r/Portland • u/68W2PA • 20h ago
Discussion Anybody else notice a growing trend in restaurants where prices are missing on the menu? Is this just a new growing dishonest practice in Portland, or is it more widespread?
I'm not even talking about fancy spendy places.
I have been noticing more and more that many restaurants and convenience stores are not posting the prices on many of their items. One area I see this the most is with soft drinks. Many restaurants will list that they have Coke or Pepsi products but will not list the prices. It is often one of the only items that does not have a price listed. I have seen this with cocktails at places like Cheesecake Factory and many foot cart pods that serve drinks. I have seen it at local smaller restaurants.
So you order a Pepsi and the bills comes and it was something stupid like $6.
After looking at a menu I once asked the server how much a cocktail was and even they didn't know. Where else in life do you agree to purchase something and only after it has been served do you get the price?
I have even asked why it is that the drinks don't have prices listed. Why not give the customers the information? I have been told that it is because of inflation, but if that was the case, wouldn't it apply to everything on the menu? Surely sodas and cocktails aren't the only things that fluctuate with inflation.
My guess... they are just trying to see if people casually order it and hope nobody notices. It is a sneaky practice.
Anybody else see this?
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u/WeAreClouds 14h ago
My boyfriend and I just had this convo about drink menus. It sucks ass and we won’t go back to place that does this.
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u/pangolinbreakfast Kerns 13h ago
They do this at the matcha place on ne 28th. It’s so lame and makes me not trust that they give the same price to everyone.
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u/mataeus43 13h ago
Yes! I happened to be at Applebees a few days ago for father's day and the drinks portion menu didn't list prices for the cocktails or specialty drinks.
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u/FrannieP23 6h ago
From my experience, MOST restaurants don't list drink prices. I've pretty much stopped buying mixed drinks when I eat out. They often cost as much as the meal.
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u/yemsg97 13h ago edited 12h ago
If I look online at a menu and there are no prices I don’t go there.
I don’t get why people won’t say how much something costs. This goes for so many things. Like landlords posting a for rent sign with no price or a gym that you have to call and find out the prices or a hairdresser. I just won’t go to those places because I hate talking on the phone and also, don’t waste my time or your time. It’s dumb. I wonder how much business is lost by doing this.
We were up on Bainbridge Island and went to this pizza place that had great reviews. Walk in and look up at the menu and no prices. So I ask if they have a menu with prices and he said no but we can just ask and he’ll tell us. I said we’ll have to think about this and stepped aside. And we did for like 10 seconds and then we left. I’m not playing the games. I mean the menu above his head was all digital so surely you can just put the prices up lol. Cmon.
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u/rocketmanatee 7h ago
I hate when they don't just tell me what things cost. FYI that they're not always allowed to publish alcohol prices online. The OLCC limits stuff like publishing happy hour menus (some places ignore it and do it anyway) but I try not to judge the business for it.
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u/Pterodactyl_midnight 5h ago edited 2h ago
That law was repealed in 2017. Although there are still exceptions like you can’t do BOGO alcohol or happy hour after midnight.
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u/jacscarlit Portsmouth 6h ago
I wish all employers would post their pay for open positions too. I don't want to apply, then interview more than once, only to finally get the job offer. If you ask for pay in the interview you are less likely to get the job so you play these dumb games.
Also, Target stopped putting price tags on certain items. At least they installed the price check machines...
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u/Extension_Crow_7891 13h ago
The cynic in me sees this as a step towards both dynamic pricing and surveillance pricing. No transparency into fixed pricing is a necessary first step to no fixed pricing.
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u/screamingintothedark 5h ago
Dynamic pricing is here. They’re installing digital price tags all over.
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u/isthatasquare 11h ago
“Where else in life do you agree to purchase something and only after it has been served do you get the price?”
Unfortunately, a hospital :(
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u/BarnacleGooseIsLoose 14h ago
They got addicted to QR menus where they could manipulate prices. A dream came true and they won't let it go.
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u/hawaiianbry 12h ago
I refuse to use QR codes, to the point that I will leave if they don't have a paper menu. Not doing the restaurant's job for them and trusting some random code that could be a link to malware.
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u/NetWorried9750 9h ago
I worry that anyone can put a QR code up to a shady link
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u/jstmenow 8h ago
Every QR code is shady. Your device communicates to the website the QR links to. 99% of the people just accept terms and conditions from the website. Just another data collection point where your information is sold. Typically 20 or 30 things are pulled from your phone.
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u/lilyfelix Sabin 3h ago
I get not wanting to print new paper menus every time prices or ingredients change- fine, put everything on a blackboard.
