Starting today there will be an invisible new column to our account journals - Karma received and Karma given. As of today there will be no more prices and no fixed portion sizes. Will we get ripped off right and left or will we be pleasantly surprised by people’s generosity and fairness?

When we told people a few months ago, including our staff, that we were planning to do away with prices, a few thought it was a great idea, but the majority worried about how much people would take advantage. But the idea, originally planted in my head by Francesca about an Australian, Hari Krishna place with a similar approach, would not go away.

Then, after a few slow months when we were counting our losses, we did some serious thinking about the future of the cafe. One option was to close it - but what would we do with the space? No cafe nor kitchen didn’t seem like a great addition to our hotel. We thought about how to make it work better - to be more profitable, but realized immediately that it would require a sacrifice in quality and/or an increase in prices, which we weren’t willing to make. The businessman side of me thought, “well if it isn’t profitable, why are we doing it?” And yet clearly this, and most issues with us, wasn’t about business, because the idea of closing it saddened me, and we were driven by something else to do it anyway. So it was clear - we weren’t, and probably would never would, run the cafe with money being the objective. So what was our objective then?

Once we thought of it in these terms it was pretty clear. We wanted to make good, healthy food and we wanted people to eat it and like it. We wanted people to have a slow-food, organic and local culinary experience and we wanted it to be affordable and accessible. We wanted people to enjoy coming there, eating there, being a small community. I suppose another factor is that we’re both rebels at heart and the idea of not following the rules moved me. I also thought it would be a great experiment to see how people would respond when given total trust not to rip you off. Surely some will take advantage, but I imagine the majority will overcompensate.

Stay tuned for an update…