Seen in today’s Seattle Times: A Kirkland cafe with no prices
With its blood-red walls and black leather sofas, Kirkland’s Terra Bite Lounge looks like any other coffee shop — until you get to the menu. There are no prices listed. Terra Bite doesn’t have them.
You read that right: No prices. Customers pay what and when they like, or not at all — it makes no difference to the cafe employees, who are instructed not to peek when people put money in the metal lock box.
“Does it really matter to any of our patrons … whether they pay a dollar or three dollars or five dollars?” said Terra Bite founder Ervin Peretz, a 37-year-old Google programmer.
It remains to be seen whether this will succeed, or if it will be underwritten by the owner. The article mentions that he does have a plan to be slightly profitable, so that’s encouraging. But it’s also something that can’t just be done anywhere…location and foot traffic would seem to be more important here than anywhere to sustain a level of business required to offset those who think that they should pay only $2 for a latté, for example.
Jeff Carlson | Never Enough Coffee Creations 