I ate a lot at Lucky Pub and Golden Gate Irish Pub, both part of the Mirovaya Karta chain in Kyiv, to earn my prized 15 percent discount card. But last November, when I flashed my card after another fine (if not exactly healthy) dinner of pepper steak, fries and beer at Lucky Pub, the waitress apologetically said that the chain had discontinued the cards.
While I was stunned and momentarily thought about no longer patronizing Mirovaya Karta, I recalled an interview that I had with a restaurant consultant in Kyiv a few years ago. He thought the whole discount card system was a bad idea that had gotten out of control in Kyiv – that businesses are merely cutting their gross revenues 10, 15 and even 20 percent for every customer holding those discount cards.
It’s true that loyalty cards are prevalent, not just for the restaurant industry, but also for other businesses such as household goods, books, liquor stores and pharmacies in Kyiv. They are so popular that customers like me have come to expect them. I carry around 14 such cards and I am such a frequent visitor at some places, including my neighborhood dry cleaner, that my 10 percent discount is automatic.
Fortunately, like many restaurant patrons who have lived in Kyiv for many years, I know Michael Don, the longtime restaurateur and one of the owners of Mirovaya Karta. So I went to him for answers.
Don started with Sam’s Steakhouse (then Uncle Sam’s) 19 years ago. He is also part-owner of SushiYa and il Molino restaurants and has a share of the Khreshchatyk Hotel in Kyiv. Altogether, he runs more than 70 restaurants, mainly with his longtime partner Benny Golani. Many of the ones he had in Donetsk and Luhansk, where Russia is prosecuting its war, have closed or changed hands.
Sure enough, Ukraine’s wartime economic crisis, the rising cost of food and the sharp devaluation of the hrvynia prompted Don and his partners to drop the discount cards, a decision he wishes he would have taken a long time ago.
Given today’s economic crisis, Don said, “it’s not fair to raise the prices. So if you keep the same prices and you keep the discount cards, you are just losing money.”
Don offered discount cards because everyone else was doing it. Some years ago, he met with owners of other restaurant chains in a failed bid to persuade them all to drop the loyalty cards. This time, Mirovaya Karta acted on its own.
Don said the move really upset a tiny percentage of customers, but he hasn’t detected a measurable drop in customers – although, in fact, the discount cards were tools that gave restaurateurs concrete information on customers and their dining habits.
He said that some 100,000 customers had the Mirovaya Karta discount card, but not all of them were active users. In any case, as many as three-fourths of customers had no discount cards, he said.
Don said the loyalty program now is more informal, involving free drinks to frequent customers personally known to restaurant managers. Needless to say, he hopes offering customers quality food, good service and decent prices will keep his restaurants full.
So far, it appears that no other restaurant chains have followed Mirovaya Karta’s lead. Some restaurants have never given discount cards while others are going the other way – offering 50 percent discounts off everything. Don shakes his head and wonders how such places can stay in business.
How it all ends is anybody’s guess. Many restaurants in Ukraine, like in the United States, go out of business within the first three years of operation. Those that stay figure out how to weather hard times. This is the fourth economic crisis that Don has endured – the 1998 ruble crisis, the 2004 Orange Revolution crisis, the 2008 global crisis and now the 2013-2015 revolution and war crisis.
Ukrainians still have a long way to go to catch up to American dining habits. Some surveys show Americans go out to restaurants seven times a week, Don said, while Ukrainians average only three times a week.
“We are going to survive,” Don, a naturalized American citizen born in Kyiv, said. “We are here 19 years and we are going to stay another 20, 30 years. It’s not an easy time, but we are strong and getting stronger.”
Of course, everything depends on the war. “Like everybody else,” Don said when asked how he’s doing. “I hope this war is going to finish one day.”
Discount cards in Kyiv venues
The Kyiv Post checked out the discount card situation in other popular venues.
Docker Pub confirmed that it has no plans to cancel the discount cards. So did a representative of the Oliva restaurant chain that gives a limited number of loyalty cards to regular customers.
Kozyrna Karta chain will also keep its discount cards going.
Among those who have no plans to introduce discount cards are the popular burger places True Burger Bar and The Burger. Dmytro Zahodyakin, a co-founder of The Burger, The Cake, The Bar, and Pivnaya Duma, said a minimal number of discount cards exist only in Pivnaya Duma. Those were issued from 2009-2012. “I have a fair price and I do not make an additional charge to offset the discount cards, like other restaurants do,” Zahodyakin said.
Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected].
