PRICES

[Botafogo]

A)Did they charge a small "couvert" of maybe $5 just for sitting down? This is standard at many European (and south American) restaurants.

B) I forgot advertising, do you have any idea what even a small presence in a large city's Yellow Pages (plural in both senses now since deregulation, there are multiple directories you need to be in) costs??? We have a small (3 1/5 x 4) ad in all the appropriate directories and it costs us over $800 dollars a month. You would have to sell forty bottles of Beaujolais by the glass just to pay for that, let alone any print ads in local publications or other promotion.

Here in LA there are scores of restaurants (busy ones!) charging $6 a glass for crap bulk wine that wholesales for half of the Jadot and STILL going under in six months. It is the business with the highest failure rate in the country and most consumers have NO idea of the costs involved in putting a plate of pasta on a well appointed table in a nice room in a good neighborhood.

And I haven't mentioned how many folks are working 70 hours a week for your dinner (managers and owners). Have you ever noticed how few octegenarian restrateurs you meet? They all have strokes or cardiac implosions in their 50's!!!!

Been there, done that, have MUCH respect for them but I had to get out, Roberto