Next, bringing airline tariffs to the food industry
As an ex-Chef (maybe you didnt know that) I have lots of friends in the restaurant business worldwide who are suffering terribly in this economic downtown.
I spotted this project in today’s FT and the concept has just blown my mind.
Its by Nick Kokonas and Chef Grant Achatz who run Alinea one of the world’s top ten restaurants in Chicago. They plan to open Next shortly.
Its a luxury restaurant based with charging based on the airline industry.
Instead of reservations our bookings will be made more like a theater or a sporting event. Your tickets will be fully inclusive of all charges, including service. Ticket price will depend on which seating you buy – Saturday at 8 PM will be more expensive than Wednesday at 9:30 PM. This will allow us to offer an amazing experience at a very reasonable price. We will also offer an annual subscription to all four menus at a discount with preferred seating.
This is an incredibly interesting business model and could be pushed into any industry, remember the day and night tariffs on O2 ? a friend of mine designed those, Buses, fares based on time of day? Burgers joints, forget the lunchtime rush, discount 25% 12-1pm
Would it work? probably, I am really looking forward to the launch of Next.
Any suggestions on where else we could see time of day/day of week based tariffs?
Neat idea … quite like it as a business model.
In fact, if done in the cinemas it might even stop the groups of 60 neds who come in together and talk through the whole bloody movie about other things.
Pay per view in a new way.
Twitter: shanekny
23rd October, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Hi pat, great point. We are always asked by garages in our network to offer services on weekends, early or late pickups. If there was a similar appraoch with offers to entice the customer I am under no doubt that there would be a demand. Customers are looking for new fresh ideas and are prepared to work with retailers when real value is offered. Ciao
@patphelan Dallas cowboys football team use s/w that sells their tickets based on airline type technology. Seat prices constantly fluctuate. There was an article about in Business Week. It is run by a startup that wants to revolutionize ticket sales for events
The ability to dynamically adjust prices, all prices, based on time series, and predictive technologies, is pretty pervasive in online line environments. I could stack the technology buzzwords ontop of the other here, but the basic trend is “its so damn easy to experiment with this stuff now” the only question is, “why aren’t you doing it?”. It seems that people, and companies have a hard time experimenting with pricing. So, there you go, a business opportunity. Provide a SaaS offering, where the average any-business can run price experiments. It’s just business intelligence, as a service. GigaOm writes about it all the time……
The hotels are halfway there with this kind of idea when you book B&B at a full rate.
If this idea takes off, I imagine there could be a Ryanair model applied to it (i.e., lower prices for standing customers).
Pat
I think this is a fantastic idea. Huge potential. I’m hoping it’s Ryanair pricing with Southwest levels of customer service. Love to see someone over here try this.
Dermot
Not 100% sold. There is defo something that could be done but people don’t think far enough ahead with their eating out plans. Usually couple of days or week ahead at best. As a former chef myself I know the feeling of standing around on a Monday night with no punters and you lose money. The likes of Groupon etc are great for filling seats. If I owned a place now I’d try and get a huge folowing through social media and just fill the place on a quiet night with a half price steak offer. Also easier for a Ryanair or telco to change an industry as one company but with restaurants you are talking about 100s of people who are all in competition with each other. Tricky, Agree some better system out there just not sure what it is.
I love the technology here, but I’d be very worried about the branding.
I know if I’m buying a flight to London for business, I’ll pick the cheapest, but if I’m buying a romantic weekend break there’s no way I’d go Ryanair!
I’d definitely feel the same for a restaurant – if it’s somewhere fancy (that you need to book a table) using Ryanair prices isn’t a great selling point. On the other hand, if affordability is a good selling point for a restaurant (e.g. Milanos) do people ever book it in advance?