Restaurateur taps into feedback
Water’s no longer a liquid asset
By Donna Goodison / Turning the Tables | Friday, June 12, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets
Restaurateur Joe Viola thought he had an easy way to bring in a few extra dollars to buck the economic downturn after seeing customers opting for glass after glass of tap water instead of profitable beverages such as soda or wine.
So he started charging $1 a glass for tap water that’s filtered and bottled in the kitchen of Viola, the 44-seat Italian restaurant he opened a year ago in Braintree. But customer feedback relayed through waitresses and letters during the recent month-and-a-half period made him reconsider.
“We tried it but people got upset, so we did away with it,” Viola said. “There are some things you have to suck up as a cost. I’d rather have them as a customer than lose them on a charge for water.”
Viola’s idea was to make some money to keep serving large portions at what he considers good prices: lunch entrees starting at $5.95, and $13.95 to $18.95 dinner entrees big enough for a second meal to be taken home.
And tap water, after all, isn’t free for the restaurant. Water and sewerage charges run $2,800 a month, and the restaurant pays for the sliced lemons and limes in the water, the ice, the straws, the guy in the kitchen washing the glasses, Viola said.
“Those are all hidden costs that people don’t think about,” he said. “In these hard times, you just try to make it up wherever you can. You have to fight the fight every day with his economy.”
But the short-lived charge was enough to make Marie Fuller, a waitress for 40 years at her family’s Charlies Sandwich Shoppe in Boston, hesitant to return to Viola, despite having a nice meal there. “It kind of put a sour feeling in me,” she said.
When Fuller and her husband got their bill after dinner at Viola, her waitress’ instinct prompted her to check the math, and she noticed it was $2 in the restaurant’s favor. Her husband brought the supposed mistake to the attention of their waitress, who informed them of $1-a-glass charge.
“If I had know that, I wouldn’t have ordered it,” Fuller said. “It’s still bothering me. I serve water all day long, glasses and glasses of cold water, and the thought that I would charge a customer for a glass of water is just terrible.”
Goodbye Icarus, welcome Noche.
When the South End restaurant closes July 1 after 31 years, Euz Azevedo and his Boston Nightlife Ventures are taking over.
Azevedo has signed a purchase-and-sale agreement for the Appleton Street space, which will be renovated and reinvented as an upscale lounge serving food.
“We will maintain the high-end dining experience that Icarus provided to the South End dining scene, but with a younger, more contemporary look,” he said in an e-mail.
Azevedo, who’s in talks with possible consulting chefs to create Noche’s menu and still needs city approval of a liquor-license transfer, said his plans otherwise are “still very green.”
Boston Nightlife Ventures took over The Tap on Union Street near Faneuil Hall in 2006 and this month opened The Federal, a gourmet pizza and sandwich shop on Beacon Hill.
Dillon’s on Boston’s Boylston Street now has room to grow.
An expansion of the restaurant is planned following owner Glynn Hospitality Group’s recent purchase of the entire building.
Glynn wants to increase Dillon’s inside seating to 264 from 200, and outside seating to 80 from 51 with a new deck on the side of the building.
The expansion plans require city Licensing Board approval, but already have been endorsed by the Back Bay Architectural Commission and the Back Bay Neighborhood Association, according to a company spokeswoman.
The acquisition of the building allowed Glynn to enlarge Dillon’s restrooms and install more sprinklers, which in turn allows it to increase the restaurant’s capacity to legal code, she said.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1178454
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