It's $400 per meal served. If your in a office which is home base to 250 employees, but only ten eat at the cafeteria (or even show up) then costs go up quickly. If the standing order was to always be ready to serve 250 employees during lunch time, then there would be a large excess of wait staff and cooks. If they needed to defrost or have on hand the raw materials for that many employees, then most of it would go bad and get thrown out once or twice a week.
A simple order your lunch before 10am for a noon lunch rule would have solved this. They are a technology company that didn't use technology to solve basic problems. You could serve almost anything for $30-40 per person as long as you have enough lead time. You could also just use basic prediction to figure out how much staff and food you need on hand unless you are told to always be ready for full volume.
(post is archived)