Membership "with benefits" Only $20! (Rant)

Last week, craving fish and being too tired to travel, I decided to eat at the remodeled Davis Street Fishmarket in Evanston. Well before the third "welcome back" message delivered by the staff, I was feeling sadder than ever that this once busy, quirky place had been clumsily yuppified and sanitized within an inch of its life. The few tables that were occupied seemed to be filled with corporate expense account dinner types speaking in hushed tones over a backdrop of muzak standards. Menu prices, previously posted on the blackboard, were now cryptically rendered in price per pound. The mood was ominous, but I was willing to give it a go, so, whatever. Briefly, the meal was mediocre. I could have taken the clumsy cooking in stride, and gone away peacefully, if I had subsequently been spared the blatant sales pitch that was delivered with the check.

The waitress had clearly been instructed to sell me a "membership" in the Clean Plate Club (incorporating Pete Miller's, Merle's and Davis Street Fishmarket). She presented me with a glossy, expensive bit of promotional literature, and suggested in a conspiratorial tone that I might want to sign up for the membership card and receive the special benefits. Scrutinizing the sales piece, I was chagrined to see that this was like no frequent diner's deal that I had ever seen. The price tag for membership was a full $20 from the get-go, while the benefits were only vaguely described as "exclusive offers and reward points" and the chief benefit appeared to be that there is "no card to carry."

My complaints are two. First, I resent being approached in this direct way by the waitstaff and made to listen to a pitch after the sort of meal with which one drinks wine. Second, if they are really looking to earn a loyal customer, they might offer a modest incentive for a return visit and chalk the cost up to promotion. However, if it is the case that a sign-up fee for a rewards program is assessed, it should be made clear at the outset what the monetary value of the benefit will be, and under what conditions the bonus will be delivered. I am simply unwilling to take it on faith that this membership represents a good value. (In an attempt at fairness, I checked out the website. Even the website is vague about what additional purchases must be made to qualify for the potential free entree and dessert benefits.)

In any case, my annoyance at the newly "upscale" Davis Street was only exacerbated by this bit of after-dinner marketing. Davis Street Fishmarket used to be my comfortable old-shoe of a loyal friend, and now it just wants me to be a "Member with Benefits." I guess the plain truth is that I am hurt. No, in fact, I am heartbroken!

Josephine,

Sounds almost exactly like the Lettuce Entertain You Frequent Diner's Card. Spend a buck, get a point, points accumulate, get food certificates. Except I don't recall LEY's version requiring an upfront fee, which is...strange.

It is also highly odd that they reiterate the fact that you don't need to carry a card -- and it's just dumb to bury the details of the program deep within the site.

Hammond

Josephine wrote:Davis Street Fishmarket used to be my comfortable old-shoe of a loyal friend, and now it just wants me to be a "Member with Benefits." I guess the plain truth is that I am hurt. No, in fact, I am heartbroken!

Josephine,

I've been to Davis Street once since the remodel, heartbroken sums it up pretty well. For years Davis Street Fishmarket was a once a month stop for my neighbor Dan and I. We'd sit at the oyster bar, have crisp tater tots and a dozen oysters, shucked by Tony, Davis Street's personable oyster shucker extraordinaire, and make the smallest of small talk.

$20 for a member card is simply salt in the wound.

Fulton's for oysters sounds grand, I wonder what my neighbor Dan is doing this Wednesday.

Enjoy,
Gary

Couldn't agree more. DH and I won't be back, except to buy take-out clam chowder and then get the heck outta there. "Heartbroken" describes exactly how I felt after visiting what is now little more than a sports bar with annoying marketing come-on's.

David Hammond wrote:Except I don't recall LEY's version requiring an upfront fee

LEY does, in fact, charge an upfront fee:

There is an one-time enrollment fee of $25 ($10 outside Illinois). After you use your card three times in the enrollment year, (once outside Illinois) we will return your enrollment fee to you in form of a Reward Certificate."

Aaron Deacon wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Except I don't recall LEY's version requiring an upfront fee

LEY does, in fact, charge an upfront fee:

There is an one-time enrollment fee of $25 ($10 outside Illinois). After you use your card three times in the enrollment year, (once outside Illinois) we will return your enrollment fee to you in form of a Reward Certificate."

