It’s a slow Monday night in bars. The one I visited had a promotion labelled “Half Price On All Bottles Of Wine.” Wow. I asked for the wine menu. It included some whites, some reds, some regional specialties, and some sparkling wines. Less than wow, as it turns out the base prices are generally very aggressive for this less-than-primetime cafe. But some have an okay, maybe two-times-retail, list price.
I ordered a sparkling wine for our dinner. A lower end, but IME quite okay, Champagne, list price $75, hence, $37.50 (you won’t get a real French Champagne for much less than that at retail, F.Y.I. – $27 would probably be the lower limit).
And it was good.
And I received a check for $75 for the wine.
And I inquired.
“Sir, of course the half price wine offer does not cover Champagne, that’s not wine.”
[INSERT HUERTA EXPOSITION ON WHETHER CHAMPAGNE IS WINE – THEME: YES]
Spoke to the manager, who seemed truly without authority, so I went easy on her and of course the barmaid.
I can deny the charge on the credit card. And may do so.
Champagne is wine. It’s a sparkling wine. Ask them if they’d serve it to a minor. If they insist it isn’t then refer them to Trading Standards. Or perhaps you could write to the Court asking that their liquor license be revoked because if they don’t know what is a wine, perhaps they shouldn’t be serving alcohol at all?
The coward’s/lazy man’s way out, and hence mine, is to take it up with the credit card company. Which sucks for the restaurant, as the credit card people are fairly heavy handed and will likely just void the entire check if I ask them to intervene (I have a fairly heavy annual spend with them for business). I am mostly astonished that the manager was as aggressive as she was in this climate. Other, much better, restaurants I’ve been to lately have seemed much more cognizant of the need to be customer-friendly in these diminished times. In recent months, I’ve been comped everything from a glass or two of sherry to an entire bottle of wine, on decent-sized dinner checks.
Unless there was a specific exception noted on the menu or the advert, screw 'em. Let the credit card company hammer them, then call the owner and bitch. Then call Beverage Control and bitch some more.