ALLEKO
Nachos corn chips with spicy sauce. Horizontal top view
By Ed Avis
Do you charge for chips and salsa? If so, you have lots of company these days. A review of 50 Mexican restaurant menus, followed up by interviews with some of the restaurant owners, discovered that 16 of them (32 percent) charge for chips and salsa, either from the first basket or subsequent baskets.
“We just recently started charging for the third basket -- we provide two complimentary baskets,” says Rosalinda Tovar, owner of Rosa Linda’s Fine Mexican Cuisine in Selma, California. “We also now ask the customers when menus are taken if they even want chips and salsa, as people’s lifestyles are changing and some may not want any.”
Why the Change?
Customers have long expected a basket of chips and a bowl of salsa to magically appear when they sit down in a Mexican restaurant. It’s part of the overall experience. Why disrupt that expectation?
Tovar says she made the change because so many chips that went to the tables ended up in the trash.
“We make our own chips, so it’s labor intensive to make them,” she says. “[If customers ask why we are charging for chips,] the servers let the customers know that we saw a waste when customers did not finish them.”
Elizabeth Hart, owner of Sabor a Mi Grill Tequila & Botanas in Rancho Cucamonga, California, has two reasons for not handing out free chips: She says it’s not authentic to restaurants in Mexico, and she doesn’t want her customers to fill up on chips before ordering dinner.
“At the beginning they fought us for the chips and salsa,” says Hart, who opened her restaurant two years ago and charges $2.50 for a basket of chips and a bowl of salsa. “But we teach them about the reasons we don’t do it and gradually they understand.”
How Much?
The review of 50 Mexican restaurant menus revealed that among the restaurants that charge for chips, the prices range from $1 to $7.
Some restaurants don’t make a big deal of charging for chips – they simply include chips and salsa on the appetizer menu. And they often make the option more tempting by offering better quality salsa. For example, Rosie’s in New York, which charges $7 for chips and salsa, serves the chips with tomatillo salsa and charred tomato-habanero salsa.
Some restaurants charge one price for the first basket and less for refills. Broken English Taco Pub in Chicago, for example, charges $4 for the first serving and $2 for refills.
It Doesn’t Always Work
Gina Von Ah, owner of La Estrellita Mexican Restaurant in Brighton, Colorado, says several years ago she began charging $1.50 for a basket of chips, but quickly retreated.
“We definitely upset so many customers,” Von Ah remembers. “A few said that they would never be back. We did it for about two weeks and finally decided that it wasn't worth it. So I just raised prices and made up the difference.”
Ed Avis is the publisher of el Restaurante. Nathan Avis helped research this article. Do you charge for chips? Let him know: edavis@restmex.com