French Restaurant Charges Rude People More Money

A couple of restaurant stories caught my attention recently. First, a café in France charges customers based on how polite they are. According to The Independent, you pay less if you say "Bonjour" than if you only say "please", which, in turn, pays less than if you say neither good day or please. Considering the reputation the French have for rudeness, the café owner should make out pretty well.

The other restaurant story is from China where the proprietor of a buffet style restaurant allows the customers to pay what they want (after they wash their own dishes). The "pay what you want" experiment isn't novel, but the results are pretty striking. A full 20% of the buffet's customers pay absolutely nothing. The restaurant lost approximately $16,000 the first month and a total of $41,000 since they opened in August. The owner is a devout Christian (the name of the restaurant is "5 Loaves and 2 Fish") who thinks eventually patrons will start to pay more.