Aaron, thanks for the clarification. I don't recall having to pay a fee when I was a member (circa 1994-7), but it's possible that I made so many visits to Shaw's, etc., that I just didnt' feel the fee.

It was free then.

I knew there was a reason I didn't have one any more. Okay, a couple of reasons.

Mike G wrote:It was free then.

Exactly.

I actually think that if I worked in the loop and had to take clients to lunch, a LEY card actually made -- and may still make -- sense. Kind of like frequent flyer miles that you generate while on company business (and the company's tab).

Josephine,

While I am not a service-stickler, I find your anger completely justified. I simply hate being up-sold. I go out to dinner to eat good food, relax and enjoy myself. I resent being reminded that the dining experience comes down to a financial transaction where they are trying to extract as many of my dollars as possible.

I think that restaurant "loyalty" programs insult both the restaurant staff and the customers:

1) They make the assumption that the food and service aren't sufficient enough to inspire loyalty in their customers.

2) They make the assumption that the customers make their dining decisions based heavily on financial decisions. The idea that I would keep eating at your restaurant because I get some "points" that may give me is silly and insulting. If you do a good job, I'll come back. If you do a bad job, I won't. Points or none.

The best loyalty program a restaurant can offer is great food.

Add me to the list of people who have had their heart broken by Davis Street.

Best,
Michael

I don't mind it if they put a loyalty card application in with the bill. Many places do that.

eatchicago wrote:I think that restaurant "loyalty" programs insult both the restaurant staff and the customers:

1) They make the assumption that the food and service aren't sufficient enough to inspire loyalty in their customers.

2) They make the assumption that the customers make their dining decisions based heavily on financial decisions. The idea that I would keep eating at your restaurant because I get some "points" that may give me is silly and insulting. If you do a good job, I'll come back. If you do a bad job, I won't. Points or none.

The best loyalty program a restaurant can offer is great food.

I get the logic of this, but I don't, personally, find it applies. A loyalty card will never make me go to a restaurant that I don't want to go to, but it could be (and it some cases, I'm certain, has been) the tiebreaker when it's between one valid restaurant choice and another. We have a lot to choose from, and not necessarily always vast differences to help us choose. Feeling even marginally more welcomed and rewarded can tip in a choice in a restaurant's favor when all other things are close to equal. I find it smart, not insulting.

That said, it does sound like Davis Street Fishmarket is going about it all wrong.

riddlemay wrote:Feeling even marginally more welcomed and rewarded can tip in a choice in a restaurant's favor when all other things are close to equal. I find it smart, not insulting.

I understand where you're coming from, but in my dining-out decision tree, "points" is ranked about 846th on my list of criteria: Somewhere between the color of the light fixtures and the type of cash register they use.

It works in the airline model because when I'm choosing an airline, I want a service that will accomplish a specific task at the lowest cost to me. "Points" can matter here. In fact, it applies to any commodity where I just want the best value to me.

For me, this doesn't apply to the restaurant world. Going out to a restaurant is not a task I am trying to complete nor is a meal a commodity. It's insulting to me to think that I want to commoditize my dining choices and would pay for the privilege to do so.

If they want to feel more welcoming, then just be more welcoming.

riddlemay wrote:That said, it does sound like Davis Street Fishmarket is going about it all wrong.

This, we agree on.

We frequently patronize Pete Miller's in Wheeling. We were approached in July about joining the "Clean Plate Club" by our server---Apparently we were given a more coherent presentation of the "benefits" which included an immediate $ 20 gift certificate for signing up and additionally a free entree ( for the member ) during their birthday month--- Coupon (valued at $ 30 ) was sent by e-mail to Mrs. Cito in August. These perks are in addition to the points accumulation program.

