Restaurants
Oct. 11th, 2008 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueSo, when was the last time you went to a restaurant, and were concerned about the price of the food?
I was just wondering, you see, how many people thought that that's what you're paying for when you eat out?
I've always sort of figured you're not - I mean, really. It's never going to be as cost effective as buying your own ingredients, and cooking them yourself, doing your own washing up.
So, you may as well just assume the food is free. What you're paying for is the experience - the time the chef spent learning to cook, the effort that they made in decorating the place, and the general ambience of your restaurant.
It's actually quite interesting to think of things in this way - Pizza delivery costs, and it'll always be more than supermarket pizza, that you've bunged in the oven, which in turn will be more than making it yourself from scratch.
So all you're doing is trading time for comfort, or convenience - your delivery pizza isn't because of the pizza, it's because someone will cook and bring you pizza.
A taxi fare isn't paying for fuel, it's paying for time - the time spent driving, and the time spent waiting for your call - it's a convenience fee.
Where do we draw the line though? You wouldn't pay £500 for a pizza, I presume? so there's a tradeoff point, where the pricetag outweighs the 'value received' but the value received is so extremely subjective.
Subjectivity is important in our world, and our economy. Every time I pay for a service, I'm doing so because I find the tradeoff of the money that I've spent time earning, to be worth less to me than the service that's being provided. From the trivial table service in a bar - I'm paying because i'm not inclined to learn, nor am I inclined to do it right now.
To the more extreme - a doctor takes a long time to learn how to do his thing, before he's going to get to see/treat a patient.
The interesting part though, is just how small a fraction the 'raw' ingredients actually are. Go price up a 'made from scratch' pizza recipe sometime. Assume that your local pizza place is getting trade/bulk discount too. You'll be suprised at how much you're paying for that 'utility', and it's the same throughout the chain - raw materials add negligable costs to the finished product, it's always about a direct trade of effort.
I was just wondering, you see, how many people thought that that's what you're paying for when you eat out?
I've always sort of figured you're not - I mean, really. It's never going to be as cost effective as buying your own ingredients, and cooking them yourself, doing your own washing up.
So, you may as well just assume the food is free. What you're paying for is the experience - the time the chef spent learning to cook, the effort that they made in decorating the place, and the general ambience of your restaurant.
It's actually quite interesting to think of things in this way - Pizza delivery costs, and it'll always be more than supermarket pizza, that you've bunged in the oven, which in turn will be more than making it yourself from scratch.
So all you're doing is trading time for comfort, or convenience - your delivery pizza isn't because of the pizza, it's because someone will cook and bring you pizza.
A taxi fare isn't paying for fuel, it's paying for time - the time spent driving, and the time spent waiting for your call - it's a convenience fee.
Where do we draw the line though? You wouldn't pay £500 for a pizza, I presume? so there's a tradeoff point, where the pricetag outweighs the 'value received' but the value received is so extremely subjective.
Subjectivity is important in our world, and our economy. Every time I pay for a service, I'm doing so because I find the tradeoff of the money that I've spent time earning, to be worth less to me than the service that's being provided. From the trivial table service in a bar - I'm paying because i'm not inclined to learn, nor am I inclined to do it right now.
To the more extreme - a doctor takes a long time to learn how to do his thing, before he's going to get to see/treat a patient.
The interesting part though, is just how small a fraction the 'raw' ingredients actually are. Go price up a 'made from scratch' pizza recipe sometime. Assume that your local pizza place is getting trade/bulk discount too. You'll be suprised at how much you're paying for that 'utility', and it's the same throughout the chain - raw materials add negligable costs to the finished product, it's always about a direct trade of effort.
