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On The Menu: Coffee and Pie Charts

Nate Williams

On The Menu: Coffee and Pie Charts

By Francesca Levy

“Please Don’t Hate Us,” reads the sign about price hikes at a Papaya King hot dog outlet in New York. With food prices up 6.3% so far this year, shopkeepers and restaurateurs are tacking up posters and pie charts to show that soaring commodity prices (and, in some cases, a faltering dollar) are to blame. At the Bedford Cheese Shop in Brooklyn, N.Y., a page of graphs taped to the door tracks the rising cost of milk and other commodities. “Unless you know why prices are going up, you’re going to think we’re just jerks,” says co-owner Charlotte Kamin. In Providence, Nick’s on Broadway has posted a list of economic reasons for the restaurant’s pricier “bottomless” cup of coffee ($3, up from $2). Such signs are a good idea, says Ravi Dahr, director of Yale’s Center for Customer Insights. Gas prices are in the news, he says. Food inflation is “not as obvious a story.