Restaurant Specials and Pricing

[Jack Rose]

After working in restaurants for over fifteen years now, once a server and bartender, and now having worked as a chef close to ten years now - I feel that I can elaborate on this policy. By and large, all restaurants should and likely have the means to print up menus for their daily specials. My preferred approach is to have them as an insert to the normal menu, which the server may mention and discuss them as he or she sees fit. More casual establishments may use a dry-erase or chalk-board to list the specials, opting to use this approach and likely to save money on paper (ink, etc.) probably because of size and orientation of the dining areas. Along with descriptions of the specials are prices, clearly stated, whether on printed paper or kisted on a type of board.

The approach of verbally relating the specials seems to be becoming obsolete, mostly due to the long-winded discourse of multiple options and an increasingly more knowledgable consumer. Prices should be recited at the same time. The old bait and switch practice of charging a sigficant higher price than the normal menu is still out there and will likely be attempted as many times as a greedy restauranteur can get away with it. If main courses are between $17-25 and a unpriced bass special for the night is $28 on the check, know that you likely have been had.

I have even been privy to owners or managers directly telling the waitstaff not to tell customers the prices unless directly asked and then to tip toe around giving away. It's not a big secret, unless you are a rube and easily conned. This happens quite often in smaller, independant restaurants where the check is hand written and a POS system is not in place. To play devils advocate here, not every time is the fault of the management for I have witnessed servers take it on their own to conveniently forget to include prices when reciting the daily specials. Not to impugn waitstaff here, but it is not that uncommon to have added sides and plates to larger tables of diners, expressly put there in hopes that it goes unnoticed and gets paid for - why? you ask, well the check and subsequent tip is larger and savvy, somewhat unscrupulous servers can later send in an order to the kitchen with a "don't make" modifier prior to a check being printed out and then have their manager take it off the check citing a mistake and showing the "don't make" - where as the items often get overlooked and paid for and straight into one's pocket. While we're at it, check your credit card bills for it is a common trick to run your credit card bill twice - you wouldn't believe how often this occurs with restaurants and bars getting away with it because a diner did not go over the bill carefully enough. Just know that there are these types of people out there and it occurs much more frequently than you would expect. Not being a nay-sayer here just putting it out there for those who look through the world with rose-colored glasses.

[eipi10]

I'm bemused by the recitation of the specials even when they're printed in the menu. We only eat chicken and fish, but the waiter is going on and on about the lamb. The waiter valiantly struggles to recall his spiel. Seems worrisome, because if he can't remember the specials, how will we? But no worries--we're saved by the power of literacy. Indeed, we can read along with the speaker like we did in middle school. What's missing is the waiter calling on us to read the next special out loud.

As for prices, charge me what you want. If I think it's inappropriate, I won't come back. Given the number of restaurant options I have, trying to finagle a few more dollars out of me is not a smart business practice.

[Shalmanese]

I always wondered with specials if anyone does dual pricing. That is, if you ask the price of the special, the server will say $20 and put it on your bill as $20 but if you never ask then it goes on your bill at $25? Especially if it's a daily special, it seems like it would be pretty hard to figure this trick out.

[andrewB]

As a chef, i don't run specials and don't trust them on other menus. What makes it special? It was sitting in someones warehouse fridge for too long so someone sold it at a 'special' price?? I think the word sometimes used for those who rode the short bus was 'special' as well...

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at better restaurants it's usually more about what looked good at the market that day or what the chef felt like doing out of the ordinary based on availablity of ingredients, or weather, or whatever.

as far as not trusting restaurants, well, i don't eat at restaurants that i don't trust. i'm not sure why anyone would.

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'better' restaurants don't run specials though, its called a tasting menu. this is what is used to highlight the seasons. I think i you really look at this, its only middle to low end restaurants which run specials... IMHO

[TheFoodTutor]

I always wondered with specials if anyone does dual pricing. That is, if you ask the price of the special, the server will say $20 and put it on your bill as $20 but if you never ask then it goes on your bill at $25? Especially if it's a daily special, it seems like it would be pretty hard to figure this trick out.

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I have never heard of this one, personally, and the specials tend to be in the POS as one price, so that wouldn't be possible, in that instance. I haven't worked at a place with hand-written tickets since I was a teenager.

