My estimate for the first number is from the Harris Poll, so why is that high?

Then, yes, there’s a guess of group size issue. The first estimate is low. The second is high. I don’t manage a restaurant, so I throw those out there. Maybe they’re high or low. That isn’t really the point. The point is HOW you calculate the effect of not serving that customer base. Now, the manager has these numbers. Presumably, he knows what the group size distribution is and he can run the numbers.

But as I understood him, they ran the numbers on a per menu-item basis, which does not tell you the effect that item has on total sales. You need to include group sizes (again, he should have that distribution) and probability of having one customer in each group of a given size who is affected by their menu choice.

For some single-issue customers (celiac, vegetarians, kosher), he also has the probability data, though admittedly it’s not local and national numbers skew things a lot. For some, of course, he can’t really get those numbers (hard-chair haters).

The point, though, is that if he just counts customers who hate hard chairs and won’t be back, he is WAY undercounting the total number of customers who are being affected.

Profit/bill.

Irrelevant. The profit/bill question only becomes relevant if there’s a difference between the profit on a group with a single-issue customer and group without and then only if the restaurant is frequently full and wants to attract only the highest paying customers. In that case, of course, they should market to alcoholics, since the biggest profit is typically in that area.

As a result, we don’t have very many restaurants where we eat regularly.

The poor restaurant manager needs more information, though. He needs: the probability of the key customer, the distribution of group sizes, and the distribution of billing totals for each group size. You have an estimate for the first quantity that is biased on the high side, a point-guess-timate of group size, and nothing about the bill (or profit).

Don’t mind me, I have a few vegetarian friends so I’m familiar with the plight but have never seen them in a situation like yours.

Likewise, I get all bent at restaurants that don’t have beer on tap and when they do, it’s not real beer, it’s Bud or Millers.

I don’t want your beer in a can, no thanks, and if I have to suffer through a Bud once in a while, so be it.

But considering I don’t eat out that much these days the beer on tap is the extra treat for me which dictates where I do and do not go.

So while you eat your vegetables, I drink mine fermented.

As a connoisseur of a good rant, I would have expected more sympathy ;-) Or maybe not.

Really, though, you should know that I’m not telling them *what* to serve. And I don’t *expect* a steak house to serve a vegetarian meal, I just find that 99% of the ones that I’ve ever been in are happy to come up with something. But of course, a restaurant is welcome to serve whatever they want. If they don’t have vegetarian meals, I want eat there. But that’s their prerogative. That’s not what I’m talking about at all.

What bothers me is that they don’t know how to *count* for God’s sake. You can substitute anything you want. Celiac-friendly, Kosher, unspicy, single malt Scotch for instance ;-) If you run a restaurant and quit offering single malt because it isn’t a top seller, you have to ask how many customers you have for whom the single malt issue is a really a make or break.

If you run the numbers correctly and it isn’t worth it, well then it isn’t worth it. But if you just count the number of orders for the one vegetarian, kosher or single-malt enhanced meal you sell, you’re not counting right.

As for food versus weeds, I won’t say anything about that except this. My aunt used to say I ate “birdseed”. At our wedding, we had everyone served up with real food, and we brought out a special plate for her. Piled high with birdseed! So beware if you should find yourself dining at our house ;-)

Don’t worry, though, we did serve her “real” food too.

You’re almost as bad as my sis-in-law that ordered the Steak Au Poivre without the au poivre, which was the only steak on the menu that night that then bitched because it still tasted like pepper even without the sauce.

What’s wrong with you people, can’t you eat food instead of eating the weeds that food eats? :)