I like to eat the same thing every day for breakfast. Actually I like to have the same thing for breakfast every day for about three months, and then I never want to eat it again. In the winter of 2006-2007, it was poached eggs on english muffins. For spring 2007, Greek yogurt with granola and fruit. Lately, it's been the breakfast burrito from La Esquina. (See above.)
I began eating the breakfast burrito maybe two months ago. Back then, it was a gigantic burrito of chorizo, scrambled eggs, and Mexican cheese. Once in a while, it would appear with potatoes in it. About two weeks ago, it started to change. Every day it got smaller; the cheese disappeared, and potatoes began to appear regularly. In its current incarnation, it is a small mostly potato and egg burrito without cheese. Very mysterious.
2 comments:
Why is it very mysterious? They are like all other(okay, most)businesses. They are trying to make as much money as possible. If you continue to buy the product and/or don't complain about the changes then you are telling them that the new product is okay with you.
These types of business practices seem to pervade the restaurant business. First give a good product at a good price. Then gradually whittle away at the quantity and sometimes the quality of the food while raising prices. Alas, all good things must come to an end (so we can find other good things).
i've been thinking about this and agree. though i'm not sure by how much choosing not to complain effects the broad issue though. i'd assume this sort of decision was made generally several layers above whoever you'd be complaining to, and would generally require some sort of chain or system in place to assess and implement customer feedback, again something not really done ad hoc both because of laziness but also reasonably so to avoid giving overly vocal minorities too much a say vs a controlled market based study. in addition psychology argues that what people say anyway doesn't really matter that much, it's their behavior that counts and is what you care about and what people say isn’t always and in fact quite frequently differs from what they do, with the conclusion being your real vote is your wallet, not your voice. but that would depend on whether the alternatives are better vs. even if the changes piss you off if it's still worth it and you're better off o just suck it up and it is what it is. for example i think now-a-days you are seeing this more not because the business practice you mentioned of cutting quantity and quality to increase profits but instead it’s done to maintain profits. it's a time of increasing food prices which are the key driver of these sort of decisions businesses are faced with making and trying to decide rather than simply whittling away at customers. the problem from a psychology perspective is customers are going to be unhappy either way. but possibly they will stand less for paying a higher price for the same thing they know exactly what they used to pay (and think they should pay) vs. keeping the price the same and dealing with increasing costs by substituting cheaper ingredients / decreasing quantities. both ways you'd keep margins the same when faced with increasing food costs, both ways you piss off customers, but the former might decrease defections and you get customers to vote w/ their wallet (even if they complain along they way) more in the direction you are hoping. and you can't please all the people all the time when costs go up, something’s got to give.
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