New NYC restaurant with Wall Street-style pricing

A new bar set to open in New York has decided to let drink prices fluctuate in a manner not unlike the stock market.

The more popular a product becomes the higher its price rises and vice versa.

The Exchange Bar & Grill, in New York’s Gramercy Park, will undertake this novel and innovative approach to pricing when it opens on 1 April.

Levent Cakar and Damon Bae, who have experience in the restaurant and financial sectors, own the venue, which seats 60 and includes a 30 foot-long bar and seating area.

They told Reuters that although it was a gimmick, “it’s definitely something a little bit different.”

Behind the bar, a ticker tape menu and television screens will display the changing prices for beverages and bar food.

The price increases will be in 25 cent increments but prices are only likely to rise or fall by US$2 overall.

So as demand or a rush for one particular beer goes up, it will push the prices on others down allowing savvy drinkers to get their drinks in for reduced sums.

It is not the only bar to introduce the concept; Dow Jones in Barcelona and Footsie in Paris have also run the pricing scheme successfully for several years now.

Research by the NPD Group and New York’s Department of Health has shown that although the city currently has 23,000 restaurants and 4,400 open each year, the number of sit-down venues fell 9% between 2008 and 2009.

Rupert Millar, 30.03.2010