One thing I've never understood about menu design is the use of "market price" for certain items like crab and lobster.
I understand that the prices of these items fluctuate due to various factors, but it discourages me from ordering them because I don't want to 1. ask the price (when you're with people you don't know well it brings attention to you possibly spending more than they would on the meal, and can make you come across as a bit overly focused on price/money - could be interpreted as rude or poor manners) 2. potentially say no based on the price and deal with related social vibes that might put off + come up with a backup on the menu 3. not ask for the price at all and be handed a surprisingly large bill. Some of the times I have asked, the waiter will have to physically leave to go check the price, which is also something I want to avoid.
You might say something like "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" but I genuinely don't mind, and can easily afford, paying $50-70 on good seafood when I'm in the mood for it. Crab and lobster are some of my favorite foods, and their market price often comes in around there. So in the course of my life restaurants have probably lost out on hundreds or maybe a couple thousand in sales because of "market price". I'm not sure if this simply something most restarateurs are unaware of, it not being worth it to reprint menus or even put the market price on a blackboard somewhere, or some other psychological phenomenon I'm unaware of - maybe putting a larger price on the menu discourages most other people from ordering it or, makes other diners think the restaurant is "too expensive" even if not ordering it, or pisses diners off when they pay $X one week and come back and see it's at $X+20. Is there a canonical reason?
> One thing I've never understood about menu design is the use of "market price" for certain items like crab and lobster.
This happens with restaurants that are buying their seafood fresh off the docks (in my part of the US, anyway) because the price the restaurant pays for it can vary by a lot from day to day. The restaurant effectively can't predict what the price will be, so they can't really put the price on the menu unless they set it very high.
Edited to add: That said, about half of the local restaurants that sell fresh seafood around here have a chalkboard visible from the street or lobby that says what the market prices currently are. If you know what you're getting, or have a good memory, you don't have to ask anyone.
It dissuades you, but it attracts other diners, who (reasonably) read it as "this is a premium offering, uncompromised by margin constraints". It's an "if you have to ask" situation. Just don't order the M.P. items!
(Troy: "It said market price. What market do you shop at!?")
I'm not entirely convinced by that explanation alone because plenty of other ultra-premium menu items (like fancy steak or vintage wines) tend to have their prices listed when seafood aren't, and oftentimes I find the market price is not wholly unreasonable. I suspect at least some of the reasoning has to be in managing consumers' expectations for stable prices/availability, and also for size, since serving a quarter will cost the restaurant much more than an entire deuce.
Also, how come you responded to my comment about lobsters and not my email about containers?? (kidding mostly... but do let me know if you want to chat containers)
I'm not saying M.P. is used primarily as a Veblen device to attract customers, only that it has that effect. Lobsters are M.P. in part because they're seasonal; they really do have variable prices. The kinds of restaurants that have M.P. menu items are generally working within pretty strict food cost percentage parameters.
I agree with all your points, and as someone still in the food industry I'd add that the use of Market Price on menus often comes down to something mundane: The Market Price items fluctuate too much between frequent purchases made by the restaurant and those establishments usually don't want the not-cheap expense of new copies of the menu printed that often.
>those establishments usually don't want the not-cheap expense of new copies of the menu printed that often.
It's nearly 2025 and qr codes are a thing.
"Scan this code for the current MP (market price)/ TOD (time of day price)/ HTBF (how the boss feels price)/ WBTYAP (we've been tracking your amazon purchases)/ WR (wrong race [...etc] price."
As it'll all be on your phone, it'll be up to you to hide, or show, your emotions as the $€££ (sell) price comes up.
I can only speak about my native United States. Indeed, QR codes are a thing, yet the high-end restaurants that are apt to list a menu item as Market Price are also places where there's an emphasis on service (along with the food/drink offerings and the atmosphere of the establishment). As of now, asking customers in such places to do that isn't considered appropriate. Certainly, that may change, as standards always shift over time.
Fine. So when the high-end server arrives to announce the high-end specials, he can tell you the market prices without prompting. Never have seen that, though.
I understand. But if they told you the price regardless of whether someone asks, it would address all the potential reasons weitendorf suggested about not wanting to ask. They're happy to tell me the specials. There aren't usually more than a couple of things that are "M.P.". They can go the extra mile and tell me those.
They almost always ask if you want to hear the specials.
They will however only tell you the price of the specials if you specifically ask, and if you don't ask they'll often not volunteer that information. I have on a few occasions 'screwed' myself by assuming that starter that was the special would be roughly the same price as all the other starters on the menu, only to get the bill and find out it was almost twice the price.
