Ruth’s Chris Ann Arbor has to regret this Michigan promotion
Michigan fans in Ann Arbor are in for a treat at the expense of a fancy restaurant chain.
Yesterday, fine-dining steak chain Ruth’s Chris posted a promotion on Facebook stating that for the rest of the season, fans in Ann Arbor will get a percentage discount off their bill equal to the Michigan margin of victory (up to 50 percent) of the prior game. It’s an innocent promotion to drive some traffic to a dining establishment that prices out a fair amount of people.
Ruth’s Chris executives were probably thinking that at this juncture of the season, they were looking at 10-20 percent discounts at the most with all the tough Big Ten opponents Michigan would be facing.
Tough Big Ten opponents like Rutgers.
Little did they know the Wolverines would torch the Scarlet Knights, 78-0, the first week that the promotion launched. If my second-grade math is still fresh, that is a point differential of 78 points, meaning Ruth’s Chris Ann Arbor would be handing out a staggering 78-percent discount on their bills.
It’s a good thing the restaurant capped the limit at 50 percent. Although, they were not very clear about that initially.
Let’s walk through this step-by-step. Say you really wanted to impress your Ann Arbor sweetheart with a nice steak dinner at Ruth’s Chris from Sunday through Thursday after this game. You go to the restaurant, look at the menu, order two juicy ribeye steaks and share the signature sweet potato casserole. The bill usually comes back at a cool $110.83. However, since your favorite Michigan team demolished Rutgers by 78 points, you now only have to pay $55.42 for your entire meal pre-tip. Just think, if the restaurant hadn’t capped the promotion at 50 percent that meal could have cost $24.38.
You feel for the restaurant for a second, but then you realize that Michigan has had some huge margin of victories this year. They beat Penn State by 39, but they only beat Wisconsin by seven points. That’s is probably why Ruth’s Chris got a little cocky.
Still, if Ruth’s Chris was confident enough to offer this promotion with one of the best Michigan teams in recent years, they should be humble enough to own up to it when it backfires. One has to wonder whether a certain Wolverine head coach was aware of this promotion and decided to dangle a chance for cheap steak for his players while they prepared for Rutgers.
Either way, who has a plane ticket to Ann Arbor? You get the flight, I’ll get the steak.
