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62 Comments
- wild, on 10/12/2007, -0/+40RTA fellas, its only 1 iHop that did it and without corporate permission...
- vudicarus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27perhaps paying when you order might have been the thing to do.
- uahgekido, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27You're ***** me, right? How they have gotten away with this for any amount of time is beyond me.
This is a dugg story I'll remember for quite some time. - inactive, on 01/02/2009, -0/+15paying at order time screws the waiter because no one really wants to tip *before* their meal
- PeterBassett, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12So, paying when you order wouldn't have solved the problem at its source?
- dime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Pay before you eat is messy because you may decide you want more food during the meal.... or you may want dessert after the meal.
Having to pay 2, 3, 4 seperate times when you go out to eat sounds like a perfect recipe for "I'm never coming here again." - toppgun, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I'm sorry, Bruce. These boys get that syrup in 'em, they get all antsy in their pantsy.
- sacherjj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10In Indiana licenses, we have a 2D barcode that has all of the information displayed on the license and possibly more. We have bars that REQUIRE that you let them scan the barcode to "verify the validity" of the license. What you don't know they are doing is building a database of the sex, age, address, etc. of all the people coming in. This is great information to have, if you realize that Thursday is a great night to run special for women to get them in, etc. However, it is a big privacy issue. It would be very easy for IHOP to do the same.
- john570, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Gotta love IHOP. The meal is like $3.99 and then you get an OJ for another 4 bucks.
- otatop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8At least until a fire breaks out and then the national news has a breaking news flash that says "Hundreds die in horrific fire so IHOP doesn't lose 7ยข."
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6but then how are they going to sell you dessert after you've already seen the outragous bill
- webphreak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Its hardly untraceable? say it costs a pizza place $1 to make a pizza, say there's I donno ahh 5 people in the kitchen and 2 on desk, not only that but there are 3 drivers on tonight all of which are on a base-wage with an extra per delivery. so thats 10 people to pay per hour... say I donno $100 an hour right (I donno what minimum wage is in the US sorry I'm just using round figures). on a good night they'll sell say 20-30 pizzas an hour yeah? but on a bad night they're selling only 8-10 so thats about $150 per hour - 100 for wages - 10 for pizza price that leaves 40 for rent, electricity, water, advertising, affiliation maybe? that leaves sweet ***** all profit/hr. Granted that is a bad night but still they can't Plan on every night being a good one, not to mention the hours they are open during the day where they'll get maybe 5 pizzas an hour.
Anyway all I'm really saying is that the cost isn't in the making but the overhead that you have to pay in order to stay in business. - ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5true, but it's workable nonetheless, I've seen it in action at decent cafes and restaurants. your wait staff (of whom you need fewer) simply need to be paid a living wage and not rely on tips. however, it can decrease your average per-ticket amounts.
- lnf69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Plus that is illegal in most states. You can't lock the doors from the inside of any place open to the public, restaurants, movie theaters, stores, etc.
- iamnotcreative, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7"The people are dine and dashing for a reason."
Yeah, they don't want to pay. - ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5actually ingredients + employee time at a non-chain, average cost of a large pie is more like $5 -- and that's not including equipment and electricity/gas costs.. at a chain where a lot of crap is frozen and simply thawed and baked, it's less, but still well over $1 per pie when you include transport costs and other overhead.
I used to work at a non-chain place ... a buddy of mine worked at a small, local chain, and later opened his own place. the above is the results of his research. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Sounds like people just love to complain. Try this, if you don't like there policy whatever it may be. GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! No need to argue with the person that can't change the policy. Money talks, eventually.
- theotherbastard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Know Pancakes, Know Peace?
