It's Not Manna From Heaven

[joe hx]

so a guy calls and orders a cheese bread:

me: Thank you for calling, can I help you?
guy: I want a cheese bread with all the sauces.
me: Ok, that's $7.24.
guy: Is that including the tip?
me: Um, no.
guy: Sauces cost money?
me: **thinking it's not manna from heaven** Yes.
guy: Then I just want one sauce.
me: Ok, that's $4.99.

[Food Lady]

For that price, it oughtta be manna from Heaven!! Sorry. I guess I'm just not used to eating out...

[fireheart]

I'm guessing the extra sauce charges are due to people filching 20 million packets at once? I know the cafeteria at the uni was like that, so in the end they started charging about 30c per squeezy thing of sauce (it's the Masterfoods ones where you squeeze the two wells of sauce together and it drips out). They still have vinegar and salt to the point of help yourself.

[Broomjockey]

Cheese bread and calling in pretty much means pizza place to me, and I don't know a single pizza place around here that has multiple kinds of sauces that doesn't charge beyond the first one, and they're usually about 70 cents each. But they're not little packets, they're like the packages of sauce you would get at McDonalds for Chicken Nuggets. Two of them usually do fine for a large order of breadsticks.

I dunno, I'm always annoyed when people pull crap like that. "Dur, I didn't know things cost money!" It was like at the theatre, when people wanted butter. On a proper portioning of butter, we made about 2 cents profit, but people always wanted twice as much for the same price. Only in that case, when you told them it'd be an extra charge, they'd bitch you out, rather than just going with what they would get.

[TheSnakeLady]

On a proper portioning of butter, we made about 2 cents profit

Wait, what? Given the obscene prices charged for soda and popcorn at a theater, and you guys only make 2c profit? o.O

[Broomjockey]

you guys only make 2c profit? o.O

On the butter. Given the material cost of it, the standard charge of fifty cents and three squirts on a regular-sized bag of popcorn and a properly working pump, ended up giving 2 cents profit. An extra shot would suddenly make it unprofitable. If you want to talk about the rest of it, PM me and I'll fill you in on the whole bit behind concession prices and theatre finances. But for this thread, it's off-topic.

[TheSnakeLady]

Ahh... I haven't seen the charge-extra-for-butter meme in the theaters around here yet.

[joe hx]

The sauces are not small, and we have four different sauces. Each sauce beyond the first one is $.75

[Jester]

Given the material cost of it, the standard charge of fifty cents and three squirts on a regular-sized bag of popcorn and a properly working pump, ended up giving 2 cents profit. An extra shot would suddenly make it unprofitable.

Which means the butter is slightly profitable when most customers order it.

I am the exception, and I used to eat into the butter profit something dreadful, for I have actually managed to completely gross out concession stand workers merely by ordering popcorn. Because I ordered it with a lot of butter. No, MORE butter. No, seriously, I want extra EXTRA. I want you to put more on it than you think is right, and then....put even more on. Yes, I was that bad. I once made my sister turn green when she saw me order popcorn. Nowadays I've scaled back, and just ask for "a lot of butter please."

Usually, though, I'll just get the Raisinettes.

[MadMike]

Usually, though, I'll just get the Raisinettes.

You don't put butter on them too, do you? Bad enough that Homer put it on the Milk Duds...

[Broomjockey]

Which means the butter is slightly profitable when most customers order it.

I am the exception, and I used to eat into the butter profit something dreadful,

No, it means when a concession worker does it properly, and uses the "extra butter" key on the register. For most people, I'll even admit to an extra pump or two, but for that, I'd tack on at least one more 50 cent.

Also, dude.

[Jester]

You don't put butter on them too, do you?

No, I don't. Raisinettes are perfect as they are.

I'd tack on at least one more 50 cent.

Also, dude.

Regarding the extra 50 cents, it was never tacked on that I knew about, but had they done so, I would have paid it and not complained.

As for wandering so far off topic, sorry, my mind just got distracted by that whole extra butter thing. My bad.

[Lace Neil Singer]

The OP's post kinda reminds me of my days at the pizza place, when SCs would go "Blargle bitch whine!" whenever they wanted extra cheese or extra tomato sauce on their pizza, and we'd charge for it.

Cheese and sauce do not come free. Extra of either counts as one extra topping, and that costs money. Jeez. -.-

[icmedia]

I have actually had customers act surprised that we charged extra for additional toppings on a pizza

[TonyDonuts]

I have actually had customers act surprised that we charged extra for additional toppings on a pizza

Two bits.

Bit the First:

A middle-aged woman who dressed like Martha Stewart came in to order pizza. She seemed puzzled by the whole process.

She asked me how much the pizza would be. I told her that depended on what and how many toppings she wanted.

She looked surprised (I imagine she looks surprised a lot), and said, "Well, that's kind of stupid, don't you think? To charge that way."

I asked her how she thought we should price our pizzas, then.

She looked very closely at then menu, and then very closely at me and said, with perfect sincerity, "Oh, I don't know. Some other way." As though it were blindingly obvious.

Bit the second:

Young couple, late teens, maybe early twenties came in for pizza.

They ordered a medium, with every ingredient we offered. It came to almost twenty bucks.

The young man expressed his dismay at the cost. I told him our menu specifies how much each topping is.

More dismay. "You mean you actually charge by the topping?"

I said, "Of course we do."

He said, "Well, you know, I've been in the pizza industry for many years, and I'VE never heard of a restaurant charging by the topping like that." And the expectant pause, as he waited for me to crumble.

I told him, "What a coincidence, so have I, and I'VE never heard of a restaurant that didn't charge like that. Huh. Ya really do learn something new every day don't you?"

He asked, "So you'll change the price, then?"

I said, "No, the price is the price."

He said, trying to put iron in his voice, "Then we're never coming back..."

And I said, "Of course, sir, do as you see best."

And so he paid, under protest, of course, but he paid.