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Comment by YinglingLight | Hacker News Reader

I'm preeeety sure each and every restaurant owner is keenly aware of how their business will fluctuate if they change prices. This is their livelihood after all.

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Knowing a few people in the restaurant biz, no, many of them are very bad on the business side and big on the passion side.

I own a foodservice business and it tends to be a mixture of both. You're not going to be able to run an establishment without at least some business acumen, but everyone who's ever worked in the industry is fully aware that the pay is complete shit in terms of effort expended. So, as a result, owners pretty much have to be very passionate about the industry in order to even contemplate opening their own place to begin with - and this is here in the Midwest, God help anyone who wants to open something in a major coastal city.

As a small business owner, I'm sometime feel emotionally paralyzed to raise prices.

I notice that a lot. My accountant was way too cheap in my opinion, and I told him that. After years, he finally raised his prices recently, and I thanked him for it. He needs to eat too. Same for the guy who remodeled our house. He has no time for all the work he's got, but he doesn't want to raise his prices, despite working for half the rate I work for.

Don't be afraid to charge what you're worth and what your customers can afford.

(My clients are mostly banks. I know they can afford me.)

I don't doubt it, but that doesn't change the basic analysis. If prices are too low to live on, that means supply is too high. Restaurants try to stave off the inevitable by underpaying their staff, but in the long run, a shortage of staff is not going to save their business.

And honestly, if people can afford to pay sky high San Francisco prices for everything else, they can also afford to pay them in restaurants.

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