While restaurants try to lure in patrons with promises of great food at low prices, and fast food joints entice families by offering kid's meals with crappy little trinkets, a new type of restaurant has sprung up in Utah and Colorado with a very different, and I think very cool concept: you pay whatever you think the meal is worth.
The One World Cafe in Salt Lake City and the SAME (So All Might Eat) Cafe in Denver are what some are calling "Robin Hood" style restaurants. Patrons are served organic food and asked to pay whatever they can afford. Even those with no money can "pay" by working: washing dishes, sweeping, and other tasks. Affluent patrons are asked to pay a bit more to balance things out. It would be nice to see real "word of mouth" advertising result in more restaurants like these, and I think that just might happen. When you treat your customers with dignity, they'll want to keep coming back, and they'll tell other people about it.
1. A cool idea, but it would be awfully easy to abuse.
Posted at 7:33PM on Jan 1st 2007 by Miranda