<lling all econ majors, it looks like Sayles could use a little advice when it comes to pricing their deli sandwiches.
Late last week my roommate and I were hankering for a cheap snack on the go, so we headed over to the Sayles Hill Cafe to get our fix. After browsing for a few minutes, our eyes landed on the same thing, showered in the pale light of the refrigerator shelves: the tuna sandwich.
Nestled in between two pieces of dry bread, a piece of shiny cheddar, and saggy lettuce, the tuna ‘wich is pretty much as good as it gets.
Now, for the uninitiated: half-sandwiches at Sayles cost a reasonable $2.10. Whole sandwiches, on the other hand, will put you back $4.25. Before, we had just been full-sandwich hungry, but now we were a little confused too. Could we get away with buying two halves (and filling our rum-tum-tummies), and only pay $4.20? (Five cents less than it would cost to buy a whole.) It sure looked like it did.
My roommate thought he was pretty clever, so he grabbed two half sandwiches and walked up to the cashier. Hoping to pay $4.20 plus tax, he was in actuality charged the price of one full sandwich plus tax. (“Well, that’s basically a whole sandwich,” we were told.) We didn’t think much of it then, but walking back in the cold, we realized we sort of got taken. Sort of.
On behalf of those who feel as strongly about their nickels and tuna sandwiches as I do, I asked Sayles management about the goofy pricing. A little confused by my concern for sandwich prices, they said the pricing had to do with packaging issues and some of the soup/sandwich combos. Fair enough, I suppose.
But despite all of the explanations, my tuna sandwich snafu still leaves me wondering, what’s up with that?