Arkansas Times

Red Velvet Lounge

Monday, November 24, 2008

The Best Food Scam In Town

Posted by Jeremy Colburn on Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 12:49 AM

First question- Have you been to Jason’s Deli lately? They have the best salad bar on Earth. Did you know that you can get the salad bar to go? For $6.99 they give you a huge plastic to-go box, a soup cup, and a 4 oz. dressing container. This has been my dirty little secret for a few years now, but when I go there, I cram as much food as I possibly can into these three containers. It feeds me for days! They have tuna pasta salad, potato salad, three bean salad, kalamata olives, roasted red pepper hummus, feta, organic flat-leaf spinach, and the thickest ranch dressing I’ve ever seen. The last time I brought a salad home I weighed it on our kitchen scale. It was over 5 freakin pounds of food.

Second question- Have you been to Kroger lately? 8 oz. of hummus is $4. A pound of potato salad is $5. Spinach is $4 a bag. And Feta is $3.50 for 4 oz. I can’t afford that stuff! BUT-I can fit all that stuff in my Jason’s Deli to-go box. You see what I’m getting at? Theoretically, if you were say, an olive junkie, as I am, you could go to Jason’s and fill the whole container with olives! Even the soup and dressing cups. There’s no rules, dude!

The to-go box holds 96 oz. if filled to capacity (to figure this out, I did an experiment where I filled the box with water, then carefully poured it out into measuring cups). And then you have a 12 oz. soup cup and a 4 oz. dressing cup, which adds up to a total of 112 oz. So how much does 112 oz. of kalamata olives cost? Well, a 10 oz. jar at Kroger is $4.39. So, if you did fill all your to-go containers with kalamatas, you’d end up with around $50 worth of olives. Or what if you filled it up with Feta? 112 oz. of Feta cheese is worth $98!

Of course, these are extreme scenarios. I don’t need seven pounds of cheese. But if I ever do, now I know where to get it. So let’s get creative. Say you’re going to a potluck and you are in charge of bringing the dip. Go to Jason’s and get 112 oz. of hummus! It’s there for the taking! And if there’s not enough hummus there to fill your box, go tell the manager the salad bar needs re-stocking.

So, now I know you’re going to go and try this. And here’s where the life lesson comes in. Are you going to feel embarrassed standing there at the salad bar, hoarding olives and cheese into this flimsy transparent box? What will the other patrons think of you? What will the cashier think when you hand her this massive pilferage to be bagged up. They might think you’re a homeless person with a very refined palate. Is that a bad thing? This is the moment where you decide what you’re made of. I say- be a man. March up to that salad bar and make it your bitch. Take what you want and leave the rest. Cuz they’ve got plenty more in the kitchen. It’s the fastest-growing casual restaurant chain in America (according to the August 2008 issue of QSR Magazine). They can afford it.

        
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Comments (5)

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Yeah, pretty sure I'll be copy-catting this move in the near future. I recently bought sundried tomatoes from the deli section at Kroger, $8 for apx. 15 teeny, tiny tomatoes! Jason's Deli Salad Bar: OWNED.

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Posted by lauryn. on 11/25/2008 at 5:52 PM

"They can afford it" Not for long with friends like you. If I were a restaurant advertiser on this site, I woudln't be one for long. I will rock a salad bar togo to the max, but abuse is stupid, and your take on this is lame. There was once a restaurant in Hillcrest called WheatBerry. It was Vegan. You ate what was prepared and when you left, you put some money in a basket. Just whatevr you thought it was worth. We took out of town bands like Fugazi there and blew their minds. But, you know, it was easy to scam. It, of course, no longer exhists. Perhpas this is so because it was abused. I am sure you think your take is funny, Jeremy, and it is. But people who compete for dollars with The AR Times will use this to show what caliber of reader is attracted to the site, and therefore, sees the ads that places like Does spend good money for. Readers, like, well, me. Oh well, all this vitriol makes me hungry, think I will go BUY some food.

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Posted by GRAHAM on 12/08/2008 at 4:15 PM

Gotta admit, I have indeed utilized this particular food deal in leaner times. Used to get off between 9-10am each day. What folks may not know is that you can go by and load up on the salad bar before lunchtime. You can also place a to-go order to pick up before 11am. Great resource. Our gameplan used to be ignore the lettuce. I'd go by and get two salad boxes -- one I'd fill with pasta and tuna salads, the other with veggies and the like. The smaller containers we used for banana pudding (a personal favorite, for sure). Individually packaged graham crackers were another bonus -- whatever space was left after packing the veggie box with tomatoes, olives, eggs and cheese was left for these little packs. One of my former anchors was thankful for this when the early morning knosh desire hit. Jason's is a great deal for us -- but I have one beef with them. We tend to drop by on Sunday nights from time to time. During my pregnancy, I had a really unfortunate thing happen not once, not twice, but three times -- THEY RAN OUT OF ICE CREAM. That's right, the pregnant woman was denied free dairy delights with that New Yorker or Turkey Muffellatta. Can you imagine a bigger crime?

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Posted by Kat Robinson on 12/21/2008 at 6:41 PM

Not a scam, but a good deal....check out the sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil) at Fresh Market. That's right, Fresh Market. You can get a LARGE package of them for less than $5. I throw them in everything tomato-related, even eat them as snacks and the package lasts me for months.

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Posted by EY on 12/21/2008 at 6:44 PM

Graham raises a good point about the cost, but one thing I learned working (and doing some advising on the finance side) in a restaurant is the smart ones (and large chains like Jason's don't get that large by being stupid in regards to pricing strategy) do things like the Salad Bar on a law of averages: we expect the average customer to consume enough that we need to charge x price (notice if you go in you can get a discounted pot pie - the pot pie is cheaper because part of the cost is offset by (on average) reduced consumption at the salad bar). For every person going in and loading up on high dollar olives, you have someone getting the most basic lettuce + cheese + tomatoes + dressing. While Jeremy's idea may not be the most ethical around (I'd sarcastically put it down in the category of kicking a baby or stealing candy from a toddler, but then again I'm weird like that), I doubt it is going to bankrupt Jason's Deli. They probably throw more food away at the end of every day than is 'wasted' by people going in, paying the 6.99 or whatever and loading up on pricy olives and special tomatoes. Now if everyone starts doing this, Jason's is going to realize it probably in a few months when the Cost of Goods Sold skyrockets, and they see they are 'selling' lots of salad bar olives, which they will do one of two (or both) things: pull olives, or raise the prices.

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Posted by anoncow on 12/27/2008 at 1:45 AM

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