20% Surcharge

Greedy restaurant sneaks added charge onto bill for this wild reason: ‘Are you kidding me?’

A customer had some reservations about his bill at a restaurant as they were charged a “quiet time surcharge” on their bill, which was added before the tip — because the restaurant  was empty.

The user shared on Reddit that they decided to check out a local restaurant for the first time, which seemed to be a quiet place to dine.  What seemed like a good thing quickly went south.  “At the end of the meal, I check my bill and there’s an extra 20% pre-tip charge labelled ‘Quiet Time Surcharge,’” they explained.

The diner assumed it was an error and asked the server what it meant. The server apparently looked “sheepish” before explaining.  Apparently, the server said something along the lines of, “management says when it’s not busy, you’re basically getting the place to yourself. It’s kind of like flying private instead of commercial.”  Let that sink in.

“I had to laugh, but also… are you kidding me?” they wrote in their post. “I’m not ‘chartering a restaurant,’ I just wanted dinner.”  “If anything, it’s less service work when the place is empty.”  Many people in the comments agreed that this greedy situation was ridiculous.

“All charges not advertised are illegal and others can be removed,” one person wrote. “I would refuse to pay the bill until it was removed and get a receipt and check the charge online.”

“That’s a new one, typically restaurants offer discounts to get people to come in during the quiet time or certain weekdays. Charging more because the restaurant is empty is just crazy and seems illegal. If you weren’t warned ahead of time I have no idea how this would be legal,” another said.

Unfortunately, this diner was not the first one to get hit with a bizarre added fee.  While on vacation in  Spain, a man was charged $3 for an extra glass of ice.  Another diner posted a receipt from a restaurant that charged its guests a mandatory “living wage fee.”

Meanwhile, in France, a restaurateur was ripped online for announcing a new fine on dining parties whose number of members didn’t match their original booking.

While most restaurant surcharges are for specific reasons, it seems that the restaurant this man ate at was trying to compensate for the fact that they aren’t getting a lot of business. For that reason, something like a “quiet time surcharge” seems a bit unnecessary and might be doing the opposite of bringing in new clientele.