A restaurant in Italy has sparked fury after charging diners a whopping £50 to cut their birthday cake.
A family went to the restaurant in the southern part of Arezzo to celebrate their mother’s birthday after asking in advance if they could bring a cake from the bakery.
However, after enjoying a leisurely meal on Thursday, the €659 bill included a €58 charge for cutting the cake and bringing it to the table.
The cost was even more expensive than the birthday cake, which cost 45 euros, with each of the 13 guests spending 4.50 euros. Corriere Florentino report.
This comes after it was revealed that diners in London were being charged for the “privilege of paying their bill” on top of a 13.5% service charge.
A look at the €58 fee charged by a restaurant in Italy for cutting a cake for a family birthday
The price of the cake turned out to be more expensive than the cake itself (stock image)
Setting off a storm on social media, the mother’s daughter told the story in a post on a Facebook group in Arezzo.
She claimed the restaurant said it was their establishment’s rule and they were required to pay for it.
The restaurant owner told the Italian outlet: ‘We don’t charge an entrance fee and we serve mainly dishes from our own production, so we try to discourage those who bring things from outside.
‘If we take into account that in Arezzo the average entrance price is 2.5 euros per person, there is not that big a difference.
‘My restaurant has to pay the waiter who serves the table, the dishwasher and other related services. We have to recover them somehow.’
However, the owner admitted: ‘I wasn’t there that night and my staff were perhaps too fussy in handling the situation that had arisen, perhaps reducing the usual price a little or even not charging for the cake at all.
‘It’s better to have 50 euros less and have people go home happy than this misunderstanding that would hurt everyone.’
Last August, another restaurant in Italy surprised its customers by charging them €20 to cut a birthday cake.
The family had brought the cake for a celebration in Palermo, Sicily.
But party-goers were left stunned when they discovered they had been charged €20 (£17.26) to cut it into pieces.