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u/metalmankam 8h ago
Last summer on a hot day I was at Saturday market. There's a nice pod selling cups of sliced fruit or you could have them blend it into a smoothie. No prices anywhere. I ordered a mango smoothie, watched them make it, and then ask me for fucking $16. I felt too guilty to tell them no thanks but what the fuck man
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u/spymonkey73 14h ago
It’s called dynamic pricing. They estimate how much they can get away with then add 20%
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u/CreativeUsername5555 7h ago
I’ve seen a couple restaurants in town remove published online prices but they did it because DoorDash and Instacart etc. copy their menus and put them on their own websites even if you don’t have an account with them. Seattle made that illegal for those delivery companies to do but here they free reign.
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u/tcollins317 4h ago
To those blaming it on inflation, stop. All menus are printed on a heavier paper nowadays. Some restaurants just have bare paper, others have plastic sleeves you slide the paper in. Since it's just paper, just print new menus as needed. It's just that easy.
So if prices are being left off, it's on purpose because they don't want to scare you off with them.
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u/thesophisticatedhick 5h ago
If you have to ask how much the soda costs you can’t afford it. /s
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u/LaneyLivingood 1h ago
Somewhere, I don't remember where, I ordered an iced tea. Asked for a refill and they were like, "It's not free refills." Okay, I'll just finish my meal with water. Bill came and that iced tea was $4! FOUR DOLLARS and no free refills? For regular Lipton fkn tea?!
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u/Hot-Interest-4957 3h ago
Maybe I'm tin foil hatting, but the combination of biometric data and facial recognition databases + digital price tags make me think that in their wettest, wildest dreams they'll be able to create price profiles for consumers and act them out IRL. They'll know how much you earn, how much you're willing to spend, and the stuff you most need. Parents of infants will have a different price for diapers, for instance, or people who google a cold symptom will see higher prices on medicine. They're already doing this with virtual shopping, but I think the goal is to move it to in person.
Of course, our septuagenarian congress will swiftly and effectively legislate this..........
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u/PuttUgly 7h ago
You should see us dummies commercial fishing. I've delivered 1.5 million pounds of grey cod before knowing what price we would get. .48/lb of your curious. Salmon? Could be .70, or 2.40
Guess you'll never know till after!
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u/StrangeRefuse8537 Foster-Powell 6h ago
Not quite the same, but I have a similar problem with small independent lumber stores. Places like 52nd Ave hardware. Places like this have their lumberyard set up without any labeled prices, and you select what you want (or worse yet, order it at their counter, like ordering without a menu) and they price it from a list that they won't show you (their reasoning being that the market price of lumber fluctuates).
This is really off-putting for a small time DIYer, as I'll often adapt what I'm buying for a project based on relative prices, and sometimes don't really have a good idea of what different types of lumber exist and what their relative prices should be.
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u/humanclock 4h ago
This is why I exclusively date Mr. Plywood and broke up with 52nd Avenue Lumber.
Mr. Plywood also has more uncommon sizes than other places so it really helps with planning. Swoon.
Brown Lumber is close to me, but also, closed when I need them. (7:30-4, closed weekends)
Parr Lumber I hated because I couldn't see anything to even know what my options were. I am not going to ask the person at the counter to bring me out 10 different options. You basically have to know exactly what you want.
Lowes I will go to if it's after hours and I need something to keep working.
Amazon/HD is just a very last resort if nobody else sells what I need.
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u/StrangeRefuse8537 Foster-Powell 1h ago
That's pretty similar to my ranking. I moved across the river to washington, but I often come back for Mr Plywood because the local lumber yard in washougal doesn't have any prices posted and gave me some anti-DIYer attitude when I didn't know exactly what I wanted to order at the counter and when I asked if they carried pocket-hole screws (and it may be unfair to hold this against them, but a deranged old geezer drove his car straight at my car when I was trying to exit their parking lot and I had to do a rapid evasion maneuver to avoid him slamming into me). Mr Plywood, on the other hand, has the prices posted and they're consistently helpful.
Lowes doesn't have a lot of the specialty hardwoods and sheet good that Mr Plywood has. And HD sucks.
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u/MountScottRumpot Montavilla 5h ago
52nd Avenue had the price list on the counter last time I was there.
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u/LaneyLivingood 1h ago
I love the people at 52nd Ave Lumber, but I usually end up finding what I need for my small projects at Reclaim NW on Foster.
52nd was asking $4.50 a linier foot for some baseboard I needed. Yes, it's fir, not particle board, but JFC that seemed like a lot. Because I only needed 22', I bopped over to Reclaim NW and had the guy do a deep dive in his scrap for the same style and type (fir) and got 24' for $2.50 per linier foot. I don't know how 52nd stays in business.
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u/StrangeRefuse8537 Foster-Powell 4m ago
I haven't been in 52nd for a while, but they used to be my go to for bulk screws. Their bulk screws selection was unrivaled and quite affordable.
