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Peter Illic, the innovative owner of Little Bay restaurant in Farringdon Road |
Customers lap up restaurant’s ‘name your price’ meals
Beat-the-recession offer likely to be extended as honest diners bring rise in turnover
A FARRINGDON restaurant’s “pay what you think the meal is worth” month-long experiment has been so successful it could become a permanent feature.
Customers at the Little Bay, in Farringdon Road, are told to pay what they think the food is worth. But not all diners have been playing fair, according to owner Peter Illic.
Some students have rather shamefacedly put down £3 after a three-course meal and slunk away. And an occasional “Jack the lad”, thinking he was being wryly amusing, didn’t pay an “honest” price for the food.
Most diners, however, have paid a reasonable price and in many cases more than they might for a similar meal elsewhere.
None of this is new. Peter opened a similar venture, Just Around the Corner, in Finchley Road in 1984. He ran it for two years, and it continued, under a different owner, for another 10 years.
So why resurrect the idea? Serbian-born Peter, 59, married with six children, considers it the perfect antidote to the recession. “Like everyone else we were suffering from loss of customers,” he said. “But since we began the scheme at the beginning of the month we have increased our turnover by leaps and bounds.
“Not forgetting all the fantastic publicity we’ve been getting.” Normally the restaurant would have about 1,100 customers a week at this time of year, but that figure has doubled. “It all depends on the honesty of diners, but in the main London people are pretty straight,” he said. “Americans particularly will pay more than they think meals are worth.
“It’s very difficult to decide not to pay anything. Particularly after you have enjoyed a good lunch or dinner cooked to perfection by my excellent chefs.”
There’s always a worry that customers may overpay or underpay. “But my waiters will give guidance if necessary and indicate what the meal is worth,” he said. The restaurant has seating for 130 diners and employs nine waiters.
Peter believes other restaurants struggling in the recession should follow his lead. “Try it for one day,” he suggests. “It might work. We planned to run the venture just for the month of February. Now it looks like it could carry on.”
Peter also runs the popular Little Bay restaurant in Kilburn and is thinking of introducing a similar offer there once a week.
He added: “At the end of the month I will take all the bills from the Farringdon outlet and count how many main courses were purchased, compared with how much money was received from customers. If it all looks good, as I think it does, we’ll keep it going.” |
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