Wow, your upscale restaurant runs about $100 per person, and you seriously have people coming for just a cup of coffee? That’s weird. Why would you go to a schmancy restaurant and just order coffee?
As you say, Starbucks is just down the street.
Exactly. The potential tip or lack thereof is not part of the business decision here.
Are you really comparing the Starbucks business model to one of a nice sit-down restaurant? The two restaurants have completely different capacity bottleneck issues. With a sitdown restaurant, your bottleneck is almost always tables. With Starbucks, its almost always how fast the espresso machine runs.
Yeah, there is no problem making a profit selling $3.50 coffee when 85% of your business is “to-go” and many of your customer who would like to sit still order their coffee if there isn’t a table. Your fixed expenses are rent on a relatively small space, minimal equipment. You can staff the place with three people. Milk and coffee are relatively cheap, and the markup is incredible.
A nice sit down restaurant will have higher rent, probably higher insurance costs. There will be higher staffing needs. Your inventory costs are going to be a lot higher, particularly in wasted inventory (food you toss before you sell it - Starbucks gets rid of a few overpriced muffins every night). Along with these higher costs, they have a much lower capacity - a small nice restaurant might only have the capacity to serve a hundred people a night.
My guess is that the owners have decided what is profitable - but its tacky to put up a sign saying “we have a table minimum on Friday and Saturday night.” Besides, in a service industry like restaurants, you don’t want firm policies. If my regular “Bob” comes in and wants a cup of coffee, when he usually spends $300+ on a meal for two, including an expensive bottle of wine, I want the freedom to let him have his cup of coffee. If Joe who I’ve never seen before walks in and wants a table for his cup of coffee on a Friday night, sorry - coffee shop down the street.
And now I’m educated too, because I never thought about your scenario before. Of course, I don’t normally go to restaurants just for coffee, especially around dinner time. 
Once me and a couple of other patrons were strongly encouraged to leave and make room for other folks during lunch rush, but that was at a Waffle House. 
I really wasn’t offended.
There’s an ad for an upscale restaurant in LV which seem to indicate that they do exactly that. :eek: Or rather, a female in a very tight dress leans over the table and feeds a dude with an evident erection. I suppose it can be seen as his date/wife.
I did go into a mid-level eatery in Carmel, later at nite, and we told the hostess we’d be ordering “just dessert and drinks”. She told us that they couldn’t seat us, even though they weren’t crowded. An email to the comapny got an abject apology and a promise for a free dessert next time we were in town. Note that I said “later at nite”- that’s after the dinner rush, not during it, and the crowds had left. The next restaurant served us graciously, and our total bill after a nice tip was over $60. (I ordered the Port Sampler, and she ordered an expensive drink, plus a coffee drink, not to mention the desserts), That total was higher than two of the dinners (without drinks and ect, sure) would have been.
I understand that restaurants sometimes need to make a business decision based upon turnover and overhead. That’s fine. But the waiter doesn’t get to make that decsion based upon expected tip.
It was just a number picked at random. I’m not saying that’s the definite amount you’d spend on dinner, wine and dessert. Just a nice, round number to use as an example.
I and a female friend were at a Ground Round where 3 college students were sharing a bottomless cup of coffee – with many many refills. In a booth. During the dinner rush.
When the manager asked them to please pay and leave, they actually gave him lip.
Also, even if you don’t care for the server or management, fuck the coffee drinker for taking up a table I could be sitting at and eating a three course meal at. If there are many free tables, then coffee drinkers should be allowed, but if the place is nearly full I do not want to be turned away because some moron thinks they are at Starbucks.
Sure, but like I said- the expected tip shouldn’t be the decision-maker here. Overhead, turnover, and all that- sure. But not “Hmm, this dude might not leave a big enough tip”.
Heh. At least I was sitting at the bar, had actually ordered and eaten a meal, and was just trying to get to the end of the chapter in the book I was reading. 
Why wouldn’t you just eat half the steak and they ask for a box for the rest. You know, like 99.95% of the population does, and is the normal and customary way things are done in restaurants?
I’d be willing to bet its more often coffee and dessert. But it might be two cups of coffee and we’ll split the dessert.
And there are probably a number of reasons - people who’d be happy to go to the bar if it wasn’t smokey…people looking for a nice place to chat and don’t think about table turnover in a restuarnt…people who want to be able to say “well, when we went to Le Chez Fancy last Friday” but can’t afford Le Chez Fancy’s price.
The last is amazingly common down at Disneyworld - people want to “try” the fancy restaurants, but have spent their vacation budget on the vacation. So they grab a theme park fast food burger, then hit the nice sit down places for dessert. Problematic because there are no “slow times” at Disney for sitdown restaurants. So they are hitting the profitability of the restaurant (which in turn increases the prices they can’t afford, because Disney works - like most big companies - on margin targets - and they have a pretty captive audience) - plus they are taking a table from someone who doesn’t want to eat a fast food burger.
Clear up my confusion. What if the man doesn’t have an erection? Or is it the waitress that has one? Or does she feed him an erection.
My winter vacation plans depend on your answer.
Once again I ask, who ever said the waiter is making any decisions based solely and completely on their “expected” tip?
That doesn’t sound like a problem. But if your doing this on a busy Friday or Saturday when there is a waiting list and taking up a table/booth by yourself that’s kind of rude.
Unless, of course, the management allows its waitstaff to make such decisions, somthing that many places do.
We can’t tell you. Afterall, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Well, I can tell you one thing: there’s a goat involved.
Damnit! I’ve said too much! :mad:
No no no, tdn. She feeds him WITH an erection. That is to say, using one for that purpose.
I’m not so sure this universally applies. I’ve been to dozens of Indian restaurants, and maybe half of them had lassis on the menu. With the other half, I ask the waiter if they have lassis, and the answer is almost invariably yes, they’d be happy to make one for me.
Hilarious! The ad showed the man with an evident erection in his black pants- under the table. The female, dressed in a very tight golden dress, leans over-and partly on- the table and feeds him.
It was LV after all, so I had no problem with the sexyness. My date and I both agreed that one could look at the same ad and figure the female was either staff or his date/wife, depending on where your mindset was. Based upon the posted prices, I hope it was the waitress, as if so (and she was that hot), I’d happily spend that kind of cash.