A Gluttony Tax

We’ve blogged before about a pay-what-you-wish coffee shop and pay-what-you-wish downloadable music. Now Luciana Silvestri, a reader from Argentina, writes with news of something different: An all-you-can-eat restaurant with a prix fixe twist. As she explains:

A friend has just returned to Argentina from a six-month internship in Chicago and told me about a Japanese restaurant with quite an original pricing system. The restaurant is called Sushi Para II. The address is 2256 N. Clark, Chicago. Apparently, you can consume all the sushi you want for something like $17, but if you leave anything on your plate, you must also pay for leftovers. This creates an incentive to eat a lot but to order in the right measure. I wonder how many people actually accomplish to leave the place with no surcharge AND no tummy ache.

I admit that this is an interesting twist – paying for what you don’t eat. It would be interesting to try this at some of the big Vegas buffets. At those buffets, I also wonder about the difference in consumption between people who pay full price and people who’ve had their meal comped. I am guessing the paying customers eat more – but maybe, just maybe, they also leave more on their plates. I am also guessing that people who pay their garbage bill based on how much garbage they produce each week become less wasteful.

In this environmentally sensitive era, I can imagine this idea — a tax on waste, or wasteful behavior — catching on, and not just in restaurants.