Tuesday lunch

Saturday, and every restaurant I know will be full tonight. A weekend queue in Riyadh or Cairo tells you almost nothing, because everyone's weekend is full. The tables were always going to go.

The number that decides whether a place is still here next year is taken at one in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

From the operator's side of the counter, Tuesday is where the arithmetic lives. The rota was written for the covers a Tuesday usually brings, and three staff in an empty room is the most expensive thing in the week. The prep was done for a Tuesday, and what has not sold by three goes in the bin, and the bin is where the margin went. The rent is the same as on Friday. So is the electricity.

A full Friday pays for the weekend and a little of the week. A good Tuesday pays for Tuesday, and there are five of those to every Friday.

Now look at where the marketing goes. The campaign launches on a Thursday. The offer is a weekend offer. The creator visits on Friday night, when the room photographs well. The money buys a queue that would have formed anyway, and the report calls it a success because the number went up on the day it always goes up.

Nothing in it touches Tuesday. Nobody measures Tuesday, because the plan only ever wanted the Friday, and Tuesday was the price of the door being open.

The place that survives has a Tuesday. A lunch trade from the offices nearby, one dish people cross town for on a weekday, a regular whose order is started when his car is seen. That is consistency, and it is the one thing the weekend cannot buy.

Judge a restaurant by its Tuesday. Judge its marketing the same way, because the campaign always buys the Friday it did not need.