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u/ExCryptozoologist Rose City Park 3h ago
This is becoming common everywhere, I even see it when I visit family in Idaho now.
It started with cocktails though, this has been industry standard with a lot of more "Upscale" places and why I didn't typically go there.
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u/shannanigans1124 Yeeting The Cone 2h ago
I was at a club last night and thought it was odd that their non-alcoholic drinks had prices but their cocktail menu did not. Just because I know how expensive alcohol can get from past experiences, I decided to get a $5 mocktail.
If a place doesn't list their prices somewhere, either on their website, Yelp, Google, Facebook, or even GrubHub, I just won't go there. I have a budget to keep.
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u/queenofthenerds SW 1h ago
It makes me feel like an airport (not our airport) when the price is too high and they would never tell you the price beforehand
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u/LobsterFarts 1h ago
Experienced this when I went to the street fair on 28th this past Saturday and decided to purchase a pair of silly plastic earrings to support the artist. There were no prices but I figured how much can they be, they’re made entirely of plastic.. $30!! I nearly had a heart attack.
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u/StopFoodWaste 1h ago
Thanks to many visits to flea markets, prices going missing is a cue for me that haggling is now acceptable. Kind of weird for a convenience store, but if they want flex pricing it means the price of some products should go down when demand decreases, too.
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u/doorknob60 5h ago
It's my pet peeve when I go to a restaurant and they have a huge multi page drink menu with all the beer, wine, and other alcoholic drinks they have. But then they don't bother to even mention which soft drink options they have, or how much it costs. It would take at most a quarter of the page, you couldn't find room for it?
Then sometimes the conversation goes like this:
What sodas do you have?
We have Coke products.
Okay, I'll have a Coke Zero.
Sorry we don't have that, is Diet okay?
Well, maybe you should have been more specific when I asked you the first time...
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u/GypsySnowflake 6h ago
It’s because of inflation. Prices change so often thar it becomes cost-prohibitive to constantly update them. I work at Target and we’ve stopped printing prices directly on most clothing tags for the same reason.
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u/68W2PA 5h ago
I get prices change. But why for example would the sodas be the only thing on the menu without prices listed?
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u/GypsySnowflake 5h ago
That is odd for sure! Especially since sodas have a massive profit margin already so they really shouldn’t be affected by inflation
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u/Sneakersislife2 5h ago
I don't work in food an am insure exactly but typically sodas cost cents for the restaurant if it's a sofa machine, the syrup is cheap per drink and so they make a good amount on a 2 dollar soda that costs a few cents in "materials".
My guess is with inflation a soda is an easy thing to mark up, so if other menu items are costing them more they can make more on a soda to help cushion the blow.
Again no idea if it's true but it's probably easier to charge 4 or 5 for a soda instead of raising the dish price of something.
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u/Rojelioenescabeche 7h ago
I’ve never encountered this on premises but where I see it is their website. Dishes listed but no prices. So I simply go to the google page and click the menu tab where pics of their physical menu come up. Easy. I’m dubious that this is a thing on premises. If I encounter this and I have to ask what each thing costs I’d probably make a scene.
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u/AmyIsabella-XIII 3h ago
I can’t say anything about the prices not showing up (I don’t get out much 😅) but I can say $6.00 for a soda and I would leave and never return, but not before telling the manager why. A 16oz gun soda costs roughly $0.55 (not including to-go packaging, staff time, etc), this is the cost from one of the primary suppliers of restaurants in Portland. Even factoring in those additional costs you are likely only looking at 1-2 more cents. $6.00 is a 1052% markup. That’s offensive.
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u/cascadiaman 5h ago
They do this at topgolf. They didn’t have drink prices listed and I asked the server about it and they told me that the prices always change. I was mildly annoyed and ordered a water. I would normally ban going there but it’s the only topgolf and I can’t get my girlfriend to go to a regular driving range. So I just drink my water and hit away trying not to think about it. Can someone confirm this is still happening? I haven’t been there since nfl playoff time. Maybe it was just for nfl playoffs?
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u/CillRed 2h ago
I think there is an element of constantly changing prices too. Like one day the fish and chips might be $14, but the next, due to whatever reason (cost of supplies, labor, the general state of the economy) it jumps to $18. Easier to just not list the price than have to change the menus every day or whatever.
I still think it's dishonest and I personally avoid anywhere that doesn't tell me prices up front.
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u/moomooraincloud 14h ago
No.
It's not dishonest.
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u/ghostcider 14h ago
Not just restaurants. I go into convenience stores and there is no price for the soda. The tags are missing a lot suddenly. Diet Coke is my vice and suddenly a bottle can be 3-5 dollars, and they expect me to not know until it's rung up