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Markets in everything: I'll have what he ordered
There is now a Japanese cafe which serves you what the last person ordered; similarly the next person receives what you order.
Here is a list of their rules. No, you can't order twice in a row and yes, you pay for what you order for the next person, not for what you get.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 3, 2009 at 11:56 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Sounds like it's modeled on the protocol of a poetry circle. The group improvises a poem. Each person contributes a stanza, one after the other around the circle, in real time. Your stanza must relate to the one that came before you. You can read about such poetry circles in Eike Ikegami, Bonds of Civility: Aesthetic Networks and the Political Origins of Japanese Culture (Cambridge 2006), which I have reviewed. It was the most interesting book I read in 2006.
Posted by: Bill Benzon at Oct 3, 2009 11:21:21 AM
Who the hell would eat there???
Posted by: jimi at Oct 3, 2009 11:53:59 AM
jimi: because it's an awesome experience. Duh.
Posted by: Daniel Reeves at Oct 3, 2009 12:02:45 PM
Sounds like fun. When I travel on business I try to order at least one item per day that I don't think I'll like. I'm often correct, but frequently enough I find some new dish worth having that I never would have found if I just played it safe.
Posted by: David Rotor at Oct 3, 2009 12:43:25 PM
I suspect they go through a lot of very small pieces of pie...
Posted by: ERC at Oct 3, 2009 12:50:25 PM
had a friend who spent a year always ordering exactly what the person before him ordered at restaurants.
he got unbelievable amounts of disbelief.
Posted by: babar at Oct 3, 2009 1:44:29 PM
I'd order the poisonous-if-made-wrong blowfish from that old episode of the Simpsons. That episode was dull city.
Posted by: Ignacious Plunder at Oct 3, 2009 3:09:32 PM
Those are a bored bored people.
Posted by: Andrew at Oct 3, 2009 4:43:39 PM
So as soon as the first person orders, their is no guesswork for the kitchen.
Posted by: Rich Berger at Oct 3, 2009 5:45:56 PM
Rich:
"So as soon as the first person orders, their is no guesswork for the kitchen"
Only if customers arrive one at a time, at comfortably-spaced intervals. If people arrive almost simultaneously, it looks much the same, from the cook's point of view, as a normal cafe.
Posted by: Scott at Oct 3, 2009 6:25:01 PM
I doubt this restaurant would last very long. Sure, one visit as a novelty. But why go back a second time?
Posted by: Andy McGill at Oct 3, 2009 8:02:38 PM
Do you pay for a friend to go first and order the menu you wanted? Do you wait to go in when the person who went before you orders what you would have liked to order? You must be confident in the quality of the restaurants food, irrespective of what is ordered, and consequently this is a signal by the restaurant of its quality and your signal that it has quality. The system would break down if the quality were poor, or if there were some items on the menu that were not of the quality acceptable to everyone. Think signalling and advertising.
Posted by: Bill at Oct 3, 2009 10:39:42 PM
Given that one does not get what one pays for, what is the incentive for ordering anything but the cheapest option on the menu? In other words, either everything is priced the same, or it is very rare for the non-cheapest menu item to be ordered.
Posted by: quanticle at Oct 4, 2009 5:35:55 PM
This is pretty comparable to the Prisoner's Dilemma, and in particular I think it might be enough like the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma that you can get some tit-for-tat going on to keep things interesting. There's a certain value in having your food being a surprise, as long as most of the food is okay. You get to try new things, and whatnot.
And even insofar as they do get one-time guests (such as tourists) there might be certain motives for people to behave altruistically. First off: this is what actually is happening in the blog post, and empirical data is always nice evidence. But also, you can look at it as gambling, and from that point of view spending a little bit more money makes it more "exciting." In addition, I do think people just have a natural tendency to be "fair" about these sorts of things.
Also, there's probably a weird population dynamics as a result of the fact that you can see what people are buying. When the clientele is dominated by "cheap people" who buy the cheapest thing they can get, then the restaurant will serve mostly water, and the cheap people will stop going because it's cheaper to just go to a regular restaurant. But the "novelty people" might still go, which drives things back up. It would be a weird balancing act, but it doesn't seem to me that the "buy the cheapest thing on the menu" option would dominate.
Posted by: UserGoogol at Oct 5, 2009 12:14:23 AM
UserGoogol,
I don't buy the gambling argument. Imagine a poker game where you pay $10 to get in and are guaranteed that you will walk out with nothing more or less. Now we'll offer you to join a poker game for $20, again without winning or losing anything additional, to make it more "exciting" because there's a higher buy-in, but you're playing the same people. ... I don't see it.
One reason to not buy the cheapest thing is to 'play a joke' on the next person. "I can't imagine anyone in their right mind eating that. I'll buy it for the next joker." Course, if that's the equilibrium, it's what you get too, so you'd better hope jokers are in the minority (aka low randomization probability).
There are also still dates/contacts/etc. to impress with your largess, so you offer the next diner the prime rib. So you find out when the business accounts show up and come in the middle of them.
I wonder how they handle food allergies and religious or other food restrictions (eg the vegan who walks in after my prime rib guy).
Posted by: D. Watson at Oct 5, 2009 1:21:51 AM
What does the first person to come in that day get, what the last person the night before ordered?
Posted by: John at Oct 5, 2009 9:45:07 AM
I actually have a hard time believing something like this has no chance at all. Sure that might seem like the obvious first impression, but when you think about it, the premise is so crazy that it can actually work. People love being absolute jerks to their friends or co-workers. Simply order something they don't like and watch the fun ensue. This would also keep people coming back for a "revenge-shot" at someone who ordered for them before.
People seem to be hung up on everyone ordering the cheapest thing on the menu, but that seems unlikely to happen in a large group. Sure their market may be somewhat unsteady, but there's still potential for it to work. Think of all of the other gimmicky businesses that took a shot and turned out huge. Take Build-A-Bear for example. They started their business hoping that the novelty of having a stuffed animal you made yourself outweigh the fact that you are paying money to do work that they didn't have to. Sometimes the novelty is all the consumer needs. Be it playing God with a stuffed animal or being able to be a complete jerk to your friend.
Posted by: T. Hamrick at Oct 5, 2009 10:57:53 PM
I assume that this works differently in japan than in say new york; social norms vary.
What you order for the next guy is an investment in reputation capital.
Posted by: arbitraryaardvark at Oct 8, 2009 11:19:09 PM
Reminds me of http://www.mysterygoogle.com/
Posted by: Ivo at Oct 10, 2009 2:55:07 PM
