One has to feel sympathy for today’s award winner, a restaurant owner in China. He meant well, and his idea was good – it just wasn’t properly executed.
An all-you-can-eat restaurant has racked up thousands of pounds worth of debt and been forced to close because diners ate so much food.
Chinese restaurant Jiamener was open for less than a month despite having more than 500 customers a day.
The owner was offering a $25 loyalty card, which is about £19, for unlimited food for a month.
Unsurprisingly customers took full advantage of this incredible offer, and the restaurant was soon in more than $100,000 worth of debt.
There are also reports loyalty card holders passed their cards onto family and friends.
The restaurant, which is in China, opened on June 1 and was forced to close after just two weeks.
There’s more at the link.
Moral of the story: make sure your “all-you-can-eat cards” are valid only for the person buying them – and hedge them about with conditions that won’t bankrupt you! If he’d made it “all you can eat for three meals a week”, or something like that, he’d still be in business.
Peter
True moral of the story: Don't take a Western idea dependent on social responsibility to a Chinese culture where "Screw the bastard…" is a cultural norm…