How pay-what-you-can actually works
Inside a feel-good service model with HAGS chef Telly Justice
HAGS, a small restaurant in New York, has long done things differently. It started as a Covid-era pop-up, experimenting with structure and pricing, before eventually opening as an East Village brick-and-mortar with a tasting menu. It serves that menu four nights per week, but on Sundays offers something unusual: a pay-what-you-can brunch service that co-owner and executive chef Telly Justice says roots the restaurant in its relationship with its community. The Sunday a la carte menu suggests prices for each dish, but guests are invited to pay what they can for the food — even if that’s nothing at all.
Recently, Justice has taken the pay-what-you-can concept on the road. After successful collabs with restaurants including Post Haste in Philadelphia and Acamaya in New Orleans, HAGS recently announced a few more, including a (successful!) pay-what-you-can March dinner at Madeira Park in Atlanta, and, next month, another at Joodooboo in Oakland, California.
A delicious and affordable meal is obviously great for a diner, especially for one that might not experience the restaurant otherwise. But as Justice explained, it’s also a great opportunity for restaurant workers.
“Every time I get the opportunity to do this with another restaurant or expose another chef to what it’s like to cook for somebody when you take away the pressure of transaction, it’s like watching a little kid interact with a new toy… there’s a light in their eyes,” Justice told me. “It’s like they’re remembering why they cook.”
Justice is right — I’ve sat through more than my fair share of restaurant and hospitality events where a string of speakers sells the audience on the benefits of serving others. It feels great! But good feels don’t always translate to a good bottom line. For HAGS, though, it has… just maybe not in the way you’d expect.
In a recent interview, Justice talked me through the economics of it all, including the unexpected delights of taking the transaction out of a restaurant meal. Restaurants are about food, but they’re also about human connection. Justice’s restaurant — and many restaurants — can pull this off, she said, when they build trust over time.
“If you were to retroactively insert this into your business model,” she said, “I think you’d look at the numbers and feel disappointed. But… are you losing money in the long run? Are you losing money over the course of five to 10 years? If you’re building community around your restaurant and you stay relevant in ways that other restaurants can’t — and can’t compete with — what’s the return on that loss?”
This is a long interview; it was too good to cut. Paid subscribers can read the full conversation below. (I really like the part about front-of-house staff at the end!)
As always, our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Expedite: How did this pay-what-you-can project get its start?
Telly Justice, HAGS: “Our relationship to pay-what-you-can started a long time ago. Before I was a professional chef, I was working with food advocacy groups. I got involved distributing food to people in need at a young age, and that was essential to my coming to the industry and becoming a trained chef.
“As I moved through the ranks — and as my business partner, Camille [Lindsley, the restaurant’s wine director] moved through the ranks — of fine dining restaurants, we slowly felt ourselves like being pulled away from the core elements of why we loved to cook and to host and provide hospitality. We were doing it for technical and ambition reasons, but we were farther separated from the care that felt essential to us when we were younger.