Plain noodles, only $16.79!

[bicker]

With respect, I'm sorry but I don't believe what you've asserted here. Also, the object of for profit companies is to maximize long-term shareholder value, not barely break-even.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

[splashmtnman]

I think you're greatly under-estimating the cost of labor, the cost of customer acquisition, and the factilities-related costs. I think that plate of pasta, served here in Burlington, at $9, would be a money-loser.

The law generally precludes charging more for an item than the posted price. In this case ("plain noodles"), of course, there was no posted price, so there was no legal requirement to charge a certain amount. A reasonable person would likely understand the connection between the plain noodles and the actual dish on the menu that has noodles in it, and probably see that price as the maximum price the restaurant could charge (but we couldn't necessarily count on that). Regardless, the law only says you cannot charge more than that price... it doesn't say you cannot charge less, and it also doesn't say you have to charge everyone the same. The only restrictions in that regard are those that protect discrimination against members of a protected class (but understand that folks are allowed to discriminate in favor of a protected class, i.e., senior citizen discounts).

As I said coming from experience and taking in to fact the DDP the restaurant charged the maximum it could. Taking the DDP out of the picture most restaurant would never charge a child the same price as a full pasta entree. Usually this would be a small portion also. The restaurant gets credit for a set amount w/regards to the DDP. As the diner, I would not care if they inserted the amount for a Filet because it would have no bearing on what I pay. The waitstaff is given about a 12% tip(this info comes to me from waiters at WDW). So charging the max increases their tip amount and would have nothing to do w/food cost to the restaurant when using the DDP. That being said you would make a decent profit on $5 for a small plate of pasta if pasta was all that was served on your menu. Unfortunately you have items such as beef and some seafood that don't generate much profit so you make up for that by charging $16.79 for fettucine Alfredo which cost very little. My fellow Chef that wrote in knows what he is talking about. I'm sure he like I would not charge that price for someone paying OOP. My cheapest entree menu item at the last restaurant I was the Chef at was $24.95 and I would have never charged a child that price. Lots of times the children would order a plain pasta w/butter or would even want a hamburger. We would always accommodate them but would not charge them the least expensive menu item price. We would charge the perceived value though and trust me that would not have been $16.79 even at WDW.

 

[supersuperwendy]

Shareholders have no part of daily operations in a restaurant. My husband is an executive chef...he personally controls all food costs. Trust me ... shareholders play no part in his job.

 

[splashmtnman]

Shareholders have no part of daily operations in a restaurant. My husband is an executive chef...he personally controls all food costs. Trust me ... shareholders play no part in his job.

As an Exec. Chef you are completely responsible for the food cost of the restaurant. If our food costs is not in line you either miss a bonus or you can get fired if it is not corrected. Some restaurant run a higher food cost but they may make up for this in other areas such as liquor or in the case of buffets... volume. Shareholders would hardly ever have a say in day to day ops. but most restaurants don't have shareholders either. WDW is a whole different animal though. The bottom line is making money,but a restaurant at WDW could lose money and still be a big contributing factor in WDW's profits. Case in point, if you didn't have the nice restaurants at Epcot how would that play in it's overall attendance. Some of those restaurants do not turn a big profit.

 

[apostolic4life]

As an Exec. Chef you are completely responsible for the food cost of the restaurant. If our food costs is not in line you either miss a bonus or you can get fired if it is not corrected. Some restaurant run a higher food cost but they may make up for this in other areas such as liquor or in the case of buffets... volume. Shareholders would hardly ever have a say in day to day ops. but most restaurants don't have shareholders either. WDW is a whole different animal though. The bottom line is making money,but a restaurant at WDW could lose money and still be a big contributing factor in WDW's profits. Case in point, if you didn't have the nice restaurants at Epcot how would that play in it's overall attendance. Some of those restaurants do not turn a big profit.

My fellow Chef that wrote in knows what he is talking about. I'm sure he like I would not charge that price for someone paying OOP. My cheapest entree menu item at the last restaurant I was the Chef at was $24.95 and I would have never charged a child that price. Lots of times the children would order a plain pasta w/butter or would even want a hamburger. We would always accommodate them but would not charge them the least expensive menu item price. We would charge the perceived value though and trust me that would not have been $16.79 even at WDW..

Thanks for the back-up splashmtnman!! It's nice to have friends.