This type of program gives added value to the person who would visit the restaurant anyway, based on its own merits. It does entice you to make more frequent visits however, because of the allure that you are "getting something more than the other guy" If I didn't like the restaurant to begin with, there is no discount program around that could convince me to eat there. Pete Miller's happens to be one of our faves---



P.S.----No membership card to carry, you pay with the CC that you enrolled with in order to chart the points.

eatchicago wrote:I understand where you're coming from, but in my dining-out decision tree, "points" is ranked about 846th on my list of criteria: Somewhere between the color of the light fixtures and the type of cash register they use...Going out to a restaurant is not a task I am trying to complete nor is a meal a commodity. It's insulting to me to think that I want to commoditize my dining choices...

Why I think this is interesting is that it gets to a bigger issue than dining points (about which we understand each other anyway). Namely, why it is we go to restaurants. You would think everyone on a list like this goes to restaurants for roughly the same reasons, but it's obviously not so. (I'd never expect that we'd all like the same restaurants, but that's a different question; what I'm saying is that it does seem like a reasonable expectation that we'd all want roughly the same thing from dining out, even if we differed on which restaurants provided this best, but we don't even agree on that.)

My taste buds are fully up to the task of discerning when something is orgasmically great, excellent, very good, fine, just so-so, bad, or awful. Likewise, my "social feelers" are up to the task of judging when a place feels really really welcoming, warmly friendly, professionally friendly, brusque, or just plain hostile. Yet despite that I do know the differences, there are many times when I'm perfectly happy to dine out at a place that's "just" good, and just friendly enough. Occasions--and they're frequent--when my main demand from dining out is that I not get sick and that I not get soup spilled on my pants. It's these many occasions that find me with dozens of places of every ethnic and lifestyle stripe that could fill the bill, and the choice may just come down to which one is going to give me points.

If points are really never higher than 846th on your list, then you demand more from all your dining-out experiences than I do. (I demand more on many occasions, but not all.) And, it goes without saying (yet I'll say it anyway), your criteria are as valid as my criteria. The point isn't who's right and who's wrong, but that the dining-rewards issue exposes a bigger (and to me more interesting) fact, which is that we're all looking for vastly different things from our restaurant experiences even though we believe we share a common interest in good restaurants.

I think what's missing from this discussion is the fact that lots of the folks with these cards are on expense accounts. So steering frequent business dinners toward a particular group of places, and being able to reap the rewards personally, changes the whole equation of "why we choose a particular restaurant" and so on.

I'm on a first name basis with some of the wait staff at Davis St. Trust me, they hate the new emphasis on selling these "memberships" as much as we do. After the last head chef was unceremoniously fired, there was a meeting and the waitstaff was asked if they liked the old chef or had any issues with the management.

The one person who spoke up with constructive criticism was fired on the spot...the rest wised up fast and learned to keep their mouths shut.

I miss the place a lot but there's no way I'm going back there.

Mike G wrote:I think what's missing from this discussion is the fact that lots of the folks with these cards are on expense accounts. So steering frequent business dinners toward a particular group of places, and being able to reap the rewards personally, changes the whole equation of "why we choose a particular restaurant" and so on.

I don't think that's missing from the discussion, simply because they're not limiting their sales pitch to those people.

Airline mileage programs aren't limited to business travelers-- but they're sure structured for them. I think a lot of this discussion about why somebody would choose a restaurant (often enough to be a frequent diner) is missing the fact that it's not just a matter of getting a little spiff back for spending your money there-- you're getting substantial kickbacks for steering someone else's money there. That's the clientele these things are aimed at catching and keeping-- not you and your wife going out once this month, but the party of four hard-drinking, ordering-wine-to-impress business guys who'll be back three more times in the next two weeks.

Mike G wrote:Airline mileage programs aren't limited to business travelers-- but they're sure structured for them. I think a lot of this discussion about why somebody would choose a restaurant (often enough to be a frequent diner) is missing the fact that it's not just a matter of getting a little spiff back for spending your money there-- you're getting substantial kickbacks for steering someone else's money there. That's the clientele these things are aimed at catching and keeping-- not you and your wife going out once this month, but the party of four hard-drinking, ordering-wine-to-impress business guys who'll be back three more times in the next two weeks.

Exactly. So a smart owner/manager would sniff out those people (maybe by spotting their cool corporate cards), make friends with them, and give them a loyalty card.

A stupid owner/manager would force his waitstaff to sell these to every table on their shift.

