What if the guest you’re pricing around doesn’t exist?
Across tens of thousands of guest reviews, nobody has ever complained about paying too little. What shows up is that something felt too expensive. That is a verdict on value, and cutting the price will not fix it.
In this takeaway, I break down why the regular you’re afraid of isn’t watching your menu, how I raised the price of one item a week for six weeks and got zero pushback, and why $16 and $18 land the same way while $19 and $21 do not.
If you’ve known for a year that an item is underpriced and still haven’t touched it, this one is costing you every week you wait.
The Playbook Takeaways
- Guests judge value, not price. Across tens of thousands of guest reviews, nobody has complained about paying too little. “Too expensive” is a verdict on value, and cutting the price will not fix it.
- Raise one item at a time. Raising the price of one item a week for six weeks drew zero pushback. The regular you are afraid of is not watching your menu.
- Know which threshold you are crossing. $16 and $18 land the same way with guests; $19 and $21 do not. Check the line before you move a price, then stop waiting on the item you already know is underpriced.
Want the systems behind ideas like these? Josh runs a free 5-day restaurant marketing masterclass at restaurantbusinessschool.com.
Keep going: the levers that actually move restaurant profitability, restaurant marketing solutions that actually work, and what a restaurant consultant does.
To build the marketing team that raises your check average for you, visit restaurantbusinessschool.com.
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Free 5-Day Restaurant Marketing Masterclass – This is a live training where you’ll learn the exact campaigns Josh has built and tested in real restaurants to attract new guests, increase visit frequency, and generate sales on demand. Save your spot at restaurantbusinessschool.com
About the Author: Josh Kopel is a Michelin-awarded restaurateur, host of the Full Comp podcast, and creator of the Restaurant Scaling System, which helps independent owners grow profitable restaurants through AI-powered marketing. More about Josh · Learn with Josh
