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The Post set their fine-print gumshoes loose on the city’s restaurant menus and uncovered numerous crimes against the dining public, like restaurants charging for normally free items like bread, butter, and tap water. Times dining critic Frank Bruni thinks that charging extra for nice bread and butter is perfectly acceptable, but for the most part, everyone’s like holy crap, this is totally outrageous. Apparently there’s “A 20 percent mandatory tip on all checks at the Little Italy tourist spot Grotta Azzurra,” and bobo in Greenwich Village charges $1 per-person for filtered tap water.
That restaurant’s menu clearly states that the water charge funds an initiative that helps build wells in Ethiopia, teaches public school kids about sustainable agriculture, and supplies shoes for its floor staff. The shoe company’s website will tell you that for every pair of shoes bought, they’ll supply a free pair to a child in a third world country; your waiter, on the other hand, might neglect to mention this fact when faced with describing the finer points of that evening’s free range chicken special.
And so it’s come to pass that bobo’s owner Carlos Suarez has taken steps to defend his restaurant’s “collective consciousness” program called coco (both bobo and coco are portmanteau words, but maybe also clown names). Instead of the water charge being a mere case of “recession-hit restaurants […] helping themselves to your wallet by serving you an extra side of super sneaky charges,” as the Post puts it, Suarez explains it’s no recession-coping tactic, it’s been there since bobo opened in 2007, and is clearly marked on the menu. Regarding the charge, a bobo manager was quoted in the Post as saying, "If anyone doesn't want to pay it, we take it off the bill."
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I seriously hate restaurants that nickle and dime you.
"If anyone doesn't want to pay it, we take it off the bill."
And put it on the Bob.
Mountain out of a molehill.
a fucking guilt trip for a glass of god damn water...
Restaurants soon will have a charge for a "sit down" at a table.
That seems fair.
That's a weird logo. It's like Tom Goes to the Anthropologie.
There's no way to explain away a mandatory charge on your bill by saying it's for charity. Restauranteurs that don't understand that 'choice' is the very foundation of their existence deserve to go under. We choose where to dine, we choose what to eat, and we choose how we tip. And we choose to avoid jerks that tack unwanted or uneeded crap on their bills.
But avoiding a restaurant because of cost means you acknowledge your dirt poor and you cant do that or else you will be shamed forever by your peers.
That's the kind of mindset they like. Rich or poor, who likes to be taken for a sucker by greedy jerks?
What about chips and salsa? More and more mexican restaurants have stopped providing free chips and salsa and only offer them for a fee.
So if they claim the extra charges are for charity, insist on a charitable donation receipt.
This goes both ways.....there are also the jerks who come into a restaurant, order tap water (w/ lemon), ask for bread and butter twice, and then when 'we're ready to order...', order an appetizer, take up a table, leave the waiter zip and leave saying they hated the place because of bad service.
If you cant afford to go to one restaurant, go to one you CAN afford and have a good meal w/out cheaping out just so you can say youve 'eaten there' . In NYC there are thousands of restaurants.
Restaurants that pull this BS are their own worst enemies. It's bad enough that people are having a hard time and many cannot afford to go out to dinner, but to nickel and dime the customers that can go out is suicide. They'll eventually get what they deserve.