Friday, January 14, 2011

Innovative business practice










Most entrepreneurs probably think he’s crazy, but a young café owner from the Czech Republic claims scraping the price list was the best move for his business.

42-year-old Ondrej Lebowski remembers just a while ago he was struggling to keep his café business afloat, but now he says his place in Prague is packed all the time. The secret to this amazing comeback – scraping the price list for customers. Clients simply set their own prices for what they drink, usually depending on the service and how tasty the drink is.

Lebowski launched his innovative tactic in August of last year. Fast forward to present day, and the Big Lebowski Café is one of the popular venues in the Czech capital. Curious people started coming in right after they heard about the seemingly crazy idea, and just fell in love with the place. They get to set their own price for drinks, enjoy a nice friendly atmosphere and have the chance to pick out cool memorabilia, including film posters, books, and toys.

Where I come from, people would just eat and drink for free, in a place like this, but Ondrej Lebowski says all of his clients try to pay a fair price for what they consume. Some give more, some give less, but what’s important is they try to come up with a correct price. “I come here once a week. It’s great, amazing. But you feel inclined to pay regular prices just because it’s a cool place" says Ankat, one of the loyal customers of the Big Lebowski Café.

Ondrej legally changed his name to Lebowski and his café is modeled after the passion he has for movies, particularly the 1998 hit “The Big Lebowski”. The movie also inspired one of the café’s most popular cocktails – the White Russian.

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