- diggopolous, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6A similar thing happened to me when I went to a neighborhood bar and grill for lunch. The place had opened about 6 months prior and I would go there about 2 times a week for a burger and a beer.Every so often at night for beers and wings. I wanted them to be sucessful because it was a relief that a mom and pop place was opening instead of another national chain restaurant that are recently invading Manhattan. I placed my credit card on the bar when I ordered. The waitress then
asked to see my driver's License. I said no problem and said I expressed that I was relieved that she asked being that I was recently was a victim of identity theft and whoever had cloned that credit card obviously made dozens of purchases from clerks who never asked to see a back-up ID. The problem came when I went to place the drivers license back in my wallet. She informed me that she would have to posses both my credit card AND drivers license for the duration of my stay. I objected. She said it was the new POLICY to do that and if she wanted for me to wait and call the manager to confirm the POLICY to me personally that she would. I said I had eaten here without this Policy dozens of times spending Hundreds of Dollars. She told me that she had never seen me before. I told her that I had never seen HER before and it is MY POLICY to prevent identity theft ( it was a waiter elsewhere who had cloned my credit card). I told her
that I could not enjoy my lunch when treated like a suspect because of their paranoid POLICY that since there are about 3000 restaurants on this island, then a couple of thou a year would be not be going into her register, left and never went back.
after showing it to her proving that the credit card was indeed mine. - Egoist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@toppgun: In non-chain pizza shops, the cost of a pizza ranges between $5-8. The biggest cost is the cheese.
Edit: D'oh, beaten! - mattsidesinger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2At WAFFLE HOUSE you just have to surrender your dignity.
- Egoist, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4How about just having a guy at the door checking receipts like they do at Fry's/CostCo/etc
- velocipenguin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Maybe if you learn to spell.
- nickj6282, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3How about just not eating at IHOP so you don't have to try to choke down their ***** food in the first place. Seriously, if someone served me food that awful I'd expect not to pay either.
I'm willing to try any restaraunt twice if I get bad service or crappy food. Once could just be a fluke or a server having a bad day, but twice is an indication of a real problem. I've eaten at the IHOP near my house three times and all three times the food has been terrible and the service has been less than spectacular, so now I just avoid them altogether. - brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5RTFA, it was only at one IHOP and without corporate approval.
- nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I was working in Germany last summer and I realized a cultural difference between there and North America. Here in Canada it's not uncommon to pay for something before you receive it, especially at a fast food joint. In Germany vendors wouldn't take your money until the goods were in your hand or in front of you (most of the time, I'm making generalizations so please don't point out specific counter-cases).
Would people be offended going to a sit-down restaurant (even IHOP) and being asked to pay before the food got to the table? What if you weren't sure you ordered everything you wanted yet? How do you know how much to tip if you haven't had the service yet? Personally I don't think I'd be happy about paying before I ate at a sit-down place like that.
edit: In the next "thread" people mentioned a couple of these points already, sorry but I didn't read everything first... - lnf69, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yeah sure.
I would never return to an eatery that asks me to make a deposit on my meal, and I would think that a lot of ppl would agree with me. - Coffeedemon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Should have told that to the manager though ... sounds like she was new and had little influence.
Its an insane policy ... maybe if they didn't treat everyone like thieves then people would do repeat business more often. - kozie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Aren't pancakes dessert?
- dimension128, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'd RTFA, but TFA is covered up with a green box and a bunch of completely offset flash animations.
- CEpeep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://duggmirror.com
- dime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's actually pretty easy to audit a pizza parlor...
You can estimate how many pizzas were made by determining the amount of material required to make a pie, then taking the total material purchased, and dividing.
So, if you have enough material to make 1000 pies, but are only reporting income of 100, you either need to have 900 worth of material in inventory or you're stealing. The only way to get around that is to not claim the material purchase as a business expense and hide that too. But, if you do that, you don't get the deduction and pay higher tax. Either way, you pay.
That's not to say most pizzarias aren't run by crooks... they are. But if the IRS comes knocking, it's very difficult to hide what they've done. - tobyjoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hallelujah. I wonder if there is ever an internal clash with some folks who hold pro-free-market and pro-privacy views. The answer is exactly as you state: don't like the rules, leave. There isn't a health risk or a risk to the employees, nothing OSHA-related... so while it may be a poor business decision, it's for the market to decide.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2You know, they could simply charge people before giving them the food. Or present the check along with the meal. These generally prevent dine-n-dash scenarios.
- RockMyMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Making the customer feel like a criminal? Are they hiring the RIAA as consultants?
