Have you ever booked multiple restaurants so you could decide on the night where to go? Complained about the price of a dish that you loved? Ordered a coffee to use a cafe’s wi-fi for half a day? If you said ‘yes’ to any of those, chances are there’s a restaurateur out there who’s hurting a little because of it.
Our favourite restaurant, café, noodle joint or eating house is always there for us when we need them, from morning coffee to major milestone, hump day or Fri-yay. We form a special bond with our regular haunts but do we, as customers, often think about what we bring to the table?
“The aim of the game is hospitality”, says owner Stuart Knox of Sydney’s Fix St James. “We love to make people feel comfortable and be inclusive of their needs,” but that can come at a cost, when customers don’t quite get it. “We’re a small table-service wine bar, and every seat really counts. So when a table of nine orders three drinks between them and they sit there for a few hours, how do you translate that into a business? You can’t do it!” he says. “We would love customers to understand that we are a business, not a public service. Sitting there, drinking tap water and preventing paying customers from being accommodated sadly doesn’t put money in the till. And without that, we can’t pay our staff (those guys topping up your free water) or our operating costs.”
We would love customers to understand that we are a business, not a public service.
That’s if customers turn up at all. “When a customer books, as a restaurant, we bank on that commitment being honoured.” says Leah Wilson, operations manager at Melbourne’s Lee Ho Fook. “We roster staff, buy ingredients and keep away other customers, so we can in turn, honour our diners by taking care of them. A no-show table of four means a loss of about $400. For a small business, it’s heartbreaking,” she adds. Not only can multiple cancellations mean the difference between profit and loss, it impacts on restaurant ambience for the customers who do turn up. “There is also the issue of food wastage as well”, Leah chips in. “We understand that things can come up, but when you make a booking, we’ve been thinking of you for days in the lead up to make sure we take the best care of you.”
Perceived value is paramount for most diners; a feeling of satisfaction that what you’ve paid for is commensurate with what you’ve received. That is, provided your expectations are rational. “We are a pasta restaurant, so people often compare the experience of eating pasta to their nonna’s house (if they are lucky enough to have an Italian grandmother)!” says Joel Valvasori, owner and pasta king pin of celebrated Perth establishment, Lulu La Delizia.
When customers take to social media with less than informed opinions about cost, that can hurt.
“The thing is, nonna wasn’t running a business!” he laughs. (Let alone the fact that Valvasori’s pasta ain’t your average spag bol.) From a cost perspective, those numbers aren’t arbitrary. “The ever rising cost of ingredients, staff wages and overheads all need to be considered. Portion sizes and prices have stayed the same for the past decade but costs continue to climb. Primary producers already take a heavy hit to their bottom line, so should customers feel indignant about absorbing part of that increase? “When customers take to social media with less than informed opinions about cost, that can hurt,” he says.
Leah agrees. “There is a perception that Chinese food is cheap, which isn’t always the case. Sure, you can get sweet and sour pork in a food court for $5, but it probably isn’t made with free-range pork, fresh pineapple and served to you by waiters who care, in a space that’s been considered for your comfort.”
Even at the shoestring end of the spectrum, “We spend a lot of time thinking about costs,” says Melbourne’s Soi 38 co-owner Andy Buchan. We ended up deciding that $10 was a nice round number and represented good value to serve our Thai noodles to Melbourne, but if you start out with a price, you have to reverse engineer everything to fit that budget in order to run a profitable business,” he adds. “So I’d LOVE to use Flinders Island beef or Noosa spanner crab but it’s about making it work, to provide a great product for a great price.”
Our favourite restaurants, cafes and eateries put a lot of thought into what they do, mostly for our pleasure. Perhaps we should consider a little more often, what we bring to this edible equation.
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