posted by Mike Madison at 10:10 AM /
This Blog-Lebo post from earlier this month, which raised a question about high "stem fees" at Iovino's Cafe on Beverly Road, prompted a long and mostly thoughtful comment thread about Pittsburgh businesses, restaurants, customers, and entrepreneurs. Generally, I wondered whether high prices are in the interest of a startup business that is trying to build a clientele.
Since that post, I've eaten (again) at Iovino's, and I can report the following:
The food is excellent. I had eaten lunch there before; this time I went for dinner. The service was attentive and patient.
At dinner in the middle of the week, the restaurant was very busy. That's impressive.
From what I could observe, well over half of the tables were stocked with wine brought in by diners. (Iovino's is a BYO restaurant.) It's not quite correct to conclude that stem fees aren't affecting Iovino's business, since the restaurant doesn't advertise the fees or include them on the menu. It's also not quite correct to conclude that customers are happy to bring in wine while knowing what the prices are. I don't know how many of my fellow diners were repeat visitors and presumably know about the price structure already. In all likelihood, many do. But some surely do not.
Business does seem strong, and the food is very good, and so long both are true, then it's easy to see the logic in keeping prices where they are right now.
And Pittsburgh certainly could use many more restaurants like this one.
Since that post, I've eaten (again) at Iovino's, and I can report the following:
The food is excellent. I had eaten lunch there before; this time I went for dinner. The service was attentive and patient.
At dinner in the middle of the week, the restaurant was very busy. That's impressive.
From what I could observe, well over half of the tables were stocked with wine brought in by diners. (Iovino's is a BYO restaurant.) It's not quite correct to conclude that stem fees aren't affecting Iovino's business, since the restaurant doesn't advertise the fees or include them on the menu. It's also not quite correct to conclude that customers are happy to bring in wine while knowing what the prices are. I don't know how many of my fellow diners were repeat visitors and presumably know about the price structure already. In all likelihood, many do. But some surely do not.
Business does seem strong, and the food is very good, and so long both are true, then it's easy to see the logic in keeping prices where they are right now.
And Pittsburgh certainly could use many more restaurants like this one.
5 Comments:
Obviously they are welcome to charge whatever fee the market will support (though I agree $4/stem seems high); however, it should be clearly stated up front and not be a surprise as happened to your friend. That is what makes the first-time visitor feel gouged. It's like the surprise add-on fees when you pay your hotel or car rental bill-annoyance that leaves a bad taste in the mouth, (despite the good food).
I just came across the July MTL Economic Development Newsletter which describes a proposal by the Business and Professional Association (BPA) to raise Monday - Friday rates in the Uptown garages and encourage business validations by lower the effective validation costs to businesses. It is worth a read: MTL July Business Newsletter
Any thoughts on this plan being good or bad for business?
The link above doesn't work. HTML is not my forte.
A short link for the MTL newsletter referenced above is: http://tinyurl.com/2nk647
If for some reason that does not work, the full address is: http://www.mtlebanon.org/archives/43/District%20News%207-07.pdf
Lemmee see: "will increase parking authority revenues in the process" by raising the parking rates and at the same time lowering the cost to the merchants. Who pays more in the end? Maybe ....... The Customer!
For businesses like restaurants this is maybe not a bad idea -- almost everyone who comes into a restaurant buys something. But for Uptown as a whole, it's a terrible idea. Validations generally only go to people who buy things. For most businesses, in order to get people to buy, they first need to come and shop! Many shoppers have not already decided if they are going to buy. To increase parking rates and push validations would just create a greater disincentive for shoppers to come uptown.
I think it's odd that the owner of Empire Music would push such a plan, since musical instruments are a relatively high-end item with a lot of individual variation, not only between brands, but between individual instruments -- buyers more likely to want to comparison shop at many stores for such items. At least that was my experience when I was buying guitars (and amps, effects, PAs, etc). At Hollowood Music, Pianos'n'stuff, Guitar Center, etc, I can park for free, even if I don't buy anything.
I think this is another example of the pennywise-pound-foolish mentality I was talking about earlier. Don't punish your customers for not buying anything -- it will just discourage them from coming back.
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