Local chefs fooling around at Westlake Park today to promote Restaurant Week.
Didn't we just go through this? Well, yes, we did, but that was called Dine Around (with the slogan "Eat Your Local Heart Out" and further written about here). It involved about four dozen Seattle eateries who were offering 3-course dinners for $30 on weekdays in March, a promotional venture coordinated by the non-profit Seattle Good Business Network. The beneficiary of Dine Around was Fare Start, a nationally recognized program kitchen training program.
Comes now the drop of the other, heavier shoe: Seattle Restaurant Week, the promotional effort of something called the Seattle Restaurant Cooperative. Founded by Ethan Stowell, Jason Wilson and Maria Hines, the SRC contracts with the Seattle Times for promotional services. As described on the SRW website: "Seattle Restaurant Week is operated by the Seattle Restaurant Cooperative. It is produced by The Seattle Times, which lends its expertise of consumer engagement and powerful reach to motivate participants."
This is a polite way of saying that the Times provides access to its giant website, where each and every participating restaurant (and there are 160 this year) gets to post its $28, 3-course menu.
Ah, but wait, isn't the Seattle Times behind a paywall, starting, like, a week ago?
Don't be naïve! The Times gets paid to post this content, and handsomely paid at that. Couple of years ago, it was over a hundred grand, more by now, I expect, with the increased number of participating restaurants. No paywall here!
The questions I raised last time this came up on Cornichon, two years ago, remains: the questionable wisdom of lowering prices to attract new customers. (Technically, Restaurant Week says it's saying thank you to its existing customers.) Cooks hate the extra work involved, regulars hate the newbies, servers hate the cheapskates. So why do restaurant owners continue this costly trend? It's simple: they're afraid of losing business to the bistro next door.
I would ask the participating restaurants a series of questions. What is your average customer check? Does the SRW $28 dinner increase that spend? What is your weekly customer count? How many more customers does SRW bring you? (And how many regulars do you lose to other SRW restaurants?) What increase in revenue do you see from SRW? How does that correlate to your "contribution" to SRC? You realize, I would hope, that this contribution is equivalent to an advertising spend, where you'd expect to see a significant (10- or 20-fold) increase in business, right?
SRW says new restaurants are paying $750 this year; returning participants pay $650. In other words, roughly between $50 and $100 a night per restaurant to drive in an extra, say, 10 diners? Who then spend $10 less than your average customer? You might as well stand on the sidewalk and give every passerby a $20 bill.
As for the ad reps at the Times, they're laughing all the way to the bank. Suckers!
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