Value Meals

Taking Care Of Business

Holding Suppliers to the Fire: Restaurants take advantage of market opportunities to reduce the cost of supplies and pass those savings on to customers. Ray’s Boathouse, for example, is using a market glut of frozen fish to fill its larder with fish suitable for smoking.

More bang for the buck: By nixing items that don’t sell and finding ways to make use of lower cost ingredients, eateries are reinventing menus without raising prices.

Power Of The Dollar

Specials: Playing to the theme, big and little guys are making use of specials. At the 5 Spot and Hi-Life, for example, the price of the daily blue plate special is tied to the closing mark of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, divided by 1,000.

Happy Hours: Better menus and expanded hours mean deals for customers.

Brunch: The Most Important Meal of the Day: Restaurants—especially fine dining institutions—are taking advantage of the relatively lower cost of the morning meal by serving Sunday brunch specials or getting innovative with their offerings, such as a new champagne brunch/mimosa bar at Matt’s in the Market.

Attracting New Customers

Borrowing from Friends: Love Lark? You’ll fall for Crush. Smitten with Crush? You’ll want to go over to Rover’s. That’s the thinking behind the Seattle Chefs Table, a dinner event that happens six times a year, each time at a different restaurant, with those six restaurants’ chefs cooking one course apiece. The restaurants hope their loyal customers will cross over to each other’s establishments.

Classes and Special Events: Fine dining establishments are taking on education and the opportunity to rub elbows with winemakers as a means of getting attention. Events such as winemaker’s dinners and the Wine Bootcamp at Waterfront Seafood Grill aren’t designed to make restaurants money, but to draw attention.

Luring New Palates: Some restaurants add brunch specials to attract attention, others play up their specialties—or the local angle. In April, Bellevue’s 0/8 Seafood Grill and Twisted Cork offered all Washington wines at half price.

Back to Is Dining Out?

Share this Article

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•