London, June 12: It sounds like a recipe for financial ruin: a restaurant that allows customers to pay what they think their meal is worth. Yet the business tactic is proving a success and “pay-what-you-like” restaurants are spreading across Britain.

The idea was spawned by Michael Vasos, the owner of Just Around The Corner, a French bistro in north London, where customers often spend two hours drinking fine wine and gorge themselves on salmon stuffed with crab. Afterwards, they must work out their own bill and most, surprisingly, leave a fair or generous amount.

Vasos’s success is such that three other pay-what-you-like restaurants ? Mju in Knightsbridge, central London; Lanes in east London; and Sweet Melinda’s in Edinburgh ? have copied the idea.

“If you give very good service and very good food, people leave a lot in tips,” said Vasos. “So I thought why not just leave the whole bill to customers and they can pay what they think it’s worth.

“As long as we gave a good show, I knew it would do well and we’ve been very successful from the beginning.”

Vasos has stakes in four other restaurants, all with fixed-price menus. They, do not, however, take as much money as Just Around The Corner. “The other restaurants take about 60 per cent profit a week, this one takes between 65 to 70 per cent each week,” he said.

Just Around The Corner’s most generous customers were four Americans who came in on Christmas eve. “They had quite a few bottles of wine, champagne and ate three-course meals. They paid ?600 and asked the waitress if it was enough. In a fixed-price restaurant they would have probably paid around ?250,” he said.

Vasos also has a foolproof way of ensuring that patrons do not underpay. “When people pay a silly amount, I give them their money back and make them feel very small so they realise that if they want to come back they should really pay more.”