London restaurant's pay-as-much-as you-like scheme a success

11 March 2009 by
London restaurant's pay-as-much-as you-like scheme a success

Restaurant group Little Bay has found its "pay-what-you-think-it's-worth" promotion a great success, with the average customer spending 30% more than usual.

The group, which ran the promotion throughout February at its Farringdon outlet, said that within five days of its launch the restaurant was fully booked, with a total of nearly 10,000 diners visiting the restaurant during the four weeks of the promotion.

Each customer paid on average £17.25 for their meal, almost 30% more than the average food spend of £13.50 at the restaurant.

Little Bay owner Peter Ilic said while he had been nervous about running the promotion during the recession, it had "restored his faith in people's honesty".

"The most someone left was a hefty £40 per head, about £25 over our normal spend," he said. "Our lowest amount was a penny per person plus a £5 tip from two students who said they wanted to prove that the promotion was genuine."

Ilic added: "Most surprising has been which new customers we've attracted. I'd say over half were City workers, proving that even the big spenders are looking for a good value meal out right now."

Little Bay runs four restaurants in London, with branches in Farringdon, Battersea, Kilburn and Croydon.

London restaurants warned against over-discounting >>

London restaurant to launch pay-as-much-as-you-like scheme >>

Special deals will help restaurants attract trade >>

By Kerstin Kühn

E-mail your comments to Kerstin Kühn here.

Caterersearch.com jobs
Looking for a new job? Find your next restaurant job here with Caterersearch.com jobs

The Caterer Blog](http://www.caterersearch.com/blogs/catering-news-blog/) Catch up with more news and gossip on the Caterer Blog here
[Newsletters For the latest hospitality news, sign up for our e-mail newsletters.
The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking