Not since the salad days of Monty Hall have restaurants seen the sort of deal-making that’s currently raging through the business. With the proliferation of snack wraps, bargain bowls, two-for-ones and every other sort of break a marketing department can brainstorm, the industry is hawking value like a whole strip mall of dollar stores.
But not every brand apparently got the memo. Mixed into the wave of discounts are enough indulgence-focused promotions to prove there’s plenty happening at the other end of the pricing barbell, too.
Barbell pricing, as all but the greenest industry newbie likely knows, is the dual approach restaurants take in their marketing. To draw price-sensitive customers, a spotlight is thrown on head-turning values. Simultaneously, they showcase alluring premium products that may convince those patrons to trade up once they’re through the doors. Cracker Barrel might be touting new under-$8.99 entrees, but its latest special is a steak and shrimp dinner that sells for $22.49. It’s a way of addressing both traffic and profitability. Hence the barbell label.
The recent surge in use has been overshadowed by jaw-droppers like Starbucks’ introduction of bundled deals and McDonald’s plan to introduce a $5 steal. Yet the high-end intros have been stunning.
The most recent menu addition at Galpao Gaucho, the seven-unit Brazilian steakhouse chain, is a steak that literally glitters. It’s a top sirloin wrapped in a 24-karat-gold foil. The price: $55 during weekday lunchtimes, and $73 or $75 for dinner or any weekend meal, depending on location.
That’s for all-you-can-eat, so it still qualifies as a steal—especially if you’re in the 1%.
If the glitter doesn’t catch your eye during a visit, the high-end serving style likely will. A special cart is wheeled to patrons’ tables, where a “meat chef” wields a golden knife to carve a portion.
Red Robin is considerably down the pricing spectrum from Galpao Gaucho, but it, too, is embracing opulence as a way of boosting checks. The burger specialist has just introduced a new sandwich called The Gold Medal Burger.”
The chain touts it as “a burger worth its weight in gold,” but there’s no actual gold in the build. The attention-snagging element is the sandwich’s size: With three burger patties, it weighs in at 18 ounces.
Before the rollout, Red Robin invited headquarters' employees to try the product. Few could finish it. That inspired the chain to serve the burger with a challenge: Finish the whole thing and you’ll be immortalized in a Gold Medal Hall of Fame.
Many of the introductions falling at the high end of the pricing barbell aren’t as glitzy. Applebee’s new chicken sandwich sells for $13.99—a charge still within the mass-market brand’s pricing spectrum, but on the higher side. That’s a dollar more than the casual chain’s burger.
Higher-priced items were particularly prevalent in the run-up to Father’s Day. LongHorn Steakhouse, now the star performer within Darden Restaurants’ fold, touted a 22-ounce porterhouse for $32. Here again, there’s value to a steak of that size, but $32 is $32.
Similarly, Black Angus Steakhouse touted a $69 Campfire Meal, albeit for two.
That’s hardly a $2 snack wrap. Or the deal that Biggby Coffee recently aired: Three Cheese Egg Bites, or sort of mini quiches, for 99 cents. It anticipates the offer will be so popular that it’s set a limit of one per customer.
There’s clearly an effort underway to go low enough in price that customers can’t resist, even if they are feeling the pinch of soaring gasoline prices and rents.
But just in case they want a break from bargain hunting, the industry seems more than willing to comply. They’ll find gold—quite literally.