Last time I checked, I saw no shareholders in my office when I was costing out a menu. That said, I again am forced to agree with bicker in part ( I hate that too ). If you do work for a publicly trade corp. with restaurant holdings you do have a responsibility to maximize long term profit. This is the reason you price menu items with a high concern about competitor's pricing. If you can shadow local pricing trends for your type of eatery (i.e. fast food, fast casual, buffet, or formal/fine dining) you will maximize long term profitability because customers will see your pricing as competitive with other establishments with similar menus and atmosphere.

I thank those who may respectfully disagree, but I also have to ask a couple of simple questions.

1.) Should one have experience, education or training in food and beverage management before attemping to position themselves as an expert voice in this area? or correct those who may be expert in this area?

2.) If one has no training or experience in food and beverage management, why is it hard to defer to those who do? I would never assume to tell my auto mechanic I knew better than him.....because I don't.

Not picking on anyone, just honestly trying to figure out how positions are rationalized.

 

[apostolic4life]

Shareholders have no part of daily operations in a restaurant. My husband is an executive chef...he personally controls all food costs. Trust me ... shareholders play no part in his job.

Cost is the main statistic which Executive Chefs are scrutinized with. As long as we keep our food and labor cost in line, we make the owners happy; dosn't matter if said owner is a shareholder, partnership, LLC or sole owner.

 

[EeyoreFan1]

Wow. I hope that was some goooooooooooood pasta!

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

Gentlemen...

EVERY restaurant that operates as a commercial enterprise has at least one shareholder. Now pass the pasta!

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

Shareholders have no part of daily operations in a restaurant. My husband is an executive chef...he personally controls all food costs. Trust me ... shareholders play no part in his job.

They may not have a say in day to day operations, but if your husband doesn't do his job, they play a big role in whether or not he gets to keep it...

 

[DVCconvert]

Plain noodles, only $16.79!

i heard they charge $ 27.99 for that at Le Bistro de Apostolic !!

 

[Micca]

Wow, I'm just auditing this class. Next semester I'm taking it for full credit.

 

[apostolic4life]

i heard they charge $ 27.99 for that at Le Bistro de Apostolic !!

...$28.01!

 

[apostolic4life]

Wow, I'm just auditing this class. Next semester I'm taking it for full credit.

... will be due at the completion of class every Monday, Wednesday & Friday.
This goes for those of you just auditing this seminar also!

 

[kaytieeldr]

I am an Executive Chef for a food management company based in New York. I can assure you I have not under-estimated any of the related costs associated with this discussion.
I am saying the plain pasta could be profitable for $3 or $4 a plate; that does not mean you will be charged that price.

Doesn't matter. Spoodles' price for fettucine Alfredo is $16.79. The plain pasta that the OP's daughter had was the this entree without the sauce. Nobody would expect to order a Caesar salad with no dressing and be charged less than the menu price; nobody woud order any entree "dry", aka without whatever sauce, gravy, reduction, whatever is listed in the item's description and expect to pay anything less than the menu price; why is it so surprising that when the young woman ordered a menu-listed entree without any sauce, the restaurant still charges $16.79 for it?

If the pasta cost me $.50 a portion,

Again, Spoodles HAS a pasta entree on its menu. It doesn't matter what the restaurant's cost is for a portion of pasta, they charge $16.79 for it - with or without the Alfredo sauce.

As I said coming from experience and taking in to fact the DDP the restaurant charged the maximum it could. <snip>being said you would make a decent profit on $5 for a small plate of pasta if pasta was all that was served on your menu.

See above. Spoodles doesn't sell an adult entree of plain pasta. Instead, they legitimately charge the menu price for their pasta entree, with or without sauce. As the Guest in question is (or was at the time of the meal) eleven, aka a Disney adult, she was - I would expect - served an adult-portioned entree, so the price of THAT is what was on the check. Now, armed with this knowledge, next time the parents would probably be better off paying out of pocket for her and having the daughter order from the kids' menu.

I'm sure he like I would not charge that price for someone paying OOP. My cheapest entree menu item at the last restaurant I was the Chef at was $24.95 and I would have never charged a child that price

So you wouldn't charge the price listed on the menu? Remember, no matter what you consider a child, Disney considers an eleven-year-old an adult for all pricing purposes escept rooms.

Not picking on anyone, just honestly trying to figure out how positions are rationalized.

Well, since you asked, yes, I do have some training - but since it's not current, I'm not going to argue cost vs. profit. I'm simply explaining why a restaurant would charge the same price for a given menu item, with or without sauce.
Using two popular fast-food restaurants as examples:
When I was a kid and we got McDonald's (yes, it was around THAT long ago ) two of my siblings would eat only absolutely plain filet o' fish sandwiches. No cheese, no tartar sauce... but no discount on the price, either.
And, afaik, Burger King still offers "have it your way", right? They don't (or didn't, it's been ages since I've been in one) charge any less for a Whopper plain than they do for a standard one.

