Chinese Food Drama in Brookline (Saugus: taxes, restaurants, costs)

[Mordi]

the professor is right.... but he is clearly a dink. the sort of guy you never want to spend any time around socially, but you'd like to have on your side in a legal case.

[elhelmete]

Originally Posted by Mordi

the professor is right.... but he is clearly a dink. the sort of guy you never want to spend any time around socially, but you'd like to have on your side in a legal case.

Exactly right. He's a Ralph Nader type nudge. But he ain't wrong!

Often I see aggressive price accuracy campaigns brought against grocery stores and electronic retailers, often with the cooperation of local authorities. I've often wondered why I never saw this happen to restaurants.

[495neighbor]

I find many restaurants, especially small new ones, invent themselves as they are moving along.

[goyguy]

Originally Posted by MikePRU

There's plenty of blame to go around on both sides IMO.

I always tell my wife: there are 3 sides to every story - his side, the other person's side, and the truth. Obviously, we're mostly hearing the side of the restaurant but even when you get to hear both sides you rarely hear the truth.

Well put!

The "poor, ripped off" professor has since been called out on another harassment campaign he waged a few years ago against a sushi place (also Asian - coincidence?) In that case also, a petty complaint - little to no merit - was blown up by the "victim" by way of a series of e-mails. And identically in that instance the offer of the "offending party" to make amends above and beyond the real or imagined offense was ignored. The better to have the whiner escalate his annoying-ness.

Anybody who gives this spoiled brat the time of day has never worked in retail or for a hospitality business, guaranteed. That type is out there, albeit in small numbers. But their obnoxious behavior has its ways of making it seem like their ranks are much larger. Invariably it's nickel-and-dime pettiness. ("I didn't notice the coupon expired yesterday...Expedia quoted $10 less than what this invoice says...Where is it written that this style isn't part of the sale - oh......") Primarily they raise a stink with well-known national or regional chains to position themselves as the valiant underdog pitted against Big Bad Corporate America. Nevertheless, no one handling the public's money is completely immune.

Do I not see a consumer's point of view? Not a chance. Last year I got clipped at a North End restaurant. When my meal was finished (it was good), the check was presented. Right away I saw that the entree was priced at three dollars more than what appeared on the menu posted outside. (Can you say "bait and switch"? I thought so!) What had been shown as a competitive charge relative to other places in the neighborhood was suddenly on the steep side. Putting a positive spin on the situation, I told the hostess that "maybe somebody should put a menu with current prices out front." Her response was a shrug. So my parting shot was to say that if enough servers got dollar-amount differences applied against their tips - which I did that night - they then might have a sufficiently unhappy crew to do the right thing. Note that this is as far as I took it. No demands to see a manager, no boo-hoo reviews, no alerting of the media, and - most importantly - no throwing weight around in correspondence, much less turning up the heat when the recipient looks to resolve the matter. It was a lousy three bucks. I had my say, was treated dismissively, and therefore have no intention of returning to that restaurant. Nor will I let mention of it go without a "caveat emptor" comment. Seems fair enough to me. But then again I'm a reasonable person who doesn't suffer from "egoitis" aggravated by degree or title.

Treating what appears on the Internet as gospel just isn't a smart thing to do in the first place.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by goyguy

Well put!

The "poor, ripped off" professor has since been called out on another harassment campaign he waged a few years ago against a sushi place (also Asian - coincidence?) In that case also, a petty complaint - little to no merit - was blown up by the "victim" by way of a series of e-mails. And identically in that instance the offer of the "offending party" to make amends above and beyond the real or imagined offense was ignored. The better to have the whiner escalate his annoying-ness.

He offered to give the guy $3, not the $4 he overcharged. And he didn't ask for any money until the owner admitted that the prices had been wrong on the website for "quite some time" meaning that he knew he was overcharging people and didn't seem to think it was a big deal.

Originally Posted by goyguy

Anybody who gives this spoiled brat the time of day has never worked in retail or for a hospitality business, guaranteed. That type is out there, albeit in small numbers. But their obnoxious behavior has its ways of making it seem like their ranks are much larger. Invariably it's nickel-and-dime pettiness. ("I didn't notice the coupon expired yesterday...Expedia quoted $10 less than what this invoice says...Where is it written that this style isn't part of the sale - oh......") Primarily they raise a stink with well-known national or regional chains to position themselves as the valiant underdog pitted against Big Bad Corporate America. Nevertheless, no one handling the public's money is completely immune.

I worked in retail in high school, but that probably doesn't count for the "you need to work retail to have a valid opinion crowd". He was harassing management, not some low-level employee, and for a valid reason. If he were haranguing the waitstaff it would be one thing, but he didn't. Big difference.

