Eight Surprising Ways a Restaurant May Mislead You
It’s natural to expect that spending your hard-earned money on a delicious meal will at least provide you with an experience free of manipulation. And that’s usually true: most restaurants just want you to have a great experience, and the vast majority of waiters and staff are dedicated, hard-working, and definitely earn their tips. But some restaurants—and some waiters—are willing to play a dirty trick or two. Sometimes it’s obvious, like when your waiter swears that Monday’s fish special isn’t leftover Friday’s halibut. But sometimes they are a little more subtle.
Exchange of bills
This method, also known as ” double dip “, hurts the restaurant, not you. Essentially, your server doesn’t enter your order into the system; they just send him to the kitchen. Then at the end of the meal you are handed someone else’s bill – which has already been paid. If you don’t pay attention, you pay and the server keeps the entire bill plus tip. As long as the amounts match, you as a buyer may not have anything to complain about, but it’s still iffy and depends on you not noticing what’s going on.
Giving you decaf coffee instead of regular coffee (or vice versa)
It’s not uncommon for restaurants to change your coffee order from decaf to regular or vice versa for several reasons. If it’s late and your waiter doesn’t want to refill your coffee, they might just throw out the leftover decaf and forget to tell you. Or vice versa: they haven’t made decaf coffee, and they don’t feel like making exactly one cup, so they just serve you regular coffee, assuming you don’t know the difference , and assume your sleepless night is your problem. .
Store-bought desserts
The dessert looks and tastes delicious, and your server was happy to tell you it was homemade or made in-house. But that may not be true : Restaurants have been known to buy store-bought items or frozen desserts and pass them off as their own , sometimes with minor superficial adjustments, sometimes not. On the one hand, if you like it, what’s the harm in it? On the other hand, you pay more for something because you think it was specially prepared by an experienced and passionate chef.
Menu development
Sometimes the menus are charming handcrafted items. Sometimes they are slick and professionally designed, which means they are likely using a range of psychological tricks to get you to pay more, order more, and generally behave in the most profitable manner possible. In other words, menu design is a thing, and while it’s not entirely a lie, it’s definitely a little difficult, especially if you end up ordering the best deal on the menu because you were driven by dark patterns .
Smaller plates
Shrinkflation is real , and it happens in restaurants too. Reducing portion sizes to cut costs is a fairly common practice, but restaurants know that regulars may notice if their portions suddenly become smaller, and even casual diners may blink if there is a lot of empty space on their plates when their food arrives. So they resort to a clever trick: using slightly smaller plates . You’ll probably never notice whether your plates are 11 inches or 12 inches, but the smaller the plate, the smaller the part will appear larger.
Tipping Ranges
This is a simple psychological manipulation: when you are presented with a bill (especially on a digital trading device), the tip is pre-calculated for you and displayed prominently, usually showing a small range such as 18%, 20%, and 22%. This is designed to encourage you to tip more than you would otherwise receive, and to gently encourage you to tip in the first place. Navigating through a prompt screen is harder than simply signing your name on a piece of paper and leaving before anyone notices, and having the server stand there smiling at you while you do the calculations just adds psychological pressure.
Servers claim they are newbies
If your meal is unsatisfactory and your frazzled waiter apologizes and tells you it’s their first week and the place is short-staffed so no one is training them, you can relent a little and not be so angry. Servers know this, which is why it’s not uncommon for them to constantly claim that they’re new, even if they’ve been there for years, hoping you’ll ignore the problems and give them a decent tip, even if things turn out cold.
Additional tips
Unscrupulous waiters have several tricks to increase their tips. When large groups come—especially office or corporate crowds who are likely to pay with company credit cards or expense accounts—the restaurant may apply an ” autograt ,” or automatic reward, to the party. This means that any additional tip is at the discretion of the diner – the waiter has already been tipped. But if a table has a lot of wine ordered and there are a lot of people and chaos, the waiter may ask for—or simply apply—an extra reward, thinking it won’t be noticed. If it’s the company’s money, you may not care even if you notice it.
Another trick is to cover up the automatic tip on the bill with a flowery “Thank you!” or another note – without the word “SENTLIES” you can assume the extra number is a tax or some other common fee and then tip on top of the autograt. It’s always a good idea to check your account carefully before putting down your card.