I think there are a lot of rich people who do certain things because they’re what rich people do. Rich people eat $50 steaks, and decorate with gold and marble. See also: Donald Trump
I once read an article about one of the founders of Smith and Wollensky (neither Smith or Wollensky, they don’t exist) who said the entire business model was convincing people to pay $100+ a person for food anyone can cook.
I don’t think this is remotely controversial. It is true, however, that a giant chunk of high quality dry aged beef is pretty expensive, even on restaurant volumes, and most places to try keep food costs below 40%.
Oh yea, in fact I think aged beef should be more expensive to reflect the environmental cost of it.
And honestly, you need a good (and expensive) cook to handle food that is $40 per unit and keep you from losing your mortgage to spoilage.
But sauce takes more energy, attention and art.
my favorite thing about the boston smith & wollensky is that when you walk in you're greeted with a wall-sized photo of paul mccartney, who is a vegetarian
There's usually expected to be some kind of relationship between price and quality though. The creamed spinach at these places might as well come out of a Sysco Systems plastic bag and you pay $40 for the privilege. Veblen goods indeed.
In my defense, I was dragged there by the for-profit university I was teaching for at the time, which was also providing us with an $25 per diem, making the business ethics of arranging a faculty dinner at a joint where that's the cost of asparagus somewhat questionable.
In their defense, I think it might have been a Ruth's Chris, and there was fuck-all decent food in downtown Jacksonville FL at night. But still, fuck those assholes, because they knew what they were paying us in salary and how little of that meal a per diem would cover.
I will say, a) this is not an expensive steak house, and b) they put the calories right next to the price, without a dollar sign? Who does that? Or is that some NY law?
