Cakeage - charging the customer

Perhaps it’s time to tell people the truth about the facts of life regarding them wanting to bring their own food into a restaurant and ‘expecting’ the restaurateur to serve it, suffer the costs, suffer the loss of profit on lost sales and – be happy about it.
The afternoon presenter on 774 Auntie shared her rather biased attitude expressing that she had the right to bring a cake into a restaurant and have it served by the restaurant. Her bias was obvious by the tone of her voice and the way she asked people questions and cut them off if she didn’t agree. Plus she had the last word that further exacerbated the problem. The type of perception her delivery and the bias this creates is very dysfunctional and very harming.
It is indeed a pity when a person in a quasi influential position perpetuates the perception that people have a right and a privilege to bring-their-own-food into a restaurant, a business selling food for a living. It is not a God given right to demand a restaurant lose money on serving their cake just because they created it. Unfortunately the initial introduction to ‘being able to bring your cake into a restaurant and expecting the restaurant to serve it’ epitomized the martyrdom / oh-woe-is-me syndrome common to people making a point at someone else’s expense – literally.
A few simple facts:
Each and every action by staff in a restaurant costs money – whether that is serving a cake or opening a BYO bottle or whatever. Unless a profit is made, or at least breakeven is achieved, on each and every action then that ‘loss’/’profit’ must be made up on someone else’s meal - this can’t happen, because the gross margin is too slim on food and alcohol. And worse, the restaurateur never makes a profit from lost dessert sales.
We make and serve food and serve alcohol in order to make a profit on all aspects of the sale. In this way we stave of bankruptcy. Note the number of failed restaurants who devolve into price competition and/or don’t understand basic full cost accounting and you will see why cakeage, as a concept, is so important. We charge $6 per head for cakeage and actively discourage BYO anything [excepting perhaps a genuinely very rare and expensive wine which we can’t replicate and which our customer wants to share with friends in which case we charge $15 corkage]. These prices cover our costs and provide a very small return for our effort. They do not provide a reasonable profit or return on investment.
Why would anyone invest $150,000 for no return? Why would anyone work for a living for nothing just because people want to use their expertise or investment but dont want to pay for the service? No way.
If anyone needs to rationalize the issue then accept the fact that a restaurateur can not take responsibility for someone else’s food being served by their staff. What happens if a customer has a ratsack fetish and laces their chocolate wonder in order to teach Aunty Maud a lesson? What happens if Aunty Maud takes a turn after taking home some of the masterpiece and falsely blames the restaurant for the entrée instead of the cake?
We have years of experience in this area and know that 99% of the time people want to bring cakes and wine into a restaurant not because of altruistic motives but because they want their cake but don’t want pay for it. May I suggest the alternative is that people ask the restaurant to provide a cake and be prepared to pay an appropriate ‘dessert’ price per head. Otherwise they could stay home and do it themselves.
Unfortunately, the restaurant industry whilst rewarding suffers from the ‘customer expert syndrome’ in that people, because they cook at home and can open a bottle of wine, they believe they are restaurateurs in waiting and expert. A professional restaurateur needs to provide an overall experience for customers - something we all continually work on. This experience starts with the most important aspect - the restaurateur building ambience, feel and hopefully a desire in potential customers to want to come in the door – all at significant expense and involving a range of disciplines from architecture to interior decorating to marketing to financial management to crossing your fingers. Then we need to provide appropriate service which should exceed the demands of those few punters. My partner, Ulla - the nice half, provides this extremely hard aspect by balancing needs, service, servitude and the expectations of really nice people intent on enjoying the experience with the unthinking and obstreperous.
Then we need to sell something to pay for all the above. Food, the final part of the equation, is not the most important aspect of the total experience but it is the one which will drag people back after the second or third visit. It doesn’t have to be Haute Cuisine but it does have to blend with the total experience. [Something which the average food writer misses most of the time] Just for food, the restaurateur then needs to add on expertise in food laws, Council By-Laws, hygiene, record keeping, keeping food in pristine condition and they need to be an artist in presentation.
The ‘total experience’ is what going to a restaurant is all about – it is not just about feeding your face! This even applies to McDonalds where they go to a great deal of trouble to reach the hearts and minds of kids. How many kids really really want to go to McDonalds but don’t eat the food? It’s the experience.
Even wanting to BYO food or wine into a restaurant which has made such a substantial investment in time, money and expertise is insulting to the restaurateurs, diminishes their return on investment and shows a complete lack of respect for the effort the restaurateurs have made for people to enjoy. It also shows quite clearly that these people do not understand the ‘experience’ concept.
Tell people to go and enjoy an experience, a total experience. The alternative is perhaps take-away in front of the TV, with their own cake. Have their cake and eat it too!