The Pasta Shack is an Italian restaurant in Florida near the major tourist attractions that has noticed a recent decline in sales. The owner and his managers decided to have a meeting to come up with some strategies to reverse this trend. One of the managers used to work for an independent restaurant in a suburban neighborhood in Chicago and suggested a strategy used successfully by his former restaurant: offering an early bird menu to customers who order before 6:00 P.M. The idea is to provide a limited number of entrées at a discounted price.

The original price of the entrées placed on the early-bird menu was \($10.95\) and included a salad. The new price for the specials would be \($8.95.\) After the first two weeks of offering the specials, the daily average number of covers increased from 50 to 58 during the 4 to 6 P.M. time period. However, the daily average number of covers after 6 P.M. decreased from 75 to 70, due to some cannibalization of current customers. Assume that \($8.95\) is the average price per person from 4 to 6 P.M. and \($10.95\) is the average price per person after 6 P.M. when answering the following questions.

Case Questions and Issues 

a. What was the effect of the price change on total revenues during the early-bird time period?

b. Using the concepts presented in the chapter, how would you explain this change?

c. Are there any additional costs associated with the new strategy?

d. Is the new strategy successful? Explain your answer.