Posted on 05/15/2008 6:27:23 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
I was reading all the responses to you original L&O comment. LOL
I’ll bet you weren’t expecting that kind of backlash. :)
I was at McDonalds for the first time in years over spring break, and their double cheeseburger cost $2 something, but their cheeseburgers were only 99 cents each. So, my friends and I, being broke college students, each ordered two cheeseburgers then stuck them together. We couldn’t figure out what ridiculous logic cause something that used less than twice the resources be priced at more than twice as much!
I LOATH such restaurant games.
I absolutly despise the new “shallow bowls”.
It makes a good presentation until the reality of it is just an illusion.
Broke people don’t go to restaurants. This article is just attacking big portions.
As for shot glass desserts, that is a marketing gimick to rip off customers without compliants.
What I think is really going to happen is a shake out of the “same as” chains and those with poor service will be eliminated.
Word of BAD PERCEPTIONS spreads very fast.
Sometimes, that's half the fun! :-) My dad LOVES liver and onions, and, to tell the truth, they're not THAT bad. But I never liked the smell while they were cooking. Mom didn't either - he had to cook them if he wanted them!
BTT
We should all try eating the old fashioned way, at home after we have finished cooking it ourselves. It would be a lot safer and healthier as well.
I always thought that the $8 appetizer WAS the thing to watch out for. That and expensive booze.
We go to Lonestar one or Tuesdays a month because they have free kids meals on those days. It never fails—EVERY time we eat there they forget to take the meals off the bill.
Genius! I can figure that out and I'm not a food industry consultant.
Then you’ve never successfully learned to improvise.
The article missed some of the most famous tricks. Friendly’s restaurants would just come out with a new menu with completely different items on it, so there is no way to compare portion sizes or prices.
In 1980-81, I worked in a Pizza Hut and read the managers’ guides during slow periods (Tuesday evenings). There were explicit rules for cutting down on salad bar consumption. Plates instead of bowls, or, if bowls are employed, make the bowl itself small with a large lip to force repeat trips to the salad bar and make customer feel like a pig. The sneeze shield is purposely placed low, with the cheapest food easiest to reach. Food containers are also to be shallow (who wants to take the last olives?).
This was in 1980-81 (still feeling the effects of Carter), so restaurants playing games is nothing new.
If they sold burgers fries and a drink like some computer firms do, you’d pay different prices for the same sizes depending on which “package deal” name you used.
I saw a place with $0.99 burgers. All extras, like bacon etc. INCLUDING CHEESE were an additional $0.60 each.
It’s as old as time. In the 1800s milk could be watered down and even contain chalk dust. Soap could be substituted for cheese...
When it comes to extras you can really get screwed. I once ordered a sausage pizza with mushrooms and onions added at $1.25 each. When the pizza came it had about two quarter- sized mushrooms and six onion rings averaging half dollar size. I can buy 8 ounces of mushrooms for $0.99 and onions at $0.39 a pound. Surprisingly, the most expensive item, sausage, was more than generous. When I complained, the extras were taken off the bill.
Probably a good thing anyway. Americans in general are a lot fatter than the rest of the world.
Way back in the olden days, Weight Watchers required liver once a week - my husband and I discovered chicken livers are actually palatable. Not delicious. Just palatable.You can't get meat that's fresh enough in the states, but raw beef liver is one of the best things I know. I used to eat it all the time in Japan. Liver only gets gross after you cook it.
"That's not necessarily the way it is in the rest of the world."
You know what? If I wanted it the way they do things "in the rest of the world" I'm MOVE THERE!!!!! I want things the way WE DO THEM HERE!!! And for those who want to change us to match the "more enlightened" continental types, please move the hell away!
Mark
Restaurant drinks are a big trick area. A friend told me this one — if ordering a mixed type cocktail, when possible, order the drink with your liquor as a separate shot, and add it yourself. That way you know that they’re not short-changing you in the drink. This won’t work with frozen/blender ones really, but you get the idea. I guess this is more common than one would think. (?)
Also, keep in mind that if you’re part of a group lunch situation, your soft drink orders could be 20% or more of the total bill. They offer ‘free refills’ knowing that you’re paying 2 bucks for two or three glasses of icea tea (that costs them, what? 50 cents?)
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