A New York Restaurant Is Prepared for Inflation Volatility

New York bar to set menu prices like stocks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - What's the value of a pint of beer? Let the market decide, says a new restaurant in Manhattan where prices for food and beverages will fluctuate like stock prices in increments according to demand.

Note that this system will work great during severe deflation, stagflation, and severe hyperinflation.

Owners Levent Cakar and Damon Bae admit the stock exchange theme is a gimmick but hope a good deal on drinks and their hamburger's tastiness will win over customers.

It is a very amusing gimmick.

New York has about 23,000 restaurants, with about 4,400 opening each year according to the city's Department of Health, which tracks establishment licenses.

If 4,400 open each year but there are only 23,000 total, you can pretty much do the math to see how hard it is to open a successful restaurant. Here's some help with the math. It would only take 5.2 years for 23,000 restaurants to be created at a 4,400 per year pace. New York became a state 222 years ago though.

The restaurant opens April 1.

They are opening it on April Fool's Day. They might succeed. It tells me that they at least have a sense of humor. If they do succeed I suspect that a restaurant currently near them might no longer succeed, especially in this economy. Behold the power of capitalism.