locals.