Restaurant Tells Customers to 'Pay What It's Worth'

Proving there is honour among rogues, Rogue Kitchen and Wetbar announced today it is extending its groundbreaking “Pay What You Think It’s Worth” program indefinitely.

Customers take the Rogue Oath: “I promise to pay the fair market value for the food I am about to eat.” The menu suggests prices but patrons can pay less if they think the fair market value of their meal is less than the menu price – and are honour bound to pay more, if they believe it’s worth more.

When Rogue opened for business on June 11, 2010, it introduced the program on a trial basis only. It received much initial attention and scepticism from the mainstream media (National Post: Can a pay what you want restaurant break even? Salon: The bold "pay-what-you-want" restaurant experiment). Many wondered whether Rogue would be repeatedly stiffed by unscrupulous freeloaders. Either the program would fail or Rogue would go broke.

“We really weren’t sure ourselves if the program would work,” says Marnie Burnett, Rogue’s director of business development. “We serve a lot of different types of people at Rogue, especially because we’re located in Vancouver’s main transit hub, Waterfront Station.”

“But tour customers have taken the Rogue Oath seriously, and to our utter amazement, the amount of people paying more than the stated menu price has almost exactly equalled the amount where people have paid less.”

Rogue’s owners don’t know if this a Canadian or a Vancouver phenomenon, but nowhere in the world, where similar programs have been attempted, has it worked this well.

“It’s a social contract and when reduced to paper and entered into with a real live server, people seem to take it very seriously,” explains Rogue owner Eli Gershkovitch, who knows a few things about contracts, being a member of the British Columbia Bar. “Myself – I think it’s the Oath.”

The eatery, which is a juxtaposition of exposed brick and state-of-the-art LED resin panels seats 350 guests and serves a menu reminiscent of a Glee mash-up – from corn dogs to steaks, sushi bombs to niçoise salad – it has something for everyone from $5 starters to $23 entrées.

Rogue is located at Waterfront Station in Gastown at 601 Cordova Street West, Vancouver, BC.

For more information on Rogue or Pay what you think it’s worth, visit http://www.roguewetbar.com/ or contact Marnie Burnett at 604.790.1554 and marnie@roguewetbar.com

Logos, product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

Reader Comments:

Be the first to leave a comment for this article

Tweet