- Silt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I simply can't believe people would actually surrender their license to this IHOP. Hell, this is worse than Worst Buy or CompUSSR thinking they can force you to stop and show a receipt before leaving the store. Reminds me when I went to test drive a car once and the slimeball said I had to leave my license for "security reasons". I guess no one ever questioned this process before because when I said "well it's probably illegal for me to drive without my license...and besides, I'm not leaving it behind so you can grab my information and run a credit check when I'm not using your financial institutions" he was really shocked!
- martalli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or maybe they saw Super Troopers and worried about people becoming addicted to maple syrup chugging.
- Lucian0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"...but as with all security measures, what made one party more secure made another less secure."
Wouldn't the use of something like Diffie-Hellmann crypto allow for both party to be safe, instead of one being safer while the other growing more insecure? Then again, its not really the topic of discussion so I guess its not important. - DejaVuDarkmist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah im thinking paying when you first order the food would solve this problem lol!
- Xudd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0And here I thought they were adding good ol Kentucky bourbon to their pancakes
- Flannigan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4How do we know they weren't checking to make sure the people were of the legal age to consume mass quanities of syrup? The Waffle House I frequent has a huge problem with underage consumption.
- Dou6, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This sounds like a case of DWB, I think good ole Al should get involved.
- skibumnh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@topgun
puff puff pass. - trubbleshute, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1How much are pancakes anyways? Like $6?
Instead of relinquishing my ID I went to Dennys or Bickfords down the road.
They don't need to know who I am; it's like a supermarket card--tracking what you buy and spending habits, that is why I just make stuff up on those cards. - BleedingHollow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1It probably has to do with the ***** scanning licenses. I know in NJ if u go to a club u get ur license scanned and now the club basically has ur name/address/age/SS# yes even SS#. And for what? So they can send u advertisements that u didn't agree to receive. This is why they're are lawyers working on making it illegal to scan ur license.
- cleverboy, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5Honestly, I was at an iHop the other night, and someone "dashed" on them. They got a police officer in the area to go after them, but it totally sucks. I felt bad because you know it hurts everyone in the chain regarding "tips" and other stuff. I'm sure its no bed of roses for those involved. Also, the guy in the article is funny, I sware... if ANYONE still has their social security number on their license, they SHOULD have their identity stolen, just on principle. It's a bad policy though. They need something however, because I appreciate the Quincy, MA iHop (and the Watertown, MA iHop that's 24 hr.). I'd rather they stayed in business than let ***** bleed meals out of them in groups.
- f4st4word, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0"paying at order time screws the waiter because no one really wants to tip *before* their meal"
They can pay before the meal and then tip after the meal. You are right, this probably would reduce tips quite a bit - this isn't a perfect idea by any means, but it seems like a much better idea than asking customers for their driver's licenses. I seriously doubt many people would feel like tipping well after being asked to surrender a photo id, which is more or less implicitly accusing the customer of being a thief. - wild, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2"This is great information to have, if you realize that Thursday is a great night to run special for women to get them in, etc."
Or, you could, I don't know, actually go in to your bar on Thursday and just look at the patrons. Its been working for hundreds of years to know what kind of people visit your bar. No need to get a Big Brother on it. - revisrev, on 10/12/2007, -8/+6LMAO, because I've been forced by IHoP to do a Dine and Dash.
It was a few years back. I got there with a friend of mine, ordered pancakes and milk, ate, and then didn't see the waiter for an hour. I yelled into the kitchen that I was done and needed my check. They sent out another waiter to tell me that my waiter was busy, but that he'd have my check out to me shortly. ***** that. I left. I'm not going to waste my time on some stupid ***** like that. According to my calculations they didn't really want my money anyway.
My guess is that if you have to take IDs to prevent people doing a dine n dash, then you need to encourage your wait staff to be a little bit more perceptive of their tables. The people are dine and dashing for a reason. - teamgwho, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3oh god, let's not start that argument again.
http://www.digg.com/business_finance/Best_Buy_Sir_we_need_to_see_your_receipt_You_Um_no_you_don_t -
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