You go to a restaurant, and all the food prices on the menu are neatly spelled out. When your server takes your order he/she may even go so far to tell you that guacamole and sour cream is an extra $1.
However, that same restaurant will have a drink menu that is totally absent of any prices. Why do they do this, and how can they continually get away with it? I can’t think of any other type of merchant that doesn’t disclose its complete prices until the time the bill appears.
The “why” part I guess I can understand - to sell more drinks. But how did this start, and why isn’t there an outcry from consumer groups? The drink portion of a meal is often a healthy percentage of the entire bill. Sometimes I get the bill and the four drinks our group ordered that I thought were $3.00 a piece actually end up being $7.00 a piece. I know I can always ask the price, but that puts the burden on me, and to be honest, I always feel cheap doing so. Has anyone ever tried to introduce legislation for restaurants to fully publish their prices?
I’ve never seen a separate drink menu that didn’t have prices – when you say drink menu, do you mean a little section on the main menu that says “soda, beer, wine, etc.” or a completely different menu that the waiter hands you?
It used to be more common for ritzier restaurants to have menus without any prices at all … I guess with the idea being “if you need to ask, you shouldn’t be eating here.” I’ve never seen this in the US (so it’s either no longer common or I’m not eating at posh enough places), but I have seen it in Europe. Also in Europe, two different menus, one for the gentlemen with prices, and one for the ladies without prices.
Ultimately though, I think you should just ask. It’s your money.
I guess I’m even talking about family restaurants (Friday’s, Chili’s, etc.) that have a separate menu that lists alcoholic drinks. These are by no means ritzy places. The plastic menu will have full color pictures of some of the drinks, very elaborate descriptions, but no price.
Because they know that price of the food is one of the factors which determines if you will eat at their establishment; but that once you have decided to do so, you have to have something to drink and therefore they can charge whatever they want.
There is enormous profit in drinks, which don’t have to be cooked or prepared in any other way. If you live in an area like Northern California where the tap water comes from the mountains, you can beat this system by ordering a plain glass of ice water.
Deserts are another place where they take you to the cleaners.