Res ipsa loquitur.

riddlemay, you've raised an interesting topic. I'm not sure I have much to add except for general agreement and one small correction:

riddlemay wrote:If points are really never higher than 846th on your list, then you demand more from all your dining-out experiences than I do. (I demand more on many occasions, but not all.)

It is not that I demand more, but just that I choose differently. Give me three dining options that I consider completely equal in every single way, and I will be able to make a decision between them without ever considering whether or not I get any "loyalty points". (I meant 846th as a sarcastic way of saying "never"). Of course, this does not apply to everyone.

How do I choose? Most often, it is based on cuisine or style of food, what am I "in the mood for" (or, more accurately, what my wife is in the mood for). Another criteria is my dining "to do" list, that is, places I am interested in trying or trying again. Sometimes, I just want a "sure thing" and I go to a favorite place that satisfies a certain need. Other times, I want something with a low "hassle factor" (easy parking, no wait, low cost). Other times......I can go on and on.

Anyhow, interesting topic.

Best,
Michael

My heartbreak now has a silver lining: an interesting discussion. Thanks for weighing in, everyone.

eatchicago wrote:How do I choose? Most often, it is based on cuisine or style of food, what am I "in the mood for" (or, more accurately, what my wife is in the mood for). Another criteria is my dining "to do" list, that is, places I am interested in trying or trying again. Sometimes, I just want a "sure thing" and I go to a favorite place that satisfies a certain need. Other times, I want something with a low "hassle factor" (easy parking, no wait, low cost). Other times......I can go on and on.

Michael, I tend to see your criteria as the ones most relevant to my dining choices, particularly the "what am I in the mood for" question. Though MikeG may be right-- that the owners of Clean Plate Club are looking to appeal to expense account diners-- for people who have the choice, dining cannot be primarily a business decision. If it were, everyone would subsist on the lowest cost product or the one that is meant only to impress. (I know about the billions sold. Please do not make me argue that angle.)

To take the issue of choice a step further, as I meant to do in the original post, one can become attached to a restaurant. (I know that I am preaching to the LTH choir.) With a restaurant, there is a particular type of attachment, supported as it is by tastes and smells and a myriad of interactions with a cast of characters over time. Certainly, the closing of the Berghoff was mourned by many as an old friend would be. And in a smaller way, that type of sadness came to me with the sales pitch at Davis Street. Am I naive about what is fundamentally a business decision? Am I stuck in a nostalgia bubble? I guess so. But seeing that cold, slick printed card just made me long for the lovely dusty fishermen's nets, the big, fake crab on the wall, and the sinks where you could wash your hands right there in the dining room. The thing is, before they ruined it, I never knew it mattered so much.

Mike G wrote:I think what's missing from this discussion is the fact that lots of the folks with these cards are on expense accounts. So steering frequent business dinners toward a particular group of places, and being able to reap the rewards personally, changes the whole equation of "why we choose a particular restaurant" and so on.

If I remember right, Diners Club had a program where you received a 20% kickback on ALL restaurant purchases including tip and tax. You would pay the full bill at the participating restaurant and get the money back on the bill. The restaurants that I tried in SoCal were all pretty good for the most part.

The problem that I had with the program is that people would turn in the invoice and get reimbursed for that amount. They would pay Diners' Club the discounted amount and pocket the rest. For me, it was irrelevant as we were reimbursed $27.50 no matter how much we spent.

Josephine wrote:To take the issue of choice a step further, as I meant to do in the original post, one can become attached to a restaurant. (I know that I am preaching to the LTH choir.) With a restaurant, there is a particular type of attachment, supported as it is by tastes and smells and a myriad of interactions with a cast of characters over time...