Originally Posted by goyguy

Do I not see a consumer's point of view? Not a chance. Last year I got clipped at a North End restaurant. When my meal was finished (it was good), the check was presented. Right away I saw that the entree was priced at three dollars more than what appeared on the menu posted outside. (Can you say "bait and switch"? I thought so!) What had been shown as a competitive charge relative to other places in the neighborhood was suddenly on the steep side. Putting a positive spin on the situation, I told the hostess that "maybe somebody should put a menu with current prices out front." Her response was a shrug. So my parting shot was to say that if enough servers got dollar-amount differences applied against their tips - which I did that night - they then might have a sufficiently unhappy crew to do the right thing. Note that this is as far as I took it. No demands to see a manager, no boo-hoo reviews, no alerting of the media, and - most importantly - no throwing weight around in correspondence, much less turning up the heat when the recipient looks to resolve the matter. It was a lousy three bucks. I had my say, was treated dismissively, and therefore have no intention of returning to that restaurant. Nor will I let mention of it go without a "caveat emptor" comment. Seems fair enough to me. But then again I'm a reasonable person who doesn't suffer from "egoitis" aggravated by degree or title.

Treating what appears on the Internet as gospel just isn't a smart thing to do in the first place.

I don't see how taking it out on the employee tips instead of privately emailing management makes you less of an irritating person. Sure if it's a case of oversight it might help the problem get corrected more quickly, but if it's general disdain for accurate pricing on the part of management it might just aggravate the staff.

The thing about pricing issues is that it rarely makes sense for anyone to do something about them. The time you spend arguing is usually worth more than the money you save and you end up being accused of being a malcontent (sometimes with subtle accusations of racism) or a tightwad.

And I can definitely agree that it's hard to make a definitive statement about anything like this based on a few scattered facts on the internet. Especially on something so obviously written as "click bait" to drive page views.

[miu]

I feel some sympathy for the restaurant owner. For a business that size, most likely they'd need to hire an IT person to make the changes. And what was lacking at the bottom of their webpage was the usual disclaimer that the prices are subject to change on short notice.

As to the menu items being more expensive by a measly dollar, well food costs have gone up significantly this year for everyone. For instance, the Wall Street Journal had an article back in August about rising food costs due to the severe drought in California, rising feed costs for cattle and pork prices being affected by pigs getting sick. Anyone who goes grocery shopping knows that food prices fluctuate week to week, so why be shocked if restaurant meal prices change?

BTW the professor teaches at Harvard Business School... I guess he doesn't read the WSJ on a regular basis.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by miu

I feel some sympathy for the restaurant owner. For a business that size, most likely they'd need to hire an IT person to make the changes. And what was lacking at the bottom of their webpage was the usual disclaimer that the prices are subject to change on short notice.

As to the menu items being more expensive by a measly dollar, well food costs have gone up significantly this year for everyone. For instance, the Wall Street Journal had an article back in August about rising food costs due to the severe drought in California, rising feed costs for cattle and pork prices being affected by pigs getting sick. Anyone who goes grocery shopping knows that food prices fluctuate week to week, so why be shocked if restaurant meal prices change?

BTW the professor teaches at Harvard Business School... I guess he doesn't read the WSJ on a regular basis.

He wasn't complaining that the prices had gotten higher, he was complaining that the prices were higher than advertised.

Perhaps it's a generational thing, but printing accurate menus is a lot harder than updating a website. I don't think anyone would give a restaurant the benefit of the doubt if their in-store menus were inaccurate. If a company is too small to keep accurate prices on their website they shouldn't put prices on their website. Accurate pricing is a minimum standard of doing business, like following labor laws, and paying taxes.

[miu]

The simple solution for you and the professor is to just avoid that restaurant. And restaurants can also get around charging more for a dish due to higher food costs by making the portions smaller or using less meat. Shrug.

[Boston_Burbs]

Wasn't this a hoax and the professor was flying on a plane?

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by miu

The simple solution for you and the professor is to just avoid that restaurant. And restaurants can also get around charging more for a dish due to higher food costs by making the portions smaller or using less meat. Shrug.

I'm fine with restaurants charging whatever they want for food, increasing their prices to maintain their current profit margin, or even just increasing prices to increase their profit margin. Just advertise accurate prices. I'm surprised that's too much to ask for.

And if restaurants let people know ahead of time that the prices on their menus are probably going to be lower than the prices that they'll expect you to pay, I'd happily avoid all those restaurants. They don't though. That's why people have to complain when they're overcharged.

I've never actually even been overcharged at a restaurant, but have gotten overcharged at the grocery store on a few occasions. I brought the item and receipt to the front desk and they promptly refunded the difference. They didn't say, "oh, we haven't gotten around to putting up our new prices yet, but yeah that's more expensive now."