This Year’s Business Model: Restaurants Without Food

You may have read earlier stories on this blog about a pay-what-you-wish bakery in Canada, a pay-what-you-wish coffee shop in Washington state, and pay-what-you-wish granola at a Miami supermarket.

Here’s another pay-what-you-wish eating story, but in this case, you have to bring your own food. That’s right. On King Island in Tasmania, Australia, there’s an old boathouse that’s been converted into a rustic harborside restaurant where patrons cook their own meals. They leave behind money for the use of the building in an “honesty duck” — i.e., a box decorated with a toy duck.

“People really, really love the concept of trust and that’s to me half the reason why we’re running it, because I respond to that,” the proprietor Caroline Kininmonth told Eleanor Hall of The World Today. “It’s a very childlike feeling.”

There is nothing in the article about average payments. The real estate business being what it is versus the food business being what it is, and considering how much people love to cook, I wouldn’t be surprised if a restaurant without food is a lot more profitable than one with food. I recall that Cosmo Kramer once had a plan for a make-it-yourself pizzeria. Can anyone out there tell us about a setup similar to this Australian one in the U.S.?

(Hat tip: Chuck Falzone, via kottke.org)