#also she said her meal was fish and cost R190 and you would never catch me in a restaurant that's that expensive

[kay-claire]

My mom has two friends from work that every month the three of them go out for lunch at a different fancy restaurant in town (honestly love this for my mom, she is not a social person outside of work). Anyway yesterday they went to a REALLY fancy restaurant in Sea Point where just the reservation alone was R400 each - so R1200 deposit for the reservation (that’s $70).

So they all got their incredibly expensive food. And the final bill is like R900 something ($52). So like. Their bill was less than the reservation, right? Which meant the restaurant actually owed THEM money, like almost R300 ($17)

And my mom tells me this and said her friends asked the restaurant to give them back that R300, and she was so embarrassed because she would have just made that part of the tip (which by the way I think the R900 included the tip?), but I was like. Oh ABSOLUTELY NOT. Any restaurant that’s making a reservation deposit be R400 per person is the one that should be embarrassed. Like I understand charging a deposit for a reservation so people won’t just not pitch, but like make it R100 or R200 per person seems like a reasonable number. But R400??

But yeah I think it’s just so funny that my mom went to lunch and by the end of the meal the restaurant owed her money.