3 ms·

> the average person doesn't know how to price restaurant food Could you be more specific?

by brailsafe 3y ago

xboxnolifes 3y ago
"It would cost less for me to buy the groceries and make this at home".
- ghaff 3y ago
  Not that I always could or would care to go to the effort for a fancy meal, but in general it's going to be a lot cheaper to prepare most meals at home. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
  - xboxnolifes 3y ago
    Of course it'll be cheaper to make most meals yourself. Especially since the imagined price doesn't tend to include rent, kitchen labor, service staff labor, or depreciating costs of kitchen appliances, which all go into the price of restaurant meals.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      I'm living in a house anyway. I'm not paying myself. Appliances last decades. It would cost me money to drive to a restaurant. With rare exceptions (e.g. high end kitchen you don't use much and eating out really cheaply) there's no world where the costs of preparing meals at home are higher than eating out every meal.
      - brazzy 3y ago
        The point is that many people expect them to be priced similarly because they think of the ingredients as the main costs (because those are the only costs they actually see when cooking for themselves), which they are not.
        ghaff 3y ago
        I'm not sure many people actually think that restaurants are or should be as cheap as eating at home except maybe some fast food loss leaders.
    - lobocinza 3y ago
      When going to a restaurant you should include transport costs and time wasted with transport and waiting. Cooking at home can be an efficient pipeline where you have full control of inputs while saving money and time. I was frustrated because I wanted to pay for convenience but in my case I found it to be non-convenient.
- brailsafe 3y ago
  Perhaps it's a bit pedantic, but that seems less like pricing restaurant food and more like pricing food in general, which is totally valid if you're on a fixed budget and considering how much to spend for food.
extraduder_ire 3y ago
I think they're referring to estimating what restaurant food "should" cost, based on what it is. Rule of thumb I heard years ago was aiming to sell for about 3x what your ingredients cost you plus tax, but that may have increased since.
- geon 3y ago
  You should raise prices until you are not quite sold out. If you are at max capacity, you are by definition not charging enough.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    There's a lot more to it than that. Such an approach can give you a long-term unsustainable clientele. Such an approach can lose you the marketing cachet of being sold out for months. etc.
  - lupire 3y ago
    Almost no restaurant is ever sold out.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      At peak times. There's a reason lots of restaurants have happy hours and lunch specials. And a weekday night tends to be less in demand than a Friday or Saturday.

> the average person doesn't know how to price restaurant food Could you be more specific?

xboxnolifes 3y ago

"It would cost less for me to buy the groceries and make this at home".

ghaff 3y ago
Not that I always could or would care to go to the effort for a fancy meal, but in general it's going to be a lot cheaper to prepare most meals at home. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
  Of course it'll be cheaper to make most meals yourself. Especially since the imagined price doesn't tend to include rent, kitchen labor, service staff labor, or depreciating costs of kitchen appliances, which all go into the price of restaurant meals.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I'm living in a house anyway. I'm not paying myself. Appliances last decades. It would cost me money to drive to a restaurant. With rare exceptions (e.g. high end kitchen you don't use much and eating out really cheaply) there's no world where the costs of preparing meals at home are higher than eating out every meal.
    - brazzy 3y ago
      The point is that many people expect them to be priced similarly because they think of the ingredients as the main costs (because those are the only costs they actually see when cooking for themselves), which they are not.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        I'm not sure many people actually think that restaurants are or should be as cheap as eating at home except maybe some fast food loss leaders.
  - lobocinza 3y ago
    When going to a restaurant you should include transport costs and time wasted with transport and waiting. Cooking at home can be an efficient pipeline where you have full control of inputs while saving money and time. I was frustrated because I wanted to pay for convenience but in my case I found it to be non-convenient.
brailsafe 3y ago
Perhaps it's a bit pedantic, but that seems less like pricing restaurant food and more like pricing food in general, which is totally valid if you're on a fixed budget and considering how much to spend for food.

extraduder_ire 3y ago

I think they're referring to estimating what restaurant food "should" cost, based on what it is. Rule of thumb I heard years ago was aiming to sell for about 3x what your ingredients cost you plus tax, but that may have increased since.

geon 3y ago
You should raise prices until you are not quite sold out. If you are at max capacity, you are by definition not charging enough.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  There's a lot more to it than that. Such an approach can give you a long-term unsustainable clientele. Such an approach can lose you the marketing cachet of being sold out for months. etc.
- lupire 3y ago
  Almost no restaurant is ever sold out.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    At peak times. There's a reason lots of restaurants have happy hours and lunch specials. And a weekday night tends to be less in demand than a Friday or Saturday.