People can use their unique talents to barter for food at Bloomington businesses

To barter is to buy, and to buy is to compromise on a price, yet students and Bloomington residents can save their breath or weed the lawn while making transactions for food throughout town. \nAlso known as haggling, trafficking and dickering, the transaction of American currency for human fuel in the marketplace has long lost the glitter of "goods for other goods or services" principle, which was commonplace from the beginnings of trade. So what happens when a weary traveler stumbles into Bloomington and passes out from hunger-induced exhaustion on the steps of a local eatery?\nSome restaurateurs choose to feed that person.\n"There was a guy sitting on the back porch who said he was hungry and he asked for a meal," said Matt O'Neill, part owner of the Runcible Spoon Café & Restaurant, 412 E. Sixth St. "I asked him to help out and he pulled weeds for 20 minutes. It was a great deal on my part because I got better service than his paying for a meal, and I felt more gratitude toward him as a customer because he just pulled my weeds."\nO'Neill said the 30-year history of the Runcible Spoon is strewn with tall tales of customers with little or no pocket change still affording a plate chocked-full of breakfast, lunch or dinner munchies. Although his restaurant does not have a formal barter policy, O'Neill said he prefers instead to benefit from the skills, talents and artistic masterpieces of hungry students and travelers.\n"Students have abilities to barter with that they don't use enough. I have told a music student to bring in a violin to play, and I have told an art student to paint me something," O'Neill said. "The student is now gone, but he left beautiful art in this place. 99.9 percent of the time, I give students the benefit of the doubt because they are basically people you can trust. You get one or two who don't live up to expectations, but you get that with any segment of the population."\nO'Neill said Runcible Spoon can afford to possess a bartering attitude because decisions in absentee-owned or corporate restaurants are often regulated. \n"A guy came in to get a cake and he was $1 or $2 short. I said it was fine, and I spotted the money out of the tip jar," said senior Whitney McCurdy, shift leader at Cold Stone Creamery, 530 E. Kirkwood Ave. "I wouldn't do that every single day, but I was feeling generous, and I was in a good mood. In the long run, 50 cents is not going to kill anybody." \nMcCurdy said the fixed-price aspect of her ice cream shop enables the employees to know the value of each ice cream scoop, but she suggested the American food marketplace might benefit from improved human-to-human verbal transactions.\n"As a customer, bartering for food might make things more interesting," she said. "And in certain cultures, like Mexico, they are offended if you don't try to barter."\nBloomington resident Jeremiah Rice, manager of Swing-In Pizza, 301 W. 17th St., said his restaurant often trades food for food or food for services with other local small businesses. He said hungry folks with light pockets at the time of transaction are asked to sign their order ticket with the expectation that they will pay the food bill at a later time.\n"We trust students will come back when they have money or find the ticket, even if we don't hear from them for weeks," Rice said. "If I'm having a good night, or I'm in a good mood, I will tell them not to worry about it. They will get their food regardless."\nSimilar to the mainstream American food market, Scott Wilcox, general manager of Mad Mushroom Pizza, 601 N. Walnut St., said his food establishment's fixed-price attitude offers little or no latitude for hungry customers missing the exact currency needed to complete the transaction.\n"If the price is fixed, you have to pay it," Wilcox said. "To do otherwise is absolutely against the rules. You have to pay what the price is"