I’m with you – no, thanks. When I worked in the city there was a great little diner around the corner where, if I was low on cash, they’d chalk it up until my next visit (which would invariably be within a couple of days). But there was no question that I owed them $6.95 not whatever I thought was fair.
For me, that’s just annoying.

I think I read they are going to have suggested prices. And it’s going to charity. It’s like attending the church potluck and donating $10 for a ham sandwich. Sure, it’s not what you’d pay in the real world, but it’s going to charity.

Something like that can only work as a rare exception. What if every retail outlet did this? Your sense of fairness would subside and you would pay as little as possible after a while, wouldn’t you?

I share your guilt ridden idealism, Rod, and I would be unlikely to frequent the place without a mind shift. That said, I don’t know what I’d do without Panera…they are the safest and healthiest option on my business travels. So if it’s successful, I guess eventually I might try it. Is the donation tax deductible??

I wouldn’t be inclined to visit that sort of business. Name your price, and I’ll either pay or or go somewhere where I feel I get a better value for my dollar. It’s not that complicated.

it’s all relative. it all comes down to perceived worth.
i won’t spend $15 for a pair of $40 pants at the thrift shop, because i don’t want to spend more than $5 for a pair of pants at the thrift shop. to me, a pair of pants is worth between $5-$10. if someone else thinks $40 is the norm for a pair of pants, well that’s their problem. i’m not thinking that i ‘saved’ $35, because i never would have spent $40 for a pair of pants in the first place.
so at a restaurant, paying $8 for a sandwich may be ‘worth’ it to a busy person, or someone hapless in the kitchen. but that same sandwich may only be ‘worth’ $2 to someone who can make the same thing at home for .75¢.

“Is the donation tax deductible??”
That’s what I want to know too.
I would think only donations in excess of the fair value of a meal would be deductible. But I could be wrong. You might be able to write off the full value of what you give, if the meal you receive in return is given (technically) without condition, and if the value falls under a certain threshhold. I’d love to see a tax expert weigh in here.
If your full payment is indeed tax deductible, then this model could be very effective…though I question the ethics. Office workers could suddenly get a nice tax deduction for their daily lunches. I’d certainly pay extra for the privilege of deducting all my dining charges.

A cafe near my University (Maryland – College Park) tried this approach but had to go to fixed prices. Although many people would pay the fair cost of a meal, others would leave fifty cents or whatever. Patrons were also asked to help out with bussing tables and washing dishes, which also didn’t work out.
Human nature I guess.

I actually like this idea – especially since there are suggested prices. Some museums do this with admission.
I think this could become more common given the economy- I just heard relatives who walked into a car dealership – they thought they were in the early stages of looking for a new car. Dealer literally told them to name their price and they walked out with a loaded Sonata for 15,000. Including taxes prep etc. They paid cash so that may have been an influence – but still – pretty amazing. I was in a gift shop recently and we were admiring something but I thought it was too expensive – the owner heard us – asked me what I thought would be a reasonable price for it – I said $7 less – and she sold it to us for $7 less. So sharpen those haggling skills.

I suspect that most people would pay like they already tip. Generous tippers would overpay, stingy tippers would freeload.

I would not frequent such a restaurant. The reason is that price is feedback from the producer to the consumer about the cost of a service. Without such feedback it would be difficult for the consumer to know the fair value of the service.
Also game theory suggests that free riders would eventually dominate the restaurant’s customer base and wipe it out.

I think Allbetsaroff is right. I was reading a news article recently about a restaurant which fired an employee for complaining on Facebook about a bad tip she’d received, and the comments below the article were instructive. It seemed like nearly half of the commenters fell into these categories: people who never tip and don’t believe in it, people who tip less than $5 regardless of the price of the meal, and people who would like restaurants to abolish tips by paying their employees at least minimum wage.
How much will those people pay for a sandwich if the price isn’t fixed, I wonder? And will there be enough people to overcompensate to make up for it? Not if the “overcompensate” type, like Rod, are thinking they’d be better off staying away from such situations–a notion I agree with.

