Diners are staying home, so this restaurant lets patrons pay what they want

A pay-what-you-will night at an Austin Italian restaurant offers diners the option to pay any amount for their meal. Families and couples attend because budgets are tight and they want a better experience without paying full price. Diners describe using the final bill to decide what to pay, sometimes planning to pay less than the standard cost. The restaurant introduced the promotion after facing disruptive tariffs, rising food costs, and labor shortages, along with increasing menu prices. Co-owners aimed to respond to fewer people being able to afford dining out by creating an accessible way to enjoy restaurant food.

"“My family in general, we don't always have the most money to spend. So we don't always get to go to somewhere nice when they come over,” Al-Hamad said on a Tuesday evening in February. “But I figured this is an opportunity to actually experience something a little better without having to shell out $150 for the four of us.”"

"“We didn't have a really great Valentine's Day,” Daniels said. “It was OK, but nothing out of the ordinary, nothing spectacular, so this is our Valentine's date.” The couple ate a spinach salad with pickled pineapple oranges and candied almonds “It was awesome,” Wiley said and ordered more. Daniels said they would make a decision about what to pay when they saw the final bill, but were considering paying less than full price."

"L'Oca d'Oro, an Italian restaurant and bar in Austin's Mueller neighborhood, introduced the pay-what-you-will night in December. In the fall, co-owners Adam Orman and Fiore Tedesco III were grappling with the effects of disruptive tariffs, rising food costs and a labor shortage as well as their own increasing menu prices. Orman said the partners wanted to find a way to respond to the dwindling number of people able to afford dining out at restaurants."

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