“I believe, this is my own marketing philosophy, that you degrade your brand value if you’re saying, this is not worth but half. At some point people go, ‘I guess it’s not really worth what they charge.’ ”
— Rick Hendrie, senior vice president for marketing at Uno Chicago Grill, in Wednesday’s New York Times. Uno Chicago Grill, currently offering a $9.99 pizza meal deal, is embroiled in a discount showdown with competing chain restaurants like Ruby Tuesday and DineEquity’s Applebee’s. But even if the chains, which grew rapidly in recent years, can ride out this economic storm, they may find they’ve done irreparable damage to their pricing power. –Jessica Shambora