I’m with you Rod; I would simply avoid the place because I don’t want to feel guilty about paying too little, or feel like a chump for paying too much… I just want to enjoy a meal, not think of the ‘just price’.

History can be instructive, even if the details are no longer valid.
Barter — that dirty word free-market capitalists use when they think they aren’t getting their fair share of unearned profits — is based on value given for value received. Pay what you want is a flawed attempt to employ barter in a money-based transaction. Indeed, those cultures where barter was their primary mode of exchange would not understand this pay-what-you-want notion.
Hypotheticating (for example): I make a beer or ale at home. I like it, and I think my friends might like it, but it cost me quite a lot — money for equipment and materials, hours of labor — to produce it, so I ask my friends to compensate me for what they drink.
So, Rod offers me a nice bottle of wine he found. I gladly accept, not knowing or caring what he paid for it. Sigaliris gives me three dozen drop-dead delicious cookies, same accpetance. CAP pulls out a handfull of change, and I’d be tempted to throw it at him/her for failing to demonstrate any basic understanding of value given for value received. And, CAP, I apologize for being harsh, and it’s not meant personally, but if your garment cost $5 to make in materials and labor, would you still insist on paying only $5 for it when the place you buy it from has rent, utilities and employee wages to pay? Your clarification gratefully anticipated…

the answer is . . .
someone already paid $40 at old navy for the pants that i bought at the thrift shop for $5. so my $5 actually adds into the economy money that had never been anticipated and perpetuates a market for a good already accounted for. if people like me didn’t exist, the huge secondary market (ie ebay) wouldn’t exist.
but it does need people first choosing to buy my $300 laptop for $1100, and my $5 pants for $40.

I would pay with a chicken.

I find it very interesting that people wouldn’t frequent a restaurant with suggested prices. Part of the idea behind the place is that it will help people who are poor get good food. If you can’t pay, you can volunteer. I think it’s a great idea on 2 levels:
First, it allows people who may have trouble making ends meet a chance to eat in a place that is NOT a soup kitchen. This will allow for people who would never darken the door of a soup kitchen a chance to get together with others.
Second, any excess above the operating costs will be donated to local charities.

I’ll be interested to read how the experiment turns out. I’m not optimistic. I think Franklin Evans has it essentially right. What I *think* the service/product is worth doesn’t affect what the service/product actually costs. I would try to estimate the cost to the restaurant owner, then add a little bit for profit. But I might under- or over-estimate the cost to the restaurant owner, and unwittingly short-change her or cheat myself.
I wonder if Quaker history is instructive at all. (Such a different time, place and economy, so maybe not, but perhaps.) Feeling that haggling over price required less than sterling honesty on the part of the seller, early Quaker merchants defied the common custom of their day by setting a fair price and refusing to haggle. Certainly, they probably lost the custom of skilled and successful hagglers, who could get their goods more cheaply elsewhere, but *most* people so much preferred the set price that the Quaker merchants quickly became quite successful.
Come to think of it, a modern example of this is the Saturn car company. They weren’t ultimately successful, but I think that was for reasons other than their fixed-price policy, which seemed to me to be quite popular.

You are over-thinking this. Pull out your iPhone or Blackberry and googlea Panera menu with prices.

I’ve seen this happen before, but not with food: with video games, via the humble indie bundle. Of course, those video games are just collections of downloadable data, so it doesn’t really hurt the company too much for some people to get off with practically free games. I’m not sure how it would work if the games came on CD or something like that–if there were tangible things they needed to pay for in order to get us the games to begin with.
Personally I would probably overpay for my meal for the same reasons you mention, but would not beat myself up for it later… what’s wrong with generosity? What’s wrong with rewarding these people for trusting you to do the right thing? Pay what you can afford, and don’t worry about it. I kind of like the idea.
I dunno if it would work, though. does seem a bit too idealistic.