Video: 82-year-old Succession star super-glued his hand to Starbucks counter in protest

That is some marketing genius right there.

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Nello’s charges “market price” for its pasta. ($275)

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The way things are improved is not by everyone magically concentrating on all problems at once. There are enough people in the world to work on the problems as long as we don’t spread ourselves too thin. You concentrate on your priority areas, and let others concentrate on theirs. You wouldn’t want anyone denigrating your issues as not being important enough, right?

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Why do you think this is the biggest issue for these activists? What makes you think they weren’t working on a different issue the day before this protest, or the day after it? And who among them said, “This is the biggest issue for me!”?

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I’m a very much live and let live person and think people should make the choices that they see fit for themselves. But a straight-up question here. If Starbucks can show that the carrying costs of providing plant-based “dairy” products are higher, either because of more expensive products or reduction in volume affecting purchase price, is it discriminatory? It’s another way of saying that I highly doubt that Starbacks is going out of their way to screw vegans out of their hard-earned dollars. As much as I’m not a fan of huge corporations, one thing they are good at is fully understanding their input and output costs and pricing to what the market will bear.

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Also - CJ Cregg’s dad.

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This is truth. And some of us end up working on the wrong things, or inadvertently doing more harm than good (not that these activists in particular are doing that). If we knew absolutely what the most important particular thing might be we could all jump on board, but we don’t.

We all have a right to act on our own beliefs and pursue our own goals. However, I also believe we have a right to point out that not all issues and challenges are equally pressing.

True, there likely isn’t anything in the commenting guidelines here against saying things like Water is wet, or An unclouded sky is blue.

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I’m sure that’s often the case, but locally, it hasn’t been. In the before times, I frequented a local brew pub and a local restaurant/bar that pay a minimum $15/hr and let customers know tips are not expected. One even has a tip jar if people really insist on it, but the employee of the month gets to pick a charity to donate it to.
Anyway, the prices at both those places are completely in line with other local places operating on the more standard US “server” wage system.
Both are owner operated by community-minded people, and it shows.

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It’s true. But also, if I buy some brownies at the bake sale supporting the local student soccer team, would you criticize me for doing that instead of fretting over the climate crisis? Would you criticize the people holding the bake sale?
We can, and do, do both. :woman_shrugging:t2:

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It’s a long-term condition since after WWII.

Dairy usually runs in a boom-bust cycle, gradually falling into the hands of the better capitalized cartels of companies.

The US deals with it with subsidized over-production. (Canada uses a milk board to regulate production.)

They used to turn the surplus into vast government cheese stockpiles. No idea where it goes now.

(A biased source.)

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So many ways to go with this wonderful news.

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The Strategic Cheese Reserves.

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My God. It’s full of cheese.

:slight_smile:

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Yes, this is resources required for a specific volume of milk.

I’ll see if I can find the original source. However, it may have been sent to me in that form.

Reference: Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? - Our World in Data

Also:

eu·troph·i·ca·tion
noun

  1. excessive richness of nutrients in a lake or other body of water, frequently due to runoff from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life and death of animal life from lack of oxygen.
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Well that would be the thing. Gross margin with no overhead doesn’t tell you anything about what a place is making in the end.

Just from my vague knowledge of the subject that’s probably pretty old.

The price per kilo listed is already less than half the retail pricing for not particularly fancy but “specialty” coffee per pound in the US. And that seems like about 50% as much coffee as respectable coffee shops use for espresso.

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Nello does not charge market price.

Nello is a famous bait and switch operation. They don’t list prices anywhere, and charge vastly more than direct competitors in the same market (I used to work for one such direct competitor).

Like the article says they buy positive coverage and reviews. They grift for coverage in tabloid press, famous people go there!

And make their nut from people who aren’t aware they’ll be hit with a $2k bill, or jackasses who don’t care and just want to be seen. It’s somehow been enough to keep them going even though it’s long been exposed. But their locations in the Hamptons and Palm Beach closed long ago. After people caught on.

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multiple levels of obfuscation.

Because it’s a special, the price isn’t listed.
If pressed, the waiter is supposed to say “market price”
The dish contains truffle, which can be expensive even if not marked up, (and fluctuates wildly)

Furthermore, there’s a 20 percent service fee, which isn’t actually shared amongst the waitstaff.

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They tend not to post prices even on base items. When they charge exorbitantly for an item because truffles it’s often just cheap truffle salt or truffle oil from Sysco or the actual supermarket.

Like I said used to work for a direct competitor. Same market segment. White table cloth, fine dining, Italian. In the Hamptons. Little more than 10 years back.

Our signature pasta dish was a Spaghetti Chitara with veal meatballs.

Using a pretty high end imported rose veal, ground for us. We hand made the pasta in house. And the sauce an almost but not quite pomodoro made with a hell of a lot of heirloom tomatoes. Fresh basil we grew out back.

Really simple dish, but deceptively complicated to put together.

Our price: $50.

Their spaghetti and meatballs was just chuck and premade marinara straight off the Sysco truck on Barilla.

Their price: $90.

Although sometimes it was $120.

We overcharged for drinks. Ritzy place in the Hamptons. But they were crazy balls.

Our Budweiser: $8. Theirs: $18

Our martinis: $14. Theirs: $35.

Our Patron shot: $18 (to disincentive shots). Theirs:$50

A bottle of wine we sold for $50 would be $200 there, with an extra $50 for “service”.

None of their menus had pricing listed. Ever. They always had a special that was quietly like $500 bucks. Often just a salad.

And at least once a week some one called the cops on them after getting a $10k bill dropped on them unexpectedly.

ETA: they also stole tips from their staff and almost entirely staffed from college students on temp work visas. Usually from Eastern Europe.

If they made a stink about working conditions they’d have them deported.

I know so much about their shit because the restaurant I worked at used to save a lot of people from them. Get new visas for them, find them a place to stay.

More than once we had to roll over to their managers house with load of large Italians to get some body’s passport.

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I’m thinking that there must be laws about retail establishments showing prices before a sale is completed. Maybe some lawyer would have a better idea.