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

Expen$ive dose of Pixie dust, but in the end well worth it i'm sure :

 

[splashmtnman]

Doesn't matter. Spoodles' price for fettucine Alfredo is $16.79. The plain pasta that the OP's daughter had was the this entree without the sauce. Nobody would expect to order a Caesar salad with no dressing and be charged less than the menu price; nobody woud order any entree "dry", aka without whatever sauce, gravy, reduction, whatever is listed in the item's description and expect to pay anything less than the menu price; why is it so surprising that when the young woman ordered a menu-listed entree without any sauce, the restaurant still charges $16.79 for it?
Again, Spoodles HAS a pasta entree on its menu. It doesn't matter what the restaurant's cost is for a portion of pasta, they charge $16.79 for it - with or without the Alfredo sauce.
See above. Spoodles doesn't sell an adult entree of plain pasta. Instead, they legitimately charge the menu price for their pasta entree, with or without sauce. As the Guest in question is (or was at the time of the meal) eleven, aka a Disney adult, she was - I would expect - served an adult-portioned entree, so the price of THAT is what was on the check. Now, armed with this knowledge, next time the parents would probably be better off paying out of pocket for her and having the daughter order from the kids' menu.
So you wouldn't charge the price listed on the menu? Remember, no matter what you consider a child, Disney considers an eleven-year-old an adult for all pricing purposes escept rooms.
Well, since you asked, yes, I do have some training - but since it's not current, I'm not going to argue cost vs. profit. I'm simply explaining why a restaurant would charge the same price for a given menu item, with or without sauce.
Using two popular fast-food restaurants as examples:
When I was a kid and we got McDonald's (yes, it was around THAT long ago ) two of my siblings would eat only absolutely plain filet o' fish sandwiches. No cheese, no tartar sauce... but no discount on the price, either.
And, afaik, Burger King still offers "have it your way", right? They don't (or didn't, it's been ages since I've been in one) charge any less for a Whopper plain than they do for a standard one.

I'm just saying what I have charged for a small plate of pasta when requested by a child. It would have nothing to do with what the cost of any pasta dish is on the menu after all they are not removing the sauce. Besides, I'm sure she wasn't ordering from a menu listed entree and asking to remove the sauce.She just wanted a plate of plain pasta which was probably not even the same quantity as the entree.From "experience" you are not looking at what the cost or profit is on a plate of plain pasta but again what a perceived value may be. The restaurants that I have been Chef in are as expensive as any at WDW, and I'm saying you would not charge that for a plate of plain pasta for a child. Yes if someone order a caesar w/no dressing the charge would not differ but if they just wanted a small plate of romaine lettuce(no croutons,cheese,anchovies) I would not charge for a caesar but probably a small house salad.On your fast food, a more appropriate example would be ordering just a bun with no meat or fish filet... my daughter the bread lover has done this-not charged for a whopper.. The main cost of a pasta dish is the addded ingredients not the pasta as in a composed salad the cost of the lettuce is nothing. In fact a caesar salad is a very inexpensive salad to make but is usually charged as an expensive salad mainly because of perception. People will pay for it. Now if a menu listed a wonderful 3oz cooked to perfection plate of plain pasta I'm sure at $16.79 they would sell very few. I'll repeat, they probably rang up a Rigatoni w/"plain see server". Customer does not care what is charged for this because they have already paid.The customer probably asked if they could get a plain,dry pasta not "my daughter will have the Rigatoni with no sausage,mushrooms,tomatoes,cheese or olive oil, or she'll have the Fettucine Alfredo but could you leave off the heavy cream, butter and parmigiano reggiano. Now the waitperson wants a larger tip and definetely deserves one so they charge the max. possible. OOP they don't get charged this without complaints I can bet and WDW does not like complaints.A more appropriate charge would be maybe charging for the most expensive childs entree, but also being 11 she would be two years removed from being able to order from the childs menu.Now if they are going to allow a small child that is 11 to order off the childs menu why would they not also charge for a childs portion of pasta? Why would they not you say, because the customer in question has already paid for the meal using the DDP, so they could usually care less what is printed.The waitstaff does not get the standard 20% tip that you would see added on but somewhere closer to 10% when you are using the DDP. That's why we always leave extra when we used the DDP. I guess we can agree to disagree on this but my two cents worth comes from 28 years of experience.

