$14 For A Plate of Pancakes?!?!
Perhaps $14 doesn’t seem like such a shocking number to folks who live in Manhattan but to me it seems like a high price to pay for a stack of pancakes. Last week some of my friends were planning to get together for brunch at a place called “Stephanie’s on Newbury” in Boston. I had never heard of this place before, so I went to the website to check out the menu. The first item on the Sunday brunch menu is “Buttermilk Pancakes”, price: $13.95. For 13.95 you get them with butter and maple syrup. Want hash browns? Add another $3.95. Bacon? Another $3.95. It’s a pretty safe bet that if this is your first meal since last night you won’t leave without dropping $30 including tax and tip. This is breakfast people!
Before anybody blames this on inflation, I did a quick check back at dennys.com, the Grand Slam Breakfast is $5.99. While I can definitely remember when the Grand Slam was less than $5.99, this is nowhere near the $28 the same breakfast would cost at Stephanie’s. This is breakfast food, it’s not like Stephanie’s is going to be breaking out the saffron, white wine, extra virgin olive oil, or other expensive spices in the preparation of the food. It’s also worth mentioning that you can still get a very nice steak at Outback Steakhouse for the $13.95 base cost of the pancakes w/syrup.
Fortunately the plans were canceled by one of my friends and I didn’t have to come up with an excuse to skip this one. Hopefully this rant has struck a chord with you, otherwise it’s probably starting to get annoying by this point. Do people really pay $30 out of their own pocket for breakfast? I would think this place would do most of it’s business with folks traveling on business who can just turn in the receipt for reimbursement. But on Sunday morning that kind of business is probably rare.
Stephanie’s seems to cater to people believe in getting less for their money. People who think it makes them look good to spend $14 on pancakes and not blink an eye. Their spendthrift antics are not fooling me. That money that they are spending must be coming from somewhere and my guess is it’s not profits from investing. It’s coming right out of their paycheck, money that should have been earmarked for retirement savings.
