Restaurant Tricks

The disparity between a restaurant's price and food quality rises in direct proportion to the size of the pepper mill.”-Bryan Miller

Check out the article, Recipe for Survival: 23 Ways Restaurants Save Money, at http://www.couponsherpa.com/. How many of the price reducing techniques have you experienced? Examples:

1. Shrinking portion sizes
Not a bad thing really, most meals have way too much food.

2. Eliminating the extras
I miss the days of jam at every table at diners. Now I’m served one mini-tub of jam on my plate for each slice of bread and have to ask for more or a different flavor than grape and strawberry. Recently I was charged for lettuce as extra on my hamburger.

3. Mystery Meat
Watch out for meat reconstituted from parts or a cheaper meat substitute. Some dishonest places may serve a pork cutlet as veal Parmesan or a cheaper fish in place of the expensive one you asked for.

4. Watered down drinks
My grandfather always ordered his soda “without ice” to get full value.

5. Smaller plates
A small plate fools the eye into thinking there is more food. And it’s a good diet trick too.

Bottom Line

See the full article for all 23 tricks. Most of these are fair and understandable. Some are gross or illegal like recycling leftover bread or soda pitchers.
When carried to extremes these “cost saving” measures may drive away loyal customers who remember the good ole days. One of the comments on the article describes how profits fell when customers stopped returning so the boss switched back to bigger portions.