Resturant rip-offs

[Bobberqer]

I'll try to avoid the buzzsaw here for the most part....

1) you didnt get charged for ice, you got charged extra because a neat drink has more booze in the glass than a drink with ice,, been a topic of conversation in my city for the last couple of weeks

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04222009/ne ... 165615.htm

2) Most restaurants are barely hanging on these days, with many well known places just going out of business.. one can argue that they deserve to go out of business, in that the excess money that was floating around for the last few years just isnt there, so their business model got blown out of the water without the free spending people around to support them... surely gone are the Wall St. $75 hamburgers, and $150 steak dinners at places like the Kobe Club in NYC...Delmonico's, one of the oldest restaurants in NYC used to average over 200 lunches a day , now only serves between 40-60 lunches a day.. Venerable institutions like the 21 Cluyb in NYC has even relaxed their " Men must wear a coat and tie to get in" policy...


3) Fixed costs don't go down, rent, electric, gas, water, manditory municipal insepctions such as fire inspections, building inspections, ansel systems etc, taxes, taxes, and more taxes are all going up ....you'd call me a liar if I told you how much an ansel system inspection costs in NYC..

4) single establishment restaurants do not have the buying power to strong arm vendors into lowering their prices, so, in order to even keep up, they reduce portion size, hopefully not pissing off the customers too much...it is only of late that wholesale food costs are starting to go down...

5) 2 kids eating free, probably worth $15 on a menu other than McDonalds
3 beers, $15
salmon dinner $15-$17
appy $10
iced tea $2
and a Creme Brulee ,probably $5-$6

probably a $60 value, plus you got to get out of the house, and spend time with the family in a nice place, nice atmosphere, and at Mcormicks and Schmick, a well known, quality, restaurant

Moral of the story.... know going out that it's gunna cost ya, so what I do when i get edgey with money, or think a place is a rip off.. I stay home

Well put;.....I see your point and the establishment's point.
What I have trouble with is being made to fell like a fool. Listing ice for $2 and the big one of slow service in hopes of ordering more rounds of drinks, and the killer of having parties sit in the bar area waiting for a table for 45 minutes past res.-time while a 1/3 of the tables open.
That kills any chance of return business.
By the way, what are you doing these days....it's been a while since I heard who's kitchen you are terrorizing.

if it were me, I'd walk out of the restaurant if i saw empty tables, and was left in the bar..ask for the owner, not the dipwad manager, tell him why you are leaving, then ask when the auction will be for his used restaurant equipment is.. It's a whole new ballgame these days... "hip" "in" "desirable " restaurants do not have the hoards of lemmings waiting to be abused by a restaurant staff anymore.. keeping in mind there are always variables that might cause delays in restaurants, I've walked out from more than a few of em, but that has always been my Modus Operendi..whooda thunk :?

 

[bigwheel]

Well we had a real odd deal on the Warden's last birthday. The oldest female of the chillins had made us some reservations at a "Dueling Piano Bar." Not sure if its a universal concept but sorta dueling banjos without Ned Beatty squealing like a hawg. Anyway when we got there the place was about empty so we decided to set up next to the stage. We were prompty informed that since we had reservations we couldn't do that. The area near the stage was reserved for folks without reservations on a first come first serve basis. I had never heard of anything quite that silly. Got me purty riled up. Aint been back of course. I didn't really want to go to start with but done it to humor the crowd. Cost 10 bucks just to park the car. Whut a bunch of jerks huh?

bigwheel