Nobody is paying extra

On one street in Shubra there are two places that make feteer. One is a counter with a hot oven and a queue on the pavement. The other, a few doors along, charges noticeably more for what looks, written on a menu, like the same folded pastry.

It is tempting to describe the second place's customers as people paying extra. I doubt any of them would put it that way.

The family that comes on a Friday morning is buying a table where the children can sit, pastry made in front of them with butter they can smell, a waiter who remembers that the grandmother likes hers less sweet. The young couple is buying an hour somewhere nobody will hurry them out. Each of them leaves with something they wanted, for a sum that seemed fair.

That is how people buy. They do not hand over a premium for its own sake. They hand over what feels like the right amount for something they value, and the gap between the two shops is only visible to someone who is not their customer.

Which is also why the gap is fragile. The day the counter down the road puts out a few tables and a fan, the dearer place has to prove again that what it charges for is real: the butter, the care, the remembering. It cannot live on the fact that its price was once accepted.

Asking for more is easy for an afternoon. The real work is earning it on every visit, so that the more never starts to feel like extra.