When someone orders a sandwich that comes with fries or coleslaw whats your policy if they say:

a) i dont want either, can i get a discount?

b) can i get a drink instead?

c) can I get a different side dish? (the other side costs more)

 

Just wondering what your different policies are regarding this matter.

Thanks!

 

a) No. Too hard of a policy to police or manage, and not something you want to encourage.

b) What size? Refills? No regardless. There are too many variable involved this way too. If they can switch for a medium drink, you'll have to arrange for another upcharge or discount for a large or small. You can't manage or police this type of policy either.

c) This one is a little easier to manage. What you could do is to build your recipes assuming everyone is getting the most expensive size. Then you are covered when they don't, and their wanting to substitute is no issue.

Brandon O'Dell
O'Dell Consulting
phone: (888) 571-9068
email: brandon@bodellconsulting.com
web: http://www.bodellconsulting.com
blog: http://blog.bodellconsulting.com

Quote (original post by: ramis)

 

a) No. No discount. The reason being that combo plates, or dishes in general are cheaper than if you added up the individual items. If you started subtracting for items the customer doesn't want, it's conceivable that you could end up with something on a plate, for free.

b) Depends. If it's a soda or cofffee,  yeah, probably, as my costs on those items are very favorable.

c) Again, depends. One answer is yes, but they have to pay the difference. Another answer is just yes, in the interest of making my customer happy. I'm less likely to pick the second option, as the costs do add up, and even if I thought I was just doing it for one person, it could snowball into a regular expectation. The third answer is no, which doesn't make the customer happy at all. I would most likely choose the first option, nad I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to pay the difference.

If you are getting a lot of requests for substitutions, then maybe you need to look at what you are offering.  Think of a substitution as a complaint because you are not offering something on your menu.  Over the years, I've tried to get rid of substitutions by offering it on the menu.  Much less hassle and more controllable.

I try to follow what Burgerman suggests.  We get a lot of requests for a half size salad from our senior guests, we didn't put it on the menu but it is on our POS.  I think it falls under "give the people what they want only make it better" (someones signature line, I can't remember). 

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.  -HST

I agree that if everyone requests something to put it on the menu and I do, but what about the guy that wants two burgers but only one fries?

Do i then sell them ala carte? sort of defeats the purpose.

 

Our PLU registers forced us to have prices for every item that we could possibly sell.  When a cashier sells something by just ringing in the price causes an exception report.  We then have to track it back to find out what the difference was.  It's good and bad.

The good part is it makes use have a PLU for every item that we sell (one step closer to POS), and forces us to put a retail price on that product (and have a cost).  Not every PLU is on the menu, but it is listed in the PLU Book at the cash register. 

From those prices, we can make combos or specials by simplying combining the items and apply a specific discount.  Although, it sounds difficult, it is really easy and saves a lot of head work later on. 

Back to the topic.  Substitutions are always a problem, and there's a good chance that if you start nickle & diming a customer they will notice...and customers remember that.   It is far better to add a "little extra" to every item and cover the potential for loss. 

Substitutions are simply a way of saying that you aren't offering what you sell in a manner that the customers like.  We used to do the same thing with our lunch & dinner plates...sub this...sub that...charge this...charge that.  Finally, I just made a list of what they could choose and raised the prices on sides to accomodate the changes.  Makes it much easier for the waitress, cashier and me.  Its easy to adjust portion size to make it adaptable to one price.

HB

Hi Rami!

Our policy is:

a) No - no discount for no side

b) No - no subst drink for side

c) We accomodate different sides upon request - some are straight subst, but some require an upcharge.  I programmed the "choose sandwich side" screen of our POS to have all of the normal side choices at the top, and the upcharge substs on the bottom showing the upcharge price.  Same as Byron, we don't offer all of those sandwich side options on the menu - but, that way if a guest asks, everyone is getting charged the same upcharge for the same subst, and the cashier doesn't have to ask what the price should be. 

As Burgerman suggests, we also offer mashed potatoes and gravy as a sandwich side for +$1.  We were getting so many guests subst requests for that item, we decided to offer it that way - and it's a good upsell for us too.  The other side substs are much less frequent.

Laina Shockley
Ethos Vegan Kitchen

If a POS menu is designed properly... there will be a button and price associated for all possible substitutions.  We have a special report which consolidates all special instructions.  By using this report we are able to modify menus accordingly so that no substitutions are made without charging accordingly.

Handling/managing substitutions in our POS is quite easy.  However, substitutions in the kitchen most often cause delays and sometimes confusing with portioning.  If the menu items are clear, concise and unique... substitutions are made easy.  A menu which uses the same wording redundantly i.e. "Chicken Wrap", "Chicken Wrap Supreme", "Chicken Wrap BBQ Supreme" , "Chicken Wrap Alfredo Supreme" with sides of "French Fries", "Seasoned French Fries", "French Fries Chippers" etc...  nothing but problems will occur. 

Substitutions for some are easy... substitutions for others with their specific menu can be difficult.  It really depends on how the menus are designed and implemented.

Robert Lehman

www.ViewGistics.com

This subject came up several days ago. However, this is my policy.

Menu states "$ 0.50 substitution charge or menu price difference,"

We get very few questions and regulars don't even look.

Thanks, come back, bring friends and money!!!