**L’Oca d’Oro Offers Unique Dining Experience with Pay-What-You-Will Tuesdays**
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In an innovative move to make dining more accessible, L’Oca d’Oro, an Italian-inspired restaurant located in Austin, Texas, has launched a unique promotion called “Pay What You Will” Tuesdays. This initiative, aimed primarily at local hospitality workers, teachers, and healthcare professionals, allows patrons to choose how much they would like to pay for their meals on Tuesday evenings.
Co-owners Adam Orman and Fiore Tedesco III introduced this model in December 2025, as a way to welcome a broader range of diners to their establishment regardless of their financial circumstances. The restaurant’s website highlights the owners’ intention to provide an exceptional L’Oca d’Oro experience to everyone in Austin, while addressing the current economic challenges facing many residents.
On Tuesday nights, from 4 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., customers are invited to select items from the restaurant’s à la carte menu, which features a variety of dishes, including wagyu brisket, heritage pork meatballs, tiramisu, and cannolis. While diners are free to pay less than or even more than the menu prices for their meals, it should be noted that the cost of drinks remains unchanged.
When it comes to settling the bill, the process is straightforward. Diners receive their actual check at the end of the meal but are encouraged to write in the amount they wish to contribute for their food. It is important to emphasise that standard credit card processing fees and a 20% service charge apply to all checks, which ensures that staff receive fair wages and benefits.
According to Orman, most patrons generally pay around two-thirds of what they would on a regular evening, while only a few opt to pay significantly less. Remarkably, some guests even choose to pay more, helping to balance out those who pay less. This system has resulted in a slight increase in overall earnings for the restaurant on Tuesday nights compared to expected figures.
Despite the occasional dip in revenue during these evenings, L’Oca d’Oro has reported an uptick in customer numbers on other nights of the week since implementing the promotion. On one particularly successful “PWYW” Tuesday, the restaurant even exceeded its usual earnings from a standard evening by a small margin.
In addition to the pay-what-you-will model, L’Oca d’Oro has set up a GoFundMe page aimed at collecting donations from those wishing to support this initiative further. Orman highlighted that many people in Austin who contribute significantly to the city’s vibrancy can struggle to afford meals at restaurants like L’Oca d’Oro.
The restaurant co-owner expressed a desire to create a dining space where everyone can enjoy a full restaurant experience on their own terms. Complementing this sentiment, Tedesco remarked on the potential insights the promotion could provide regarding the local community and its dining habits, as well as the restaurant’s role within it.
The “PWYW” Tuesdays have generated positive buzz in the local dining scene, and the co-owners are optimistic about expanding this model in the future to introduce new menu items and perhaps refine the approach further.
While L’Oca d’Oro was unable to provide immediate comment on the ongoing initiative, the community response has been encouraging, suggesting that this innovative approach to dining could serve as a model for other establishments seeking to create more inclusive dining experiences.