Variable Pricing for Restaurant Reservations

One way to go that would be interesting is to remove the prices all together, and do a prix fixe menu, with the price variable depending on when you get there (have a chalkboard or a waiter tell you upon arrival). This would be low cost to implement, and certainly something worth investigating if you're a high-end restaurant.

They instead just offer a discount up front. 10-30% if you book a particlular time. So most everyone except the fractional multiplier afraid will know how to adjust the prices on the fly.

as an aside - many cheap places that I end up at have menus posted outside for the foot trafic, that may be the perfect place to replace it with a digital sign for dynamic pricing.

If I drop my prices from $30 to $20 and sell out 200 seats, I've made $4000. If I fill 100 seats with walk-in customers at $30 and 100 with voucher customers at $20, I've made $5000.

I think it has more to do with how people respond to the word "cheaper" vs. "more expensive" actually.

A discount is a positive while "more expensive" is a negative.

If I go into a restaurant on some random night, and their price list tells me a steak is $25, but they also tell me they are having a discount that night and I can have the steak for $20, then they have established in my mind that a steak at that restaurant costs $25, and that sometimes they offer discounts.

If I go in some other random night, and am charged $25, I'm OK with that. I've planned for it. I've decided my budget can handles a $25 steak. If I happen to hit some kind of discount night, great. I save some money.

Suppose instead the first time they charged me $20, but did not tell me that was some kind of discount. I see $20 printed on the menu, and no indication that the price is higher at other times. That sets in my mind that a steak at this place is $20. I expect now to be able to go in any time and get a steak for $20.

I then go in another random night, and it is $25. Now I'm not OK. I had planned on $20. They've stuck me with an extra $5 that I had not budgeted for. No I can't have popcorn at the movie I'm going to afterward. :-(

What it comes down to is that people want the "normal" price to be the highest price that the place charges. They can then plan for that, and if they happen to hit a sale, then they get a windfall. Windfalls don't screw up budgets. They are surprises--but they are pleasant surprises.

When the "normal" price is not the highest price, people get surprises, but not the pleasant kind.

When I go out to eat, I do not want unpleasant surprises. Hence it is more acceptable to me for restaurants to offer discounts on non-busy nights rather the surcharges on busy night. The former only gives me pleasant surprises, the latter only unpleasant surprises.

Also, I think the Next/Alinea ticketing system is addressing a related but different problem. Next and Alinea are restaurants that casual diners can't get into at any price. It's hard to plan around a table at Next except to call, ask for the next available table a few weeks out, and rework your whole schedule around it. If you're traveling to Chicago, even with a few weeks notice, it's a crap shoot.

What the Next ticketing system does is give tables some predictability and transparency. Instead of calling the restaurant and squeamishly asking for a table on a date that you probably won't get, you hit a website and get a choice of dates.

Most restaurants don't have that problem; with a few days notice, you can get a table almost anywhere else in Chicago (except schwa, but no reservation system is going to help those guys).