Judy Henry’s restaurant has been known for its housemade rosemary focaccia, served warm with extra-virgin olive oil to each table. In November, after nearly 20 years of the bread being complimentary, she began charging guests $1.50 per loaf.
Using bread to help balance the books is one way the chef-owner is managing rising costs of everything from workers to crab meat at her restaurant, Judy’s on Cherry, in Reading, Pa. Beef and pork trimmings previously used in soup are now ground up and used in a meatball appetizer, creating a new source of revenue. Ms. Henry last month raised the price of nonalcoholic beverages by 30 cents and stopped offering free refills.
I regret to say that this approach of directly nickel and dime-ing customers for every little thing reduces visitor frequency and is often a precursor to shutting down. Just raise alcohol 30% and go back to the status quo on everything else and it’ll all work out.
Are people celebrating this? Her employees get more pay but less hours to work and the diners get a lower quality meal/experience. We all know how this ends, closed doors.
Inflation is made up problem.