I once worked at a fine-dining establishment that went from running a few specials per day, to running a huge list of them, and so they started putting an insert of the specials into the menu. And then people would constantly ask me to recite the specials, and I could only sort of point at the printed list. It felt really stupid, because people always wanted my performance surrounding the list of "specials," but just being reduced to reading the list for them took 100% of the fun out of it, for both parties.

I mean, if you don't have a specials list to recite at the table, what do you say? You have to have something to talk about with these total strangers that you're about to feed, don't you? It just seems so impersonal, otherwise. With specials, you get to share what you know about the menu and the ingredients. "Our Georgia Rainbow Trout is caught fresh, every day, by this funny little fisherman whom we call on the phone, and when we ask him how many orders we can get, he doesn't put us on hold. No. He puts down the phone and stomps over to the door and yells, 'Hey, George! Can we give them 50 orders?' and then he stomps back to the phone and says, 'Yeah, we can do 50.'"

There's got to be a little of that something extra, and the customer needs that. It just makes it complete.

[tommy]

As a chef, i don't run specials and don't trust them on other menus. What makes it special? It was sitting in someones warehouse fridge for too long so someone sold it at a 'special' price?? I think the word sometimes used for those who rode the short bus was 'special' as well...

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at better restaurants it's usually more about what looked good at the market that day or what the chef felt like doing out of the ordinary based on availablity of ingredients, or weather, or whatever.

as far as not trusting restaurants, well, i don't eat at restaurants that i don't trust. i'm not sure why anyone would.

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'better' restaurants don't run specials though, its called a tasting menu. this is what is used to highlight the seasons. I think i you really look at this, its only middle to low end restaurants which run specials... IMHO

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'better' restaurants aren't serving the customer food that's been sitting in the fridge too long. that's my point.

plenty of better restaurants where i come from have "specials" or "additions to the menu" or "market selections" or whatever they choose to call them. tasting menus are completely different to my mind and have little to do the additions to the menu that we're discussing. a chef can highlight seasonal ingredients with a standard menu as well as with a tasting menu.

top-tier restaurants in NY (and most other places i've been) generally don't have a static menu and specials, but i'm not limiting my definition of 'better' to those restaurants. they also don't serve tasting menus exclusively.

[scubadoo97]

My personal preference would be to have specials listed in writing so I can look over them and not have to commit to memory the details of the dish. I would also appreciate prices so as a consumer I can make an informed decision based on perceived value. I think this is what most people would like to see.

[Shalmanese]

I always wondered with specials if anyone does dual pricing. That is, if you ask the price of the special, the server will say $20 and put it on your bill as $20 but if you never ask then it goes on your bill at $25? Especially if it's a daily special, it seems like it would be pretty hard to figure this trick out.

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I have never heard of this one, personally, and the specials tend to be in the POS as one price, so that wouldn't be possible, in that instance. I haven't worked at a place with hand-written tickets since I was a teenager.

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But you could do something like have the "Sea Bream w/ Spinach" listed as $20 and the "Sea Bream with Spinach" listed as $25. I wager most people won't notice.

[TheFoodTutor]

I always wondered with specials if anyone does dual pricing. That is, if you ask the price of the special, the server will say $20 and put it on your bill as $20 but if you never ask then it goes on your bill at $25? Especially if it's a daily special, it seems like it would be pretty hard to figure this trick out.

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I have never heard of this one, personally, and the specials tend to be in the POS as one price, so that wouldn't be possible, in that instance. I haven't worked at a place with hand-written tickets since I was a teenager.

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But you could do something like have the "Sea Bream w/ Spinach" listed as $20 and the "Sea Bream with Spinach" listed as $25. I wager most people won't notice.

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OK, so there is one aspect of what you're talking about that is possibly true. When servers at upscale establishments take drink orders, and they know they are waiting on people who are on an expense account, in order to escalate the bill, they have a few tricks. If someone orders "vodka and tonic," but doesn't specify what brand of vodka, they can automatically key in the most expensive one. And on top of that, they can hit a "rocks" key - basically making it a vodka martini on the rocks with a splash of tonic - and add another upcharge. And don't ever order a glass of "house merlot" at one of these high end restaurants, because there isn't one, and servers who see that a customer can't even be bothered to look at the wine list by the glass will simply ring in the most expensive one.

