16 People Who Went Out to Eat and Totally Broke the Bank

It’s not surprising that delicious food, good service, and the pleasant atmosphere that we experience at restaurants cost money. But we still want to control our expenses and not leave them realizing that we’ve just spent a fortune.

We at Bright Side decided to look closer at the times when a restaurant visit turned out to be way more expensive than people expected.

• I was at a cafe, I ordered a Caesar salad and a coffee. The waitress asked me about the details and brought me my order and my bill. It turned out that I had to pay extra for the chicken and the sauce on the salad, and the sugar for the coffee. Also, the bill said that tips were necessary. I was shocked that the waitress didn’t warn me about this beforehand (the bill turned out to be twice what I expected), I left one cent as a tip. © Veronika Freud / AdMe.ru

• I had this happen recently when we went out with my wife’s work friends. We had meals delivered to the lounge. My wife and I had a separate check, so we paid and left early. The next day I was looking at my online banking statement and they had added $340 extra dollars to my tab. I called the bank and they said to take it up with the restaurant. So I called the restaurant and they said that the party we were with left without paying, so they put it all on my card... © Justin Dales / Quora

• Last year, I was abroad for a business trip. My friend took me to a “luxury” restaurant near a waterfall. The food was great, I’ll give them that. But it turned out that the menu prices were for 100 grams. I live in Israel and I’ve been to many places, but I’ve never seen anything like this. So, the price was written for 100 grams, but the portion was 300 grams. The same for ice cream, juice, and so on. So. I ended up paying 5 times more than I expected. © Alexandra Klein / Facebook

• Once, I had to pay €450 for a meal in a small shack-like eatery (note I did not say restaurant) in Brussels. Our finance team from London came over one week and I finally had people to go out with, as most of my Belgian colleagues had families and lives of their own, so I used to spend a lot of my time alone in the evenings. We ordered several things off the menu and on our charming waiters’ suggestion, a special seafood platter, which had every type of seafood on a platter and about a bit larger than the largest pizza you can buy out there today. We enjoyed our meal and when we asked for the bill, we got the shock of our lives when we saw the total was €450! Upon asking, we were told that the seafood platter was the bulk of it — we immediately saw that we were scammed, as it was not on the menu and we never asked for its price, given that it was a special item and would be priced along the same lines. Anyway, arguing got us nowhere and we had to pay, but we learned our lesson. © Tushar Walhekar / Quora

• This happened to one of my best friends. He was at a rehearsal dinner for a close business partner (the bride) and was sitting at the head table. Being the good guy he is and having forgotten to buy the couple a wedding gift, he slipped the waiter his credit card and very smoothly told him “I’m taking care of this one,” under the impression that he was covering the head table. After the dinner was over, the bride’s parents and nearly everyone in the dining hall erupts into a wave of joy, I mean even the mother of the bride starts CRYING. He’s like “Wow, all this over one dinner check!” Turns out the waiter thought he was covering dinner for the ENTIRE HALL — a little over $5,000. He really took a hit, but he couldn’t bear having to go back on it. Fortunately, he could (just barely) afford it. To this day the bride and her family still don’t know. © Jastoomuch0 / Reddit

• I had been saving for a school reunion party for 6 months. I bought really expensive shoes and a bag. We met at a cafe, and at the end of the night when we got the bill, I said, “It’s ok, I’ve got it.” I paid almost $1,000 even though it was really way more than I can afford. But you should have seen their faces. I don’t regret it. © “Podslushano” / Vk

• About 15 years ago I met up with some friends in Oxford. I’d never been to Oxford before so I was relying on my friends to pick the lunch venue. So we go into Randolph Hotel and order lunch. It was the tiniest piece of beef, with a minuscule amount of potato, and a twig of broccoli. I needed a magnifying glass to see it, though I admit it was delicious. The pudding was a teeny tiny piece of some chocolate confection. Again delicious but small. We each paid for our own meal and I nearly fell over when it came to over £50. I later found out that the Randolph Hotel is one of the poshest (and most expensive) places in Oxford and regularly featured in the famous Inspector Morse TV series. A really grand Grand Hotel. © sheri_martinez875 / Reddit

• I once paid $123 for a salad in New York City. The salad itself was 8 bucks but the parking ticket I got while the servers took so long to get me my salad was $115. © Suprinjr Supdujour / Quora

