Mission Hotness Lazy Bear Raises Some Ticket Prices, Lowers Others

After a successful first six months on Nick Kokonas' restaurant ticketing system, Tock, acclaimed Mission restaurant Lazy Bear is tweaking its ticket formula slightly, raising prices for some meals and lowering them for others. A ticket for one to a meal at Lazy Bear can now cost as much as $150 for a prime-time reservation (tax, gratuity, and drinks not included), particularly on Friday and Saturday nights at the later of the restaurant's two seatings (6 and 8:15 pm). On the other hand, however, those who are willing to hit Lazy Bear on a non-standard day (say, Wednesday at 6 pm) will find themselves rewarded with a price tag of only $100-110/head, $10-20 less than the restaurant's pricing a month ago. It's a system that Daniel Patterson, another Tock user, has implemented to control demand at Coi, and Lazy Bear chef David Barzelay is hoping it'll have the same effect to fill seats at the popular restaurant's Tuesday and Wednesday meals.

The price shakeup is also affecting the restaurant's beverage pairings, which have been streamlined from a choice of a mixed-beverage or all-wine pairing at $65 each to a single "mostly wine" pairing with the occasional beer or cocktail thrown in for $75. "Streamlining will allow us to make the pairing more awesome and extensive, pour from more large-format bottles, and expand our a la carte cocktail program." Barzelay is also introducing a massive price hike in the corkage department, with a tariff of $50 per bottle; until this week, the per-bottle price was only $30, and corkage for one bottle was waived if at least one member of a party purchased the beverage pairing. Just for comparison, corkage is $40 at Benu and $45 at Atelier Crenn; and a mere year ago, when Lazy Bear was still an underground pop-up, it was $0.