A woman has been left stunned after she went out to dinner with friends and discovered she was charged for the bartender to shake her drink.
The woman, who goes by @blondeswhoeat on social media, went out to dinner in Dallas, Texas, and saw a “prep” charge on her bill.
“Normally I don’t look at bills, I’m just like ‘yep, sounds good, here’s my card’ — I know that sound’s ignorant but whatever,” she said.
“We got the bill and in my head I knew we only got $150 worth of food, which, the food was great. So how did we get to $530?”
She shared her bill because she needed some kind of justification or to know whether it was normal as she’d never heard of it before.
She and her friend had purchased four skinny, spicy margaritas which were $14 plus $3 prep. When she asked what prep was, the server told her it was the “shaking of the margarita”.
In reality, it made the drinks $17 and the woman said that is the price that should be on the menu.
Another drink, which had a price tag of $32, had a prep price of $13.
“Thirteen dollars to shake the margarita,” she asked, before revealing another woman got three cocktails that had a $15 prep charge.
The prep charge also changed with how much alcohol was put in the drink – for instance, ordering a double shot.
All up, there was $80 in additional prep charges on all of the drinks.
“All this to say, what the F? This place charges to shake your margarita. And he was like they charge the prep per the tequila of your choice,” the woman said.
Social media users were equally shocked at the woman’s experience.
“Lifelong bartender here and bar OWNER – this is insane. Unacceptable they weren’t upfront. Hidden fees for drinks is insane,” one said.
One added: “I would 100 per cent dispute those charges. Those up charges sound illegal if they are not in writing on the menu.”
“Charging prep is crazy, but tell me why it fluctuates based on the quality of tequila? Are they shaking it differently?? What’s a $3 shake vs. a $20 shake? At least do it table side,” another said.
