That;s a great idea. Now all we have to do is go around the world spreading that advice to anyone who might make the mistake of visiting Venice - especially if they come from a place where gouging tourists is frowned upon instead of defended.
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So you’re argument is that coffee should never be more than the price you’re willing to pay and if it is you’ll drink it anyway and then skip out on part of the check? When you could avoid all of that by simply checking the menu? I always check the price before I buy anything and I know I’m not unique.
Now look, charging what this restaurant charged is absurd and they’re assholes to do it. My point is don’t order blind if you don’t want to get gouged.
Buying something without knowing the price is foolhardy IMHO.
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Saying that the prices are higher outside is quite a bit different than actually listing what those prices are outside - just like you do inside. I guess it’s to difficult to print a menu with another column?
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It’s totally a standard all over Europe. My wife and have been there a few times, drank our coffees at the bar, paid 2.50 and were on our way.
This sounds like the ham sellers in Prague.
Or the truffle scam in New York.
Buyer beware.
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But they do. See the photo @anotherone managed to dig up.
Their googlefu was stronger than mine. I bow my head in shame and defeat. I could only find the interior menu which does indeed have much lower prices.
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I’m missing where that lists the outdoor prices - an espresso there is listed as 1.10
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Your example misses the part where the ‘established price range’ price for a coffee sat outside the biggest tourist attraction where you live is 30 Euros.
It’s not one rogue shop charging more for sitting outside. Most (if not all do). They tell you this.
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The photo I linked is the ‘bar menu’.
@anotherone’s link goes to a tripadvisor review with a photo of the ‘table’ menu. The prices are a bit blurry but there do seem to be a few more digits on the prices.
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As long as they give you a menu with the correct prices - it’s your choice to stay or not. I may or may not think the ambiance is worth the extra cash.
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The photo is hard to see. Here is a link to the photo so you can zoom in if you need to.
Espresso is $15.50 outside and $1.50 at the bar.
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Did J. P. Morgan coin his famous quote while on holiday?
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And I assume that where you live is not St Mark’s Square, so how is this relevant? The prices are listed because most people realize that the most-highly touristed areas will have higher prices, especially if you are sitting in the shade outdoors in one of the most famous squares in the world.
I wouldn’t sit down in such a place myself, because I know the prices are absurd, but I’m not offended by them, nor would I cheat and not pay the full amount of the bill, like you’re suggesting.
Just an FYI, the “baggage porters” at the Gara du Nord train station in Bucharest do not actually work for the facility, and try to charge you $20US or more to cart your luggage 50 feet.
Everybody’s got a scam.
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Treating customers like fools, especially when deception is used, is not my definition of honest or of proper tourism.I get it you are jaded, but cynically defending the unethical simply because it is common, is one of the reasons why the world sucks so much.
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Well that makes it a little better then. Though even so, who bothers to check the price before buying a cup of coffee? One just doesn’t expect it to be that far beyond the pale.
Edit: actually, looking at that photo @anotherone posted where they do indeed have the whole menu clearly laid out on a giant fucking billboard, I’m inclined to side with the restaurant. If you see the whole menu displayed like that, you would normally take a look just to check that they weren’t ripping you off. And then you’d see that they were and go elsewhere.
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This argument relies on the assumption that your average tourist understands the exchange rate. I’m not convinced this is the case. Further, if you only see the outside sign you would not know that the prices inside are 10x less. Finally, if you walked in looking for a seat the menu you see inside isn’t what you pay if you decide to sit outside.
I can’t help but think this place relies on easily duped foreigners paying way too much for way too little.
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s way too much money too, and kind of exploitative. But at the same time…
- If you don’t know the exchange rate and have no idea how much you’re spending you’re a bloody fool.
- If you see the outside sign and realise how massively overpriced it is, you would presumably just leave and so the prices inside being 10% of those outside doesn’t come up.
- I don’t think I’ve ever walked into a strange restaurant, gone past the menu put up outside without looking at it, and only then checked the prices. I check before I go in, and I had presumed (evidently wrongly!) that this was normal behaviour.
I dunno. I agree the prices are a fucking absurd ripoff, but on the other hand I don’t know that it’s quite fair to call it an actual scam. They do display the prices, they claim that they tell people it costs more if they sit outside, and I haven’t seen anyone specifically refuting that, and the inside menu does actually explicitly say “List of prices for consumption at the bar” in big letters at the top.
Edit: I guess I can’t really see much more they could do to avoid these complaints while still charging these prices, and I think actually demanding that they stop charging that much money if it is – as some people have said common for that square – is kind of unreasonable.
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Some people are fools. Does that make it ok to take advantage of them?
If you don’t know the exchange rate or that the prices are 10x higher outside, how would you be able to make the call to leave?
It is normal for some and perhaps not for others. But again, if you don’t understand the exchange rate or even the fair market value of an espresso in Venice, how could you know better?
How exactly is a shop supposed to avoid taking advantage of someone who literally doesn’t know how much their money is worth? It’s not the responsibility of a jeweller to say to you “Now, $1500 is quite a lot of money you know, are you really sure you want that diamond ring?”
Furthermore, the people who are complaining are posting pictures of the bill in Euros and immediately getting horrified – they’re not getting home and checking the conversion and then complaining, these are people who know what a Euro is worth and what price they expect a coffee to be in Euros.
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