There are several Thai restaurants in my area that all have pretty close to identical lunch menus. You get an entree with rice and a spring roll for 6.95. It used to be a great deal until they started getting really chintzy with the meat. Several years ago one of these such restaurants started adding a 2.75 charge for “extra meat”. This would be acceptable if “extra meat” didn’t actually translate to the amount of meat they used to use, which was hardly excessive to begin with. As it stands, they can go fuck themselves and the elephants they rode in on.
Didn’t a lot of fast food places go through a phase awhile back where they limited the number of packets they would give BUT ALSO wouldn’t even sell you more?
That drove me crazy. I don’t mind you charging a reasonable amount for the extra stuff. But I can’t get it no matter what?! :mad:
In particular IIRC Wendy’s was doing that with their sour cream packets with their taco salad. One small packet wasn’t cutting it for me.
My guess is that they included grits with the special because they got a good deal on grits this week. So the restaurant’s cost for a side order of grits is fifty cents while their cost for a side order of hash browns is a dollar. By substituting two items which appear to be equal, you’re costing the restaurant money and they charge you a substitution fee to reflect that.
We’re still getting free extra sour creams at Wendy’s here. (Ottawa)
I think that was roquefort dressing. Blue cheese dressing eventually replaced roquefort in most restaurants, because it tastes nearly the same but isn’t as expensive. No restaurant I’ve worked in has ever charged extra for blue cheese.
I do remember an anecdote I read in Reader’s Digest years and years ago, about a couple attending a $1000/plate fundraiser dinner. In fine print at the bottom of the menu, was “Roquefort dressing 25 cents extra”.
McDonald’s did this to my ex all the time. “A cheeseburger with only lettuce and onions.” And she would get a hamburger with lettuce and onions. In fact, once she ordered the “cheeseburger with only lettuce and onions” and got a cheese, lettuce, and onion burger with no meat!
We learned to specify “a cheeseburger with lettuce, onions and cheese.” That seemed to work.
From the context, I think that WhyNot’s “Special #1” is a regular menu item sold as a special combo. It sounds like you’re reading it as “This Week’s Special,” but I don’t think that was the intent. Also, you got it backwards: the combo included a side of hash browns, and WhyNot asked for a side of grits instead. If the sides were purchased by themselves instead as part of a combo meal, they would have been the same price.
Nugget sauce? Never heard of it, but it sounds like evidence from a sex crime.
Lenny Briscoe from SVU: I might be wrong but I don’t think that’s extra mayo over there on the wall…
There’s a fast food place out here that, when you order a combo, they always say “Do you want medium or large?” as if those are the only two options. But the posted price on the menu board refers to small size, which is never offered by the cashier.
They don’t say “Do you want a medium combo for $.50 more?” They don’t say, “Do you want to supersize your combo?” It is not exactly lying but it’s definitely a little misleading.
Yes.
Fucking Burger King, again. They do this, and it makes me crazy.
I don’t go to Burger King very often. The last time was probably more than five years ago and if I went this week, I would expect the next time to be many more years in the future. At my rate of consumption and given the amount of menu changes at Burger King, how long should it take me to memorize the vagaries of the menu? I’m going with never; at my rate of experience, I will never learn the menu to your satisfaction. So I would go by what’s on the fucking picture. If the sandwich I got differed from what was on the picture or if it cost me more than what was on the menu, I’d say your restaurant screwed up.
You must be so proud of having mastered all that is expected of the highly-trained workforce at Burger King. Given the high esteem in which the public generally holds fast food workers, I’m sure your customers felt that earning your approval was critical to their emotional well-being. They must crawl out of the restaurant dejected when they catch the drift that that you don’t think highly of people who expected their sandwich to at least contain the same components as used in the picture to promote it.
I’m still bitter about places that charge an extra 25 cents for a slice of tomato and some lettuce on a roast beef sub. To me, there’s a class of condiments that just seem like basic parts of a sandwich rather than extras, and mayo, ketchup, mustard, lettuce, and tomatoes are all in that class. This actually plays a part in my lunch selection decision: “Well, I could go to sub shop X, but they charge me for tomatoes. So screw 'em, I’ll walk to Subway.” So sub shop X makes .25 extra when I show up, but I don’t show up very often.
As someone who occasionally (like once a month) gets a craving for a Whopper from Burger King, I think JohnGalt is missing out on how to do it.
Scenario #1 - You want a Whopper with cheese. You say “I’d like a Whopper with cheese please”
Scenario #2 - You want a Whooper without cheese. You say "I’d like a Whopper (and here is the tricky part)* with NO CHEESE" *You have to emphasize and enunciate that last part to head off their Pavlovian response of “Would you like cheese with that?”
Now my typical BK Whopper order is "I’d like a Whopper, no cheese, no mayo, heavy everything else, please" Which means extra lettuce, onions, pickles, ketchup, tomatoes, and mustard, but no mayo, and no nasty-ass cheese And you know what? I don’t think I get charged extra for that. I think it’s because of the “please” I throw in there somewhere.
Best username - post combination so far.
I agree that a friendly “please” always gets better results, but I maintain that if the product normally comes with cheese (or not) you should not have to specify “with cheese” (or not). And I still think it’s weasely to advertise the product with extras on it. Yes, I understand why they do it (that’s why I know it’s weasley).
My teenaged daughter works at a fast food restaurant. Believe it or not she’s an actual human being with emotions and everything.
People can be assholes to workers who they feel are beneath them. Don’t be one of those people.
John Galt makes his own damn cheeseburgers, thank-you-very-much. And no one else in the world makes one better.
At least the OP didn’t order a cheeseburger, hold the cheese… BETWEEN YOUR LEGS!!!
I don’t think that people who work in fast food restaurants are beneath me. I am not one of the people who looks down on fast food workers. I don’t criticize anyone doing their best in an honest job. I hope your daughter enjoys her experience and benefits from it.
I was responding to Flyer’s comment suggesting that the real problem is customers who are expected to “figure out…quickly” things that are never explained to them and which are inconsistent with what is evident on the menus and signs in front of them, and then aren’t “thought highly” of by the staff.
Thanks. Apologies for thinking otherwise.