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    Wednesday, February 07, 2007

     

    Lattes on the honor system

    by Dollars & Sense

    In yesterday's Seattle Times, Amy Roe reports on the Terra Bite Lounge in Kirkland, WA, where patrons pay for their lattes and sandwiches on the honor system:

    With its blood-red walls and black leather sofas, Kirkland's Terra Bite Lounge looks like any other coffee shop—until you get to the menu. There are no prices listed. Terra Bite doesn't have them.

    You read that right: No prices. Customers pay what and when they like, or not at all—it makes no difference to the cafe employees, who are instructed not to peek when people put money in the metal lock box.

    Through his "voluntary payment" cafe, [founder Ervin Peretz] is poised to become the Robin Hood of the Starbucks set. Using an efficient, low-overhead business model and narrow profit margin, he figures he can finesse the largesse of well-off latte lovers to cover the tabs of the less fortunate.

    Thanks to Dollars & Sense subscriber (and occasional tech volunteer) Paulie Peña for the link.

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    2/07/2007 02:57:00 PM 1 comments