Yeah, I get it. They're not there to be happy. They're there to make the customers happy. Here is what weitendorf's concerns were:
weitendorf> but it discourages me from ordering them because I don't want to 1. ask the price (when you're with people you don't know well it brings attention to you possibly spending more than they would on the meal, and can make you come across as a bit overly focused on price/money - could be interpreted as rude or poor manners) 2. potentially say no based on the price and deal with related social vibes that might put off + come up with a backup on the menu 3. not ask for the price at all and be handed a surprisingly large bill. Some of the times I have asked, the waiter will have to physically leave to go check the price, which is also something I want to avoid.
Providing the specific Market Price when already there to inform diners of something like specials is a good idea, especially in higher-end places. Their service goals are typically focused on making guests comfortable and accommodating the obvious and less-obvious needs/wants. This seems like a complementary addition to those service ideas.
A nice restaurant is not going to use a QR code for anything. They are ugly and the last thing they want is for people sharing the dining room space to be looking at their phones.
This. Also, I know that if I see a QR code in a restaurant, I take it as a strong signal that it's not a particularly good restaurant. I am quite certain that I'm not the only one who sees them this way.
I went on a work trip one time with co-workers. I'm not generally someone who is embarrassed by social gaffs (gaffes?). But when a fellow college employee looked at the waiter in a SUPER high end seafood restaurant in Maine and said, "oh no, I don't like lobster. I had that once in silver dollar City and it was really rubbery." I wanted to crawl under the table.
This feels like one of those times where a really good restaurant host would smile graciously, nod some tacit agreement, check for allergies, and then bring out a little lobster amuse-bouche on the house just to blow the diners' minds.
That may be, but the host we had just sort of blank stared and politely smiled before going to the kitchen and I'm assuming screaming into the void or something.
Somewhat agree. Lobster/Crab are supposed to be kept alive until immediately before cooking them (in some cases lobster tails are kept frozen but those aren't as often MP, crab can be canned but again that's usually not sold at MP), and in both cases they're pretty simple to cook at least decently, so I don't worry much about food safety or them coming out awful. Regardless, even restaurants that sell a lot of lobster tend to use MP so the point stands.
The point is, a waiter at an establishment that will have good lobster will know the price of the lobster for the night, starting from the moment the restaurant opens.
An Americana classic styled sandwich made with grill style beef patty, melt grade American cheese, two pillow soft buns with organic sesame seeds, and a dash of our back of the house made ketchup.
If you want to eat an $8 cheeseburger, you will have no trouble finding one. If you don't want to try a restaurant's attempt to "elevate" a burger --- and I don't blame you --- don't order it. It's not all a scam. The $25 burger is its own genre, and there is a market for it.
We had a story a year or so back about the best cheeseburger in the country (according to one respected reviewer, whose reviews generated lines around the block for places). It was in the $8 genre, and people were upset!
I'm not sure it's trending so much as one the most prized ingredients in fine dining; a cliche, like a perigord truffle. The ducks and geese harvested for foie are better treated than any chicken you are going to buy at Whole Foods.
Too many adjectives. Fine dining restaurants usually avoid loading down the description like that.
The only adjective likely to make it onto the menu at a white-tablecloth restaurant is "house made", and even that would be on thin ice. The chef would prefer that you just know that of course he's making his own ketchup.
There's a great chapter on this in Dan Jurafsky's book:
I've long been fascinated by the wording on menus. One of my favorite little surprising factoids is that an adjective you'll almost never find in a high-end restaurant is "fresh", although you'll often find it at less pretentious restaurants.
The reason being that customers of high-end restaurants assume that everything being sold is fresh. If it has to be pointed out in a menu description, that implies that the other items are not fresh or that there's some reason why the place needs to point out a quality that is table stakes. It therefore raises doubt about the quality of the restaurant.
I understand that the prices of these items fluctuate due to various factors, but it discourages me from ordering them because I don't want to 1. ask the price (when you're with people you don't know well it brings attention to you possibly spending more than they would on the meal, and can make you come across as a bit overly focused on price/money - could be interpreted as rude or poor manners) 2. potentially say no based on the price and deal with related social vibes that might put off + come up with a backup on the menu 3. not ask for the price at all and be handed a surprisingly large bill. Some of the times I have asked, the waiter will have to physically leave to go check the price, which is also something I want to avoid.
You might say something like "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" but I genuinely don't mind, and can easily afford, paying $50-70 on good seafood when I'm in the mood for it. Crab and lobster are some of my favorite foods, and their market price often comes in around there. So in the course of my life restaurants have probably lost out on hundreds or maybe a couple thousand in sales because of "market price". I'm not sure if this simply something most restarateurs are unaware of, it not being worth it to reprint menus or even put the market price on a blackboard somewhere, or some other psychological phenomenon I'm unaware of - maybe putting a larger price on the menu discourages most other people from ordering it or, makes other diners think the restaurant is "too expensive" even if not ordering it, or pisses diners off when they pay $X one week and come back and see it's at $X+20. Is there a canonical reason?