Just Desserts
Mar. 9th, 2015 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twilightponyThere's always too much to eat at a pot luck supper. Last night, I was afraid that my ten small alfalfa sprout buckwheat pancake rolls wouldn't be enough, but of course when you add five more small courses to the meal, everypony ends up fit to burst.
Pinkie had us fooled. She did bring the dessert, but it looked like beet sticks and hay burgers! Rainbow Dash nearly choked laughing. They were small cakes and cherry ice cream. The winter weather kept it from melting on the way to Applejack's place. It was delicious.
Over dinner we got to speaking about restaurants and dessert. Pinkie told us that everypony likes dessert but it doesn't help the restaurant, especially not busy restaurants. Desserts often require a specialty pastry chef, thus more cooks to pay and less kitchen space for preparing the mane meals. That increases the cost overhead for a restaurant.
There is only so much a pony is willing to pay for dessert, so a plate of cake is never going to be priced as much as a plate of greens and hay. That means less profit for the restaurant. Dessert keeps ponies at a table longer, increasing time spent by customer at a table by 50% or more. That slows down turnover which cuts into the profits of busy restaurants.
The problem is that everypony likes dessert and if a restaurant doesn't serve dessert, they'll go eat somewhere else. So restaurants have to have desserts on the menu to keep ponies happy, even though they'd wish you'd skip dessert and didn't linger.
Now drinks, that's where the money is. Fancy teas, cider, fruit juices, these go with the mane course, increasing how much a pony spends without increasing how long they occupy a table.
And Sugarcube corner? It only serves dessert and tea. It makes money because most of the customers don't eat their cakes at Sugarcube, they take them home. So the Cakes have more customers and fewer tables to serve.
Catering is a whole different horse race.
Pinkie had us fooled. She did bring the dessert, but it looked like beet sticks and hay burgers! Rainbow Dash nearly choked laughing. They were small cakes and cherry ice cream. The winter weather kept it from melting on the way to Applejack's place. It was delicious.
Over dinner we got to speaking about restaurants and dessert. Pinkie told us that everypony likes dessert but it doesn't help the restaurant, especially not busy restaurants. Desserts often require a specialty pastry chef, thus more cooks to pay and less kitchen space for preparing the mane meals. That increases the cost overhead for a restaurant.
There is only so much a pony is willing to pay for dessert, so a plate of cake is never going to be priced as much as a plate of greens and hay. That means less profit for the restaurant. Dessert keeps ponies at a table longer, increasing time spent by customer at a table by 50% or more. That slows down turnover which cuts into the profits of busy restaurants.
The problem is that everypony likes dessert and if a restaurant doesn't serve dessert, they'll go eat somewhere else. So restaurants have to have desserts on the menu to keep ponies happy, even though they'd wish you'd skip dessert and didn't linger.
Now drinks, that's where the money is. Fancy teas, cider, fruit juices, these go with the mane course, increasing how much a pony spends without increasing how long they occupy a table.
And Sugarcube corner? It only serves dessert and tea. It makes money because most of the customers don't eat their cakes at Sugarcube, they take them home. So the Cakes have more customers and fewer tables to serve.
Catering is a whole different horse race.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-11 01:39 am (UTC)