At McDonalds today, I upsized a drink and was charged 9¢ for it. I thought that was a good deal. I also ordered extra pickles and extra onions on my burger. I’ve done this for years. Today, I noticed on my receipt that extra pickles were 10¢ and extra onions (the rehydrated kind) were 20¢. This seemed odd to me since it’s never happened before. This 30¢ is not going to break me but I probably won’t order the extras anymore.
When do you expect to get “extra” at no additional charge? I’d guess that if I had ordered extra mustard or ketchup, there wouldn’t have been an additional charge. IMHO vegetables on a burger seems out of the ordinary as well.
As a side note, they didn’t discount my burger because I ordered it without cheese.
I always expect to pay something for extras. They cost the kitchen extra, after all. I’m pleasantly surprised when I’m not charged, but I expect to be.
I’m a bit disgruntled when I’m charged for *substitutions *of equal priced items. If the side order of grits is $2.95, and the side order of hash browns is $2.95, I’ll be a bit annoyed if I order a Special #1 with grits instead of hash browns and I get charged extra. But it happens enough that I still sort of expect it, I’m just not happy about it.
I would only expect a charge on higher value items like meat, cheese and bun. Condiments and produce are practically no cost (per portion size).
This at fast food places. A sit down place would vary depending on the dish.
I hate it when they ask “do you want cheese on that?” for example on a Burger King Whopper Jr. The picture on the menu board shows it has cheese, but I figure some people don’t like cheese so they ask in case you want to leave it off.
So I say “yes” and the total cost is 50 cents higher than the menu board. The cashier says “it’s fifty cents for cheese”, so why don’t they say that when they ask if you want cheese (or put it on the menu board)? I didn’t want to make a fuss but I think it’s devious.
A CHEESEBURGER comes with cheese. Very, very, very, very few other sandwiches do. A customer is expected to figure that out pretty quickly.
Incidentally, it’s standard practice in the restaurant industry to charge extra for cheese. That’s another thing that most people can figure out on their own. If you’re over the age of 15 you should already know that.
I used to work at Burger King. Let me tell you–we didn’t think very highly of people like you. Some things are so obvious that they really shouldn’t take long at all to figure out.
I’m rarely troubled by this because INMO, most places don’t charge for the things I want. There is a Chinese food place near me that has a pretty nice spicy garlic pork and I always order it with extra ginger, they charge my a buck for that extra bit. That seems a little excessive to me but it’s really good so I muddle through.
At the McDonald’s I used to work at, the owner started charging a dime each if a customer wanted extra cups of nugget sauce. That was not a popular policy I can tell you.
Some years back, we went out to dinner with some friends at a nicer, tho not fancy-schmancy, restaurant. At the time, most places would refill your soft drinks without extra charge, but not this place. About halfway thru the meal, the server came and refilled our water glasses, and mistakenly poured water into half a glass of Sprite. When our friend protested, the server looked truly perplexed, then asked “Do you want another Sprite?” We made sure to check the bill to ensure we weren’t charged for the “refill.”
These days, soft drinks seem to run around $2 or a bit more, so “free” refills are the rule rather than the exception. In fact, most places will give you a refill to-go. Considering the mark-up on sodas, I don’t think that’s taking unfair advantage. On the other hand, charging for a second pale slice of tomato on a sandwich seems a bit out of line. I don’t think that condiments and the usual toppings on sandwiches and burgers should be upcharged, unless someone demands half a jar of pickles piled on top. Sides are a different issue in some cases, and I can understand paying more.
I want to giggle when a server says “If you want onion rings instead of fries, it’ll be an extra 50¢ - is that OK?” I have to wonder how many people say “No, I demand that you charge me the same price!!”
all fast food places here it seems now charge extra for sauce packages
at McDonalds they are very specific. you get 3 sauce packets for a 20 piece, one for a 4-pack and you have to pay extra for extra sauces
I don’t know when this started. It certainly wasn’t a thing in the 90s
Wrong answer, IMHO. The Big Mac, McDonalds’ signature burger, has cheese as a standard ingredient, for example.
It is true that neither the Whopper nor the Whopper Jr. comes standard with cheese. And all the Burger King menu boards I’ve ever seen clearly indicate that, as far as I can remember. If the one JohnGalt saw showed cheese in the picture, without somehow clearly indicating something like “this is what a Whopper Jr. with cheese looks like,” I can’t blame him for thinking cheese was a standard ingredient; but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the display was correct and he was misinterpreting it or missing some “fine print.”
To the thread’s main question: the only time I would expect extra anything to be free is if that anything is freely available inside the store. For example, if they have a bin of pickles sitting out next to the straws and napkins, I wouldn’t expect them to charge me extra if I asked for extra pickles in the drive-thru.
Remember back in the day when if you ordered blue cheese salad dressing they’d tell you that it was an extra quarter or so? I used to always pause and thoughtfully consider the ramifications before agreeing.
Whaaaaat? As a person who doesn’t eat cheese, it has been my lifelong experience that when it comes to burgers or any other sandwich for that matter,* with cheese* is by far the default. I practically have to beg them not to put it on my food.
Just a glimpse at McDonald’s online menu shows the majority of their burgers with cheese.
In any event, I’d be surprised if one couldn’t find a burger on the menu that already included cheese, so there should be no reason to have to ask for it and therefore the issue is nonexistent. If extra cheese is requested, then it’s appropriate to charge a little extra (somewhat petty, but expected). Nars’s comment about not being charged less for a cheeseburger with no cheese is technically logical, though of course we all know it doesn’t work that way. How in the world is “a customer expected to figure out” that a sandwich* photographed with cheese on it* doesn’t automatically come with cheese? That’s ridiculous.
If I’m asked if I want cheese on the Whopper Jr, I’d appreciate that its cost be visible on the menu board or the order-taker tell me its cost. I like what Subway does - all of the extras are listed separately so even I can figure out the final cost is when I place my order.
I don’t like when there are strange extra charges. There’s a Dairy Queen locally that’s plastered with hand-written signs of all the extra charges. The most unusual is a milkshake is $3.49 but if you want chocolate, it’s an extra $0.35 - WTF? To me that’s a sign of a failing business or a tightwad of an owner. I feel sorry for the frontline workers who have to explain all the options to exasperated customers like me (meaning: grumpy customers like me).
Many years I just got a craving for a cheeseburger with bacon on it. All those ads had finally worn me down. So I drive down to Wendy’s and order their double bacon cheeseburger with lettuce tomato mustard and onion only. Given it was a Wendy’s burger and a double and lots of bacon it wasn’t exactly on the cheap side.
I get the mile or so back home. Here is a nicely wrapped burger that says in handwriting bacon double cheese burger. Except there is NO bacon or Cheese on it. Somebody took my instructions too literally. I guess I’m lucky I got the meat and buns!
About a decade or so later I go inside Whataburger to order the same sorta thing to go. Again with lettuce, tomato, mustard and onion only. I EVEN tell the first story to lady taking my order. She thought it was funny. That’s crazy! What kinda idiot would do that?
Guess what lady. One of the idiots that you work with apparently.