• It was my birthday, and I thought that I deserved to do something spectacular because I haven’t had a decent break between work and school. So, I reserved a table for my folks and I at a (what seemed to me) relatively high-end restaurant. Prior to my booking, I made sure that I could afford the average price of a meal there. I was willing to splurge a little, so according to my calculations, I was willing to spend around $75 per person. My parents ordered a steak and a pasta, and I was also craving a steak, but since I had never been to the restaurant, I asked for the waiter’s recommendation when it came to their choices of steaks. Once he gave me the lowdown of what he suggested, my parents reminded him that it was my birthday. As soon as he found that out, he told me that there was an off-the-menu listing of steaks from different countries that were just shipped a couple of days ago. I ordered one of them. 12 ounces. Its juices were seeping out from all corners. The aroma was so pleasant that the surrounding tables were peeking in. It was so tender that when I put almost no pressure on both my fork and knife, it sliced with ease. The bill comes, and I paid nearly $20 per ounce for it. I was setback $350 that night. There’s a saying that says, “If the menu doesn’t list their prices, then the items are probably too expensive.” © Leancon Matudan / Quora
• My best friend at the time, along with a group of our friends, kept telling us how his aunt’s restaurant was the best. How she served the best seafood and how he’d reserved the place for us for the following night. “She’ll take care of us,” he told everyone. We get there, the meal is laid out for us, and everyone digs in. The food was... OK. It was just so-so, nothing to write home about or anything. Right as we all finish, she hands us each individual checks for $150 for the meal. He promised it would be free and, well, this is what happened. © ev6464 / Reddit

• This happened just a couple of weeks ago. A new Asian buffet and grill had just opened and I wanted to try it, so my son and I went there for dinner one evening. I didn’t notice the prices listed anywhere when we walked in, but I wasn’t concerned. I mean, realistically, how much can a buffet be? I figured about $15, maybe $20 at the absolute most. They had bowls of every kind of Asian food imaginable, including sushi and a few things I didn’t recognize. When I worked my way around to the tray containing whole lobsters, I thought, “Uh-oh. This place ain’t gonna be 15 bucks apiece.” The tab was over $80 for the 2 of us, which included a 15% discount since it was their grand opening. It wasn’t a break-the-bank type of thing, but it did get my attention. I realized that I should maybe inquire about prices before cluelessly waltzing into an establishment and partaking. © Susan C. Weber / Quora

• My grandma was walking with my uncle (I don’t even remember where it happened) and they wanted to drink some coffee. They stopped at a restaurant, ordered some coffee, and they heard that there was some music playing. When they got the bill, it was $100. They were shocked. They asked, “Why so much?” And the waiter said, “You also listened to live music!” © ryzhaka / livejournal
• We went to a cafe to drink some tea. The menu had tea for $10 and tea with candy for $15. So, we ordered the one with candy. The waiter brought the tea and 4 tiny caramels. We were shocked and the waiter said, “You didn’t expect a pound of candy, did you?” © Kseniyaengineer / Pikabu

• While vacationing in Italy, my family and I found a great cafe in Rome while we were on the way to the train station. We stopped in for a quick lunch. We ordered a lobster salad to share and a fish to share. The waiter then brought us some complimentary champagne. Well, it turns out that we didn’t read the price of the fish correctly. We thought the price was per kg, but it was really per 100 grams! There is a huge difference. The meal ended up costing €450 for a family of 4. No wonder they brought us a complimentary bottle of champagne. However, it was one of the best meals I have ever had. © Lauren Blum / Quora

• My husband and I, and 2 other couples went to a popular restaurant that is famous for its seafood plates. We placed an order. So, the waitress brought 2 giant plates and put them right in front of my husband and me. We were amazed by the size but, well... While we were eating our food, the other guys were waiting, and waiting, and waiting. We called the waitress and she said she had served the entire order — they just ran out of clean plates and she didn’t even tell us. So we paid 3 times more than we expected.

• Typically the tab for 3 people is around $50. However on this one lovely Sunday in Vancouver, my friends and I decided to order the Live King Crab with garlic and XO sauce. Why not splurge when you’re traveling right? Also, it was my turn to pick up the tab and I was in such a great mood that I didn’t even bother to check how much it would be. After 25 minutes of devouring every sweet piece of the crab meat, we were ready to get the bill. I was thinking ok, 60 bucks for the crab at most. After all, it was just one crab. Nope, when the waitress handed me the bill, it was for $450. I thought it was a mistake, but I tried to hold it in and check the bill thoroughly. Yup, the crab alone was about 400. I paid the bill and was quiet the whole day. The lesson here: eat the frozen king crab you buy at the store. Don’t try to be fancy and get the live king crab at a restaurant unless you have a lot of money to spare. Fortunately, the crab was the best I’ve ever eaten and I still remember it after all these years. © John Lomo / Quora

Has it ever happened to you that food at a restaurant or a cafe was way more expensive than you expected? What happened?