(Un)Just Desserts

Leveraging wedded bliss for free desserts all over town.

My wife and I, having just celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary, have unwittingly discovered a truly lucrative scam, which can be perpetrated again and again. We celebrated with an anniversary dinner at a delightful seafood restaurant in the North Hills area of Pittsburgh. And, as a gesture of congratulations, this restaurant provided dessert to us, gratis.

A few days later, we found ourselves dining at another local establishment, this one a fine steakhouse. And, for some reason they had the idea that we were there celebrating our anniversary, serving us up with, you guessed it, a free dessert. In my defense, I would like to point out that when the waiter asked us how many years we were celebrating, I responded, “Thirty-six years, and two days,” and indicated that we had already been gifted an anniversary dessert, elsewhere. But, he insisted, and we dutifully complied.

Scientists and researchers have described that point in time at which they gain insight into a critical piece of a puzzle for which they have been painstakingly seeking answers as their “eureka moment” (Bill Murray’s goundskeeper character in, “Caddyshack”, Carl Spackler, would recognize that moment as “total consciousness”, so, “he’s got that going for him. . .which is nice”). This was my “eureka moment”; and, what a sweet moment it was.

At this point, clearly, it was time to develop a business plan for this new venture, one which I believe will be studied by Harvard Business School students for generations to come. I set up the whiteboard (which, I discovered, by the way, doesn’t magically fill itself with creative doodles and flowcharts, as they appear to do in those time-lapse videos you see on YouTube), and began crunching the numbers. In examining the potential market opportunity, three critical questions are typically addressed by business leaders everywhere:

• What is the size of the potential market?

• Is the business scalable?

• Are there any ethical issues regarding launching this product or service, which we should fully research before proceeding? (Ha, ha! Just kidding about this last one - this is a question which is never asked by business leaders; I included it to amuse the Wall Street denizens reading this column). The actual third critical question to be addressed is: What is the expected profit margin to be enjoyed from the sale of this product or service?

A study from a couple of years ago indicates that there were 660,755 restaurants in the United States. Further research indicates that Pittsburgh’s metropolitan population amounted to 2,317,600 people, out of the 328,506,943 people in the United States, roughly 0.7% of the total. Assuming that restaurants operating in the Pittsburgh area reflect an essentially ratable portion of the U.S. total, there are likely more than 4,600 restaurants in the Pittsburgh metro area - that represents a decent-sized market for this business.

But, the true target market is likely smaller than that, because fast-food restaurants should probably be excluded; McDonald’s “Hot Apple Pie” is delightful, but are you willing to brave the stigma of celebrating an anniversary at McDonald’s? And, if you’ve never sampled a pastrami & cheese sandwich, on the whitest bread you’ve ever laid eyes on (complete with coleslaw and fries on the sandwich - it is Pittsburgh, after all), from Primanti Bros., you’re missing out on a truly unique dining experience. But honestly, I don’t think that desserts are their thing. So, let’s agree that the real target market is somewhere north of 1,000 restaurants - still a respectable prospect list.

In assessing the scalability of the business, there do not appear to be geographic restrictions, but let’s face it, traveling to New York City, or San Francisco, in order to secure a free dessert, adds needless cost and complexity, Now, I know what you’re thinking: Can this strategy be extended to garner logical product-line extensions, such as?

• Birthdays - While it is unlikely that a waiter would request a copy of a marriage-license, in support of a claimed anniversary, it is entirely possible that he might ask to see your drivers’ license, in order to verify a birthday. And, the extra step involved in procuring a fake I.D., in support of a supplemental birthday, adds cost, negatively affecting the intended profit margin of the business.

• Arbor Day - Although I heartily endorse the concept of Arbor Day being a dessert-able occasion (I’m surprised that my editor let “dessert-able” slip through the filter, because I’m pretty sure it’s a made-up word; I wonder if he would have been as charitable if I had chosen, say, “dessert-errific”), it is more of a global celebration day, rather than being specific to an individual, and thus more difficult to justify rewarding a specific person, unless, of course, that person’s last name was, “Arbor",” or if he had invented trees.

• Law School graduation - Frankly, I would reject this suggestion out of hand. This is not the type of behavior we want to reward.

Now, on to the bottom-line. What manner of riches await us, as we execute the plan? Well, let’s not kid ourselves; there is a cost associated with garnering that free dessert; let’s call it dinner (those true dessert aficionados call it, “pre-dessert” - I think I may have stolen that term from a recent cartoon published by someone else, so please, no calls or letters - I freely admit it’s not mine).

And, let’s not forget the most significant investment cost inextricably linked to enjoying a free anniversary dessert: marriage! I leave it to you to determine if the ROI on that investment is accretive. In my case, I would have to say, the answer is a resounding, YES! (She’s still there, right? My wife, I mean?).