But these little tricks are well-known, and when the managers of these places see them, they crack down on them, and people lose their jobs. The type of trick you're talking about, where there would be 2 separate keys in the POS for people who ask the price of the specials, and people who don't, would involve a manager entering that information into the system on a nearly daily basis, and then informing the servers of how to charge people. Frankly, I've never worked at a place that came even close to being that unscrupulous, and I certainly wouldn't eat at one.

[Kouign Aman]

I'd like a combination approach. An abbreviated summary of the daily specials, bolstered by a printed menu insert with the prices.

It annoys me to sit thru a recitation of "smoked rack of baby lamb dressed with gently simmered acacia berries macerated in locally-produced Oregon Wilden-berry blue-label wine and dressed with thinly sliced freeze-dried macaqueberrytree roots, accompanied by a puree of three-process mangled rootveggie and sweet baby peas". Give me three of those in a row and I'll forget every word.

I can see the appeal of FoodTutor's restaurant's approach, tho I'd still prefer to get prices without having to ask. Perhaps at the end of the list, the server could say, "those cost $19, $17, & $99 respectively".

And I'd like to add a big Thank You to management, TFT. Yes, I KNOW you're "my server". Would it be taken amiss to reply "Oh Hi! Im Ermintrude and I'll be your customer for the evening"?

[tommy]

And I'd like to add a big Thank You to management, TFT. Yes, I KNOW you're "my server". Would it be taken amiss to reply "Oh Hi! Im Ermintrude and I'll be your customer for the evening"?

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while it's almost always apparent who the customer is, it's not always so clear who the server is, given that there are often runners, hosts, busboys, managers, servers, wine waiters, etc, running around and possibly approaching your table right out of the gate. i'm all for anything that makes communication more effective and efficient. it's has never been a burden on me to have a server say "i'll be your server" or (gasp!) "my name is dennis and i'll be your server". i wish that was the biggest issue i encounter every day.

as for prices changing all of a sudden a la Shalmanese's scenario, it's not too hard to envision a situation where a server says a price of x when asked, and it's in the computer as y. although i'd think that wouldn't be intentional most of the time. just par for the course when remebering and reciting the price isn't part of the approach. (an no, i don't think anyone would notice. speaking for myself i estimate that i don't notice 75% of the mistakes made on my restaurant bills)

Edited February 8, 2006 by tommy (log)

[TheFoodTutor]

And I'd like to add a big Thank You to management, TFT. Yes, I KNOW you're "my server". Would it be taken amiss to reply "Oh Hi! Im Ermintrude and I'll be your customer for the evening"?

while it's almost always apparent who the customer is, it's not always so clear who the server is, given that there are often runners, hosts, busboys, managers, servers, wine waiters, etc, running around and possibly approaching your table right out of the gate. i'm all for anything that makes communication more effective and efficient. it's has never been a burden on me to have a server say "i'll be your server" or (gasp!) "my name is dennis and i'll be your server". i wish that was the biggest issue i encounter every day.

Well, that's another part of the beauty of the way the restaurant where I work operates. It's mandatory that we wait on absolutely every table, as if it were our own. We aren't allowed to walk by an ungreeted table without greeting it. We must run food to every section of the restaurant, and bus plates off of any table that needs it. We have sections, and that's how we get paid, but it's completely possible to earn a tip off of a table that you've only visited briefly, or to completely wait on a table whose tip will go to another server.

It's a sort of socialism, in practice. And it doesn't really matter that much, since we all turn tables so fast and do so much volume that we usually make the same amount of money. And every single time a guest asks me to find his server for him, I respond, without even blinking, "What can I get for you, sir?"

But hearing "I'll be your server," isn't horribly taxing, in the grand scheme of things. It just sounds cheesy, in a Crapplebee's sort of way.

[Tess]

Well, that's another part of the beauty of the way the restaurant where I work operates. It's mandatory that we wait on absolutely every table, as if it were our own. We aren't allowed to walk by an ungreeted table without greeting it. We must run food to every section of the restaurant, and bus plates off of any table that needs it. We have sections, and that's how we get paid, but it's completely possible to earn a tip off of a table that you've only visited briefly, or to completely wait on a table whose tip will go to another server.

I think that's a really cool setup. It really bothers me in a restaurant (or any place of business) to see some people working their butts off while other people are standing around doing nothing.

I understand the problems with reciting prices, too. Among other things I think it would make the list a lot harder to memorize and mistakes easier to happen.

