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Our newsletter, Biscuits, aims to provide you with the most interesting and relevant bits of
information from our food and beverage blog during the previous month.
Anyone who’s worked as a waiter, bartender or as a food and beverage server of any sort knows that it’s a tough gig. The long hours, the late nights, the sore muscles, the puny tips – there are very few upsides. Which is why we weren’t the least bit surprised when the New York Post reported that in addition to being overworked and underpaid, America’s waiters are also chronic liars.
Specifically, when customers ask for a waiter’s recommendation between two dishes, the waiter will almost always suggest the more expensive option. Other dirty tricks, according to the Post, include “intentionally omitting the prices of specials, aggressive wine pouring, bringing bottles of water unbidden, encouraging you to order more food than you need and pushing drinks with dinner.”
The article also mentioned a few tricks used by menu designers to dupe diners, such as adding high-priced “decoy” items to make other meals look more affordable.
None of this is especially shocking, but we’re curious about how widespread the practice of waiters giving price-biased recommendations really is, so we’re going to perform some informal tests over the next several weeks based on our personal dining experiences. We’ll ask waiters to recommend one of two clearly differently priced menu options to see which one they propose. Stay tuned for the results.
I think it silly of you to carry forward an article of the NYP that is obviously not reflecting large number of waite staff, but rather what I beleive to be a very small percentage.
Some publications just don’t make sense to follow.
But I still like you, Pavone. . . .
As a former server I can attest this is often true. And sometimes the most effective trick is to give your table “candid” advice, menu suggestions that don’t seem like what management is pushing, although in reality they are.
I thought this is normal practice, and expect it to be. and I do not think it is the waiter’s practice but restaurant training. they all do that. Restaurants always try to push the invoice up, even McDonald and Burger king do that. I do not understand what the fuss is all about??
Of course waiters tell you about the more expensive menu items first. Of course they leave the price off specials. And of course waiters will try to upsell you with extra side dishes or bottles of water.
Restaurants are a business, remember. They are here to make money. In the process they make a lot of people very happy with their culinary efforts, but in the end, money is what pays the bills. So they are going to try to get as much of your money as you’re willing to part with. Just like any other business.
I have seen more than one article similar to the one you reference here that tries to make it seem like there’s some massive conspiracy in the food service industry to “cheat” restaurant patrons out of money.
Hogwash.
Every business uses tactics to encourage their customers to spend more. Wal-Mart places their cheapest items at the ends of aisles. By the time you get to the middle of the aisle, where the products aren’t just some worthless piece of plastic shipped in from China, their prices are comparable to most other major retailers. You just think everything at Wal-Mart is cheaper. Only about a third of their stuff actually is. That’s called “relativity,” just like on a smart restaurateur’s menu.
Nobody is accusing Wal-Mart of cheating or duping their customers.
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