It’s natural to expect that when you’re out spending your hard-earned money on a nice meal you’ll at least get an experience free of manipulation. Usually, you do, but some restaurants — and some servers — aren’t above pulling a dirty trick or two. Sometimes these are obvious, like when your waiter swears up and down that the fish special on Monday is totally not leftover halibut from Friday. However, sometimes they’re a bit more subtle. Here are some the ways restaurants can pull a fast one on you.
BILL SWAPPING
Known as “double dropping,” this one doesn’t hurt you, it hurts the restaurant. Basically, your server doesn’t enter your order into the system; they just send it to the kitchen. Then they hand you someone else’s bill — that’s already been paid — at the end of the meal. If you're not paying attention, you pay it and the server keeps the whole bill plus tip. As long as the amounts match up, you might not have anything to complain about as the customer, but it’s still kind of shady, and it relies on you not noticing what’s happening.
STORE-BOUGHT DESSERTS
The dessert looks and tastes delicious, and your server was happy to inform you that it’s homemade or made in-house. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases it might not be. Restaurants have been known to buy store-bought or frozen desserts and pass them off as their own, sometimes with a few superficial adjustments. On the one hand, if you enjoy it, what’s the harm? On the other hand, you’re paying a premium for something because you think it’s specially made by an expert and passionate chef.
SMALLER PLATES
Shrinkflation is real, and it happens in restaurants, too. Shrinking down portion sizes to cut costs is a fairly common practice, but restaurants know that regulars might notice if their meals suddenly become smaller, and even casual diners might blink if their plates show a lot of white space when their meal arrives. So, they play a subtle trick: They use slightly smaller plates. It’s likely you'll never notice whether your plates are 11 inches or 12 inches, but the smaller plate will make a smaller portion look larger.
SERVERS CLAIMING THEY'RE ROOKIES
If your dining experience is sub-par and your harried server apologizes and tells you that it’s their first week and the place is short-staffed so no one is training them, you might soften a bit and not get so angry. Servers know this, so it’s not unheard of for them to perpetually claim to be brand new, even if they’ve worked there for years, hoping that you’ll overlook problems and tip them decently even if everything arrived cold.
EXTRA GRATUITIES
Unscrupulous servers have a few tricks to supersize their tips. When large parties come in — especially office or corporate crowds likely paying using company credit cards or expense accounts — the restaurant might apply an “autograt” or automatic gratuity to the party. That means that any extra tip is at the diners’ discretion — the server’s already been tipped. If the table orders a lot of wine and there are a lot of people and chaos, the server might ask for — or simply apply — an additional gratuity, figuring it won’t be noticed.