 

[splashmtnman]

You know I can't remember if the tips they make are a set amount based on the number of people that are dining. If that is the case the amount on the bill would not impact what they would make in tips. I was told they make about 10%. Not sure if that is from the bill total.

 

[bicker]

It doesn't matter what the restaurant's cost is for a portion of pasta

Precisely, since cost of ingredients is such a small percentage of the cost of running a restaurant.

Well, since you asked, yes, I do have some training - but since it's not current, I'm not going to argue cost vs. profit.

I also have some relevant experience, but I'm not going to get into "mine is longer than yours" situation.

 

[Mackey Mouse]

My daughter is a chef in London when I get a chance to talk to her on the phone I am going to ask her her opinion... I might send her a link to this post but not sure how busy she is right now....I would love to hear what she thinks, of course keeping in mind that she lives in London and it is very expensive to eat there..

Her mother, however, does think that is exhorbitant for a plate of plain noodles...

Sent my daughter the link in an email... do keep in mind that she was brought up on WDW, her and her sisters....this is what she had to say:


"ridiculous. why wouldn't they have a separate kids menu as it is wdw...

if they want to factor in labour and service etc it should be about $5"

of course, that is her opinion.....not to argue, just wanted another chef's opinion.

 

[apostolic4life]

Doesn't matter. Spoodles' price for fettucine Alfredo is $16.79. The plain pasta that the OP's daughter had was the this entree without the sauce. Nobody would expect to order a Caesar salad with no dressing and be charged less than the menu price; nobody woud order any entree "dry", aka without whatever sauce, gravy, reduction, whatever is listed in the item's description and expect to pay anything less than the menu price; why is it so surprising that when the young woman ordered a menu-listed entree without any sauce, the restaurant still charges $16.79 for it?
Again, Spoodles HAS a pasta entree on its menu. It doesn't matter what the restaurant's cost is for a portion of pasta, they charge $16.79 for it - with or without the Alfredo sauce.

I am not in disagreement with you kaytieelder on this; the OP was charged (it seems) for an entire entree at $16.79. I was addressing the question of if the price seemed inflated for plain pasta. The OP says she ordered a plate of plain pasta, not a a sauced entree. The server (being astute to the fact OP was on DDP) took the opportunity to pad their tip without extra cost to the OP. Had the OP been paying OOP instead of DDP I am sure OP would have trown a fit over $16.79 plain pasta (read that sentence out-loud three times fast:nice use of abreviations huh ). OP, please correct me if I am wrong on the throwing of the aforementioned fit.

Spoodles doesn't sell an adult entree of plain pasta. Instead, they legitimately charge the menu price for their pasta entree, with or without sauce. As the Guest in question is (or was at the time of the meal) eleven, aka a Disney adult, she was - I would expect - served an adult-portioned entree, so the price of THAT is what was on the check.

Again, no disagreement with this. I would note two things: guests on DDP don't care what the check says (usually); the wait staffer choose to exploit this fact to pad their tip.

Now, armed with this knowledge, next time the parents would probably be better off paying out of pocket for her and having the daughter order from the kids' menu.

The OP was benefiting from the free DDP promo so why on earth would they spend money to buy something that is already free for them?

So you wouldn't charge the price listed on the menu? Remember, no matter what you consider a child, Disney considers an eleven-year-old an adult for all pricing purposes escept rooms.

If I had a customer come to me and request to have a plate full of plain buttered farfalle (or fill in your favorite type of pasta to make this more personal) and it was not on the menu, I surely would not charge them for a sauce (usually the most cost in pasta dishes) they did not get. Would I charge them the most I could and still retain the loyalty of this customer, yes! Hence the statement, "if you will pay $9 - $17 for plain pasta I will charge it".

Using two popular fast-food restaurants as examples:
When I was a kid and we got McDonald's (yes, it was around THAT long ago ) two of my siblings would eat only absolutely plain filet o' fish sandwiches. No cheese, no tartar sauce... but no discount on the price, either.
And, afaik, Burger King still offers "have it your way", right? They don't (or didn't, it's been ages since I've been in one) charge any less for a Whopper plain than they do for a standard one.

If you want to compare the plain pasta to a burger without condiments this analogy doesn't work. If you take mustard and pickle off the burger it is still a hamburger. If you remove the salt, pepper and shredded parm from the table it is still Pasta Alfredo. If you remove the alfredo sauce from the pasta, you must remove the beef patty from the burger to make this analogy work. Would you pay $3.50 for a whopper with no meat patty?? Would you feel comfortable paying $16.79 for plain pasta?? If so, let me extend an invitation to my establishment!