Dining norms change. Several years ago, the hot topic was pre-payment or at least card holds. There was UberEATS and their ilk, opening untapped markets for operators, albeit at contentious costs. QR codes, similarly, might not be used at pandemic levels, but again remain. The ideas are embedded.

So, could the next frontier be a rise in variable pricing? Beyond the idea of analogue pricing stalwarts like happy hours or early bird specials, could something digital, and agile, be the future?

Technology provider Square published a restaurant futures report last year, having surveyed Australian restaurateurs, workers, and diners. They found 29% of restaurateurs considering price rises within the year “to weather economic headwinds.”

83% of diners agreed that they’d “understand if their favourite local business raised prices.” So, perhaps conditions are ripe for change?

Renowned Danish chef and restaurateur Christian Puglisi recently posed this question to a legion of Instagram followers. In his short video Puglisi, who owns casual Bæst and its sister bakery come all-day eatery Mirabelle, said “supply and demand works in so many different areas in the service sector. But when it comes to restaurants, we are very much used to the idea that it’s just a fixed price for everything.”

 

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A post shared by Christian Francesco Puglisi (@chrifrapug)

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He asked why, if you book a holiday in high season, you willingly pay double the price, or accept Uber surge pricing on a busy night. “I’m wondering, are we, with the help of the technology that we have accessible today, at a point now where we can start experimenting with a differentiated pricing model,” he said.

Seasoned chef and restaurateur Mark Best says he’s been thinking about this concept for years, having seen something similar, and analogue I assume, at the legendary Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. “Monday to Saturday menus were demand priced with more courses on Friday and Saturday. Monday was the cheapest,” he says.

The kitchen must be flexible enough to create different menus every day with COGS (cost of goods sold) in line with pricing, he says, and that most restaurants here in Australia operate cost plus (a fixed percentage is added to the cost of production to determine the price). “Unless their offering is attractive enough for the customers to pay the premium pricing, it will fail,” he says.

Platforms like Tock offer variable pricing, and using available technology (or imaginable future iterations), restaurateurs wouldn’t simply draw more guests on slow days or periods, but could set parameters to allow agile or dynamic tweaks, whether automated or by real time suggestions drawing on data beyond what they’ve collected themselves.

Kirsty Marchant, co-owner at Alberta’s in Busselton (and like Puglisi a Noma alumni), says it’s not as simple as being busy. While sophisticated pricing models may be an option for larger venues, smaller ones like themselves, especially ones with pronounced seasonal peaks need, she says, to concentrate on guest experience and “giving extra love to guests in low season,” in part to increase spend per head, making up for less covers.

Alberta’s menu changes weekly and even daily, so they’re constantly in touch with their pricing. There’s an issue of scale and business model at play.

Perhaps the ultimate question: would diners go for it? Posing the question to a few dining pals, some flat out hated the idea, others said they’d accept dynamic pricing with certainty around when the price could change, and whether it’s locked in on booking.

Others worried that it could mean those with less money and flexibility at work or childcare would lose out on prime-time bookings if prices were inflated in peak (or surge) periods, rather than reduced in quieter moments. Valid concerns when many are grappling with cost of living.

Time will tell of course, but if experience is anything to go by there will always need to be the trailblazers, willing to make the change, and ride the reaction.

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