[TheFoodTutor]

Well, that's another part of the beauty of the way the restaurant where I work operates. It's mandatory that we wait on absolutely every table, as if it were our own. We aren't allowed to walk by an ungreeted table without greeting it. We must run food to every section of the restaurant, and bus plates off of any table that needs it. We have sections, and that's how we get paid, but it's completely possible to earn a tip off of a table that you've only visited briefly, or to completely wait on a table whose tip will go to another server.

I think that's a really cool setup. It really bothers me in a restaurant (or any place of business) to see some people working their butts off while other people are standing around doing nothing.

It is a pretty cool arrangement. I could describe every bit of the operation, in a separate thread, if people think that they would like to read it.

Do you think people would like that?

[Tess]

It is a pretty cool arrangement. I could describe every bit of the operation, in a separate thread, if people think that they would like to read it.

Do you think people would like that?

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I'd be interested.

[TheFoodTutor]

It is a pretty cool arrangement. I could describe every bit of the operation, in a separate thread, if people think that they would like to read it.

Do you think people would like that?

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I'd be interested.

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Excellent.

[tommy]

But hearing "I'll be your server," isn't horribly taxing, in the grand scheme of things. It just sounds cheesy, in a Crapplebee's sort of way.

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i guess it's not cheesy to me. and to others i'm sure.

as far as crapplebee's goes, i've had better service at crapplebee's, and other chains, than i have at local non-chain places.

perhaps there's a lesson to be learned there. but what do i know: i'm just a customer.

Edited February 10, 2006 by tommy (log)

[TheFoodTutor]

But hearing "I'll be your server," isn't horribly taxing, in the grand scheme of things. It just sounds cheesy, in a Crapplebee's sort of way.

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i guess it's not cheesy to me. and to others i'm sure.

as far as crapplebee's goes, i've had better service at crapplebee's, and other chains, than i have at local non-chain places.

perhaps there's a lesson to be learned there. but what do i know: i'm just a customer.

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Not cheesy at all? I can see that, sometimes. I guess I'm just strongly critical of those unnecessary gestures.

And there is no "just a customer." After all, he is always right. Right?

As a person who is also a customer, since I dine out entirely too often, I can't say that I've had great service at that particular chain, in comparison to other non-chains. But I have a boatload of options here, and I take advantage of them, often, and rarely get bad service.

But I tend to lean toward a large variety of ethnic places, plentiful in this area. Maybe that makes a difference.

[FabulousFoodBabe]

while it's almost always apparent who the customer is, it's not always so clear who the server is, given that there are often runners, hosts, busboys, managers, servers, wine waiters, etc, running around and possibly approaching your table right out of the gate. 

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I have a confession: This is the first time I've heard the server introduction explained in a way that makes complete sense. And I"ve been around for a while.

thank you, Tommy.

[menton1]

while it's almost always apparent who the customer is, it's not always so clear who the server is, given that there are often runners, hosts, busboys, managers, servers, wine waiters, etc, running around and possibly approaching your table right out of the gate.  i'm all for anything that makes communication more effective and efficient.  it's has never been a burden on me to have a server say "i'll be your server" or (gasp!) "my name is dennis and i'll be your server".  i wish that was the biggest issue i encounter every day.

Actually, I kind of like it when the server gives his/her name. It's somewhat of a nice touch. Not cheesy to me at all. Of course, if all the other staff mentioned above started introducing themselves my head might spin...

This also reminded me of dining in France and Italy, where invariably the tasks done here by these large staffs are all done by 1 person. And the service is invariably efficient and good!! (How do they do it?)

[Pan]

[...]This also reminded me of dining in France and Italy, where invariably the tasks done here by these large staffs are all done by 1 person.  And the service is invariably efficient and good!!  (How do they do it?)

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That has been my experience in Italy, but in France, many of the fancier restaurants indeed had a whole crew taking care of each table. Also, I think there's room for some differences of opinion on what "efficient" and "good" consist of. Meals can be a really leisurely affair in Italy, and some Americans don't understand that or get into that spirit. Of course, these are all really side issues that we could discuss in some other thread. So, getting back on topic, I'm having trouble recalling any recitations of specials in France or Italy. About the closest I can remember is the time when the prioprietor of a trattoria in Siena offered each of us a glass of grappa from his father's vineyard or something. We were charged for the glasses, but it was very good grappa and it was a fair price.