The Michelin Guide story: why a tyre company decides which restaurants get stars
Why the Michelin Guide stopped being free: the workbench story
For twenty years, the Michelin Guide cost nothing. Then one visit to a tyre shop, in a story Michelin still tells, made André Michelin put a price on it. A free guide had taught him a lesson about the way people value things.
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As Michelin tells it, the shop sells Michelin tyres. Tyres hang on its walls, and the tyre seller works at a big workbench in the middle. André walks in.
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Then André sees them. One leg of the workbench is too short, and a pile of red guides sits under it to keep the bench straight. The guides that tell drivers where to go are holding up a table.
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