When Will We Learn?

...and what would you like? I am asked. “Hot Peppers, Tomato, House-Made Sausage, Ontario Fiore Di Latte Mozzarella please and could you make sure that the pizza has lots of peppers!” I say after taking a sip of wine.

My friend then looked at me not at all surprised with my “lots of peppers on the pizza” request, because I love spicy food and the pizzeria started to hold back on the “Hot Peppers” the last few times we visited. Our hostess smiles and assures me of plenty peppers. After all, we spend more than $70-$80/visit for a casual dinner because the atmosphere is awesome and the food is to die for.


Before we knew it our meals were on the table but when I looked my “lots of hot peppers” request translated into no more than two extra peppers. I thought no big deal, I’ll just remind our hostess to bring some on the side. After all it's a hot peppers pizza...right? She was very generous and brought a whole jar of peppers and I happily sprinkled hot peppers to my heart’s content before I inhaled the whole thing like a vacuum cleaner.

Staring at a dead bottle of wine, we got our bill and noticed we were charged not only for the “lots of peppers” ($1.50) but also for that little jar ($3). This got me thinking about the money that we spend there on a monthly basis and the value of the total experience because I doubt this business model would work anywhere else. Imagine going to Starbucks and asking for a Grande bold and being charged $1 extra for the bold blend??? Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

Running successful businesses, business consulting and being an entrepreneur, I come from a school of thought where providing your customers double the value while charging half the price is the norm. Not to mention, paying a lot more attention to your regulars.

I find the idea mind boggling that the more successful your business becomes the more innovative / greedy the pricing structure is vis-à-vis product or service. Sure, you might get new customers unaware of the inflated original prices, but you definitely start to lose your old customer base that made you successful in the first place. This only leads to a gap in the market for another player to enter, chipping away your share of the pie, pun intended.

Peter Bergman author of Point B: A Short Guide To Leading a Big Change makes this case very eloquently in his blog.

Needless to say, I am no longer a “loyal” customer of this pizzeria. Not only will I never be going there but also will not refer this place to anyone. Who could justify paying 31% extra for simple hot peppers?

I am now accepting all recommendation for a great pizzeria in downtown Toronto because man cannot live life on healthy food alone, he also requires hot wood oven pizza.