LizzieMaine
Bartender
- Messages
- 33,728
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
I get take out from fast food places just about every day for lunch. There is one particular place nearby that has great black plastic forks that they put out for their customers. Every time I go there I always grab a few extra forks for all those times when I go to other places that provide less than stellar forkage, or ever worse, sporks. I see nothing wrong with it, as I am a good customer there and give them my business on average about twice a week.
The question is, how much do those forks cost the establishment, and do they factor the cost into the overall cost of the products they sell?
We have a problem here with people who take two cups when they serve themselves a single cup of coffee -- our coffee counter is self service, you pay at the register and then step over and fill the cup yourself. The cups cost us 20 cents apiece, and the coffee itself sells for two dollars. So when a customer takes an extra cup -- "because the coffee's so hot" -- it cuts quite a bit into our markup. We could mark our coffee up to $2.50, but people complain enough at $2, even though they'll willingly pay $5 for *the exact same blend* at the hipster coffee joint down the street. There's something about people that makes them whine about theatre concession prices even though they're getting raked far more deeply by so-called "high end" establishments.
You've never known how petty, grabby, whiny, and overentitled people can be until you're in the business of selling them snacks.
And the people who sneak in their own snacks? We make most of our money off concessions, so it isn't exaggerating to say that such freeloading weasels are stealing food right off my table. When I catch them, I throw them out.