Thanks to this thread, I'm thinking about this whole subject more than I ever have in my life--and one thing I started to realize yesterday is that my Lettuce card really does create some sort of irrational emotional bond between me and their restaurants. So it's interesting you bring up the issue of attachment, Josephine. Now, the way Davis St. handled it, all the emotions created are negative ones. But with Lettuce--well, yes, dammit, even though I know better, some non-rational part of me feels a part of the LEYE family because I have that card in my pocket. I know it's all a clever ploy on their part, and I know I'm falling right into their trap, but knowing that doesn't stop me from falling right into their trap! I do, in some secret recess that I never even think about, feel an extra sense of belonging, an extra sense of welcome, some sort of "knowing wink" coming my way, when I go into an LEY place because of that membership. Maybe in an anomic world, we look for all the connection we can find, and we're not choosy about where we find it! (Moreover, while it's certainly not the case that an LEY place has never pissed me off bigtime for one reason or another--that's happened--maybe the card works cleverly to counteract this; maybe it makes me forgive the chain quicker than I otherwise might, or causes me to chalk up the occasional bad experience as a "one-off" rather than judging the problem to be endemic--much as you'll forgive a friend or family member for an error. The more I think about it, the more I think the power of the loyalty card is less about the tangible monetary blandishments and more about the unconscious emotional ones, for those, like me, who are susceptible to them. Not that the two are entirely separable. After all, if you're doing something nice for me, like giving me money back, it's almost as if you like me.)

Very interesting observations, riddlemay! Do you also find that you are more or less equally attached to all of the LEYE restaurants? That would tend to argue in favor of the role of the rewards program in creating the emotional sense of membership. On the other hand, if you feel there is a hierarchy of position in your affections among the LEYE spots, perhaps the program just gives you an opportunity to become familiar with a certain restaurant's endearing quirks and charms.

On the other hand, to take the psychological metaphor even further, it may be possible to become either securely or insecurely attached to a given retaurant, that is, either to see the place as good and reliable or to hold the place ambivalently in one's mind. For example, there might be a place that you love to hate and patronize anyway, knowing you will be disappointed. I guess my thought is that we may behave toward restaurants as we behave toward people.

Josephine wrote:I guess my thought is that we may behave toward restaurants as we behave toward people.

This ties in with a pet theory of mine for some time, which is that the reason restaurants have the power to please us so mightily or piss us off so grievously is that they are not simply places to eat food we don't cook ourselves, they are the temples in which we recreate the mother-child feeding bond. In a restaurant, we are returned to an infantile state--infantile used in a non-pejorative, purely descriptive way--in which we are essentially "fed" without doing any of the work to gather or prepare our own food or clean up after ourselves, for the only times in our lives other than when our mothers fed us at their breasts or in our high chairs. When a waitperson ignores us, or screws up our order, it's not just a problem, it's Mother being a bad mother--thus explaining the inordinate rage we feel (even if we manage to keep it under wraps in the name of civility).

I'm not sure how loyalty cards fit into the theory, but I'm sure they do somehow.

riddlemay wrote:

Josephine wrote:I guess my thought is that we may behave toward restaurants as we behave toward people.

This ties in with a pet theory of mine for some time, which is that the reason restaurants have the power to please us so mightily or piss us off so grievously is that they are not simply places to eat food we don't cook ourselves, they are the temples in which we recreate the mother-child feeding bond. In a restaurant, we are returned to an infantile state--infantile used in a non-pejorative, purely descriptive way--in which we are essentially "fed" without doing any of the work to gather or prepare our own food or clean up after ourselves, for the only times in our lives other than when our mothers fed us at their breasts or in our high chairs. When a waitperson ignores us, or screws up our order, it's not just a problem, it's Mother being a bad mother--thus explaining the inordinate rage we feel (even if we manage to keep it under wraps in the name of civility).

I was with you for a while, riddlemay. But now you've completely lost me.

I haven't seen the program, but it sounds like it's not being marketed properly. They probably need some sort of temporary fee as a bar to clear to only get serious people to sign up, but there's a better way of presenting it: "If you enjoyed your meal and think you're coming back, sign up for our program - pay $15 now and get a coupon good for $25 off your next dinner bill of $60 or more. And every time you spend $X with us, you'll get another one of these fantastic coupons." Something like that.

I spent nine years at Northwestern (85-94) and my boss (and therefore I) were devotees of both Merle's and DSFM. After the original owner passed away, it just had never been the same on subsequent infrequent visits. I'm sad to hear that it's slumped further into the abyss of corporate management - that just feels like the exact opposite of what the original owner was trying to get across.