Restaurant rip-off, high prices and small portions

4p to make a draught soft drink, just unfiltered tap water, a trickle of colured syrup, a puff of carbon dioxide, scoosh scoosh thats £3.60 please

Give me the chippy or a greasy spoon any day, proper grub.

Absolutely, totally agree. My pet hate is "We need the table back by 9:30" as if we were about to say "Oh and we were just about to erect a tent!" This is before you get the aforementioned micro portions and sullen service. I've pretty much given up on restaurants these days...

There are alot of restaurants out there with small pretentious portions of food that come at a hefty price. If your not prepared to recieve a big fat triple digit number when the waiter brings you the cheque, I suggest you try to stay away from those classy restaurants.
There are some "all you can eat" buffet restaurants that at first thought, you might think would serve cheap , poor quality , bad tasting, badly cooked food ( I agree there are many ) but some restaurants do freshly cooked dishes as you order. Maybe for £15 or so a head, with a few drinks ( which is what they usually profit on ) totalling £20-£30 , you will be walking out rubbing your jolly belly like santa claus.

The other day we went to a restaurant and asked for mineral water, and were served some in a bottle of size 200 ml. For this privilege they wanted £2.50 for the bottle plus its proportion of tip [12.5%].

They can all take a running jump down my bottomless pocket.

It really annoys me when you go to a restaurant, choose a small bottle of lager and they have the nerve to charge 5 pounds 75 just for that. Never mind that by buying it wholesale, they get it for under a pound. I can only assume that the money goes towards the electricity on the fridge that they put the bottles in....mind you, at that rate, we're all paying for the Blackpool Illuminations...

At last,someone who speaks for the nation!Why oh why do we put up with so much crap in this country.It really incenses me how we get ripped off in this country.Cafes & restaurants are a classic example.British food & drink is a joke.I am constantly sick & tired of being ripped off whenever I go out for a meal.Typically the British are too proud to complain as a general rule.This seems to be the stereotypical British attitude.Even the most basic bargain basement cafes on the continent are infinitely superior to any of the best high class restaurants you will ever find here in Britain.And at a fraction of the cost for what you would pay here.This is rip-off Britain.And all too often we are expected to put up with it.
Beware also of some of the con tricks of the trade.Watch out for being served soft drinks that are filled half to three quarters full of ice.This is yet another classic rip-off.This is a cynical attempt to boost their profits by watering down the drinks.
Then theres the Pizza Hut buffet menu.Fetch your own food,plates,& cutlery,ect,& help yourself.Ok,fine.Thats exactly what I paid for.But it defies belief that they had the damn cheek to present the bill with"Service charge not included-Thankyou" underlined in ball point pen then expected a tip for the privelage.It could only happen here in Britain.These are just a few typical examples from my own personal experience.
Its all too easy to fall into the trap of saying nothing.As a result it just leaves you feeling deeply aggrieved & resentful afterwards.Complain at the right time.Don't be ripped off.And NEVER make the mistake of sending food back if you can avoid doing so.These establishments will soon lose buisness.Remember what happened to the Little Chef chain.Complain & complain & then complain again.Vote with your feet.Don't put up with poor food & bad service!Stand up for your rights!

Sorry to 'oldbloke', but you've made a big assumption. Someone else chose the restaurant and I'd never been there before. The trouble is, when you go to somewhere new you have no idea of what you're going to be presented with until it arrives. I guess I could have said "You must be joking..." and sent it back, but the point I was making in the original gripe was that, if you're with a group of friends, no-one makes a fuss because it's bad form, and potentially could ruin the evening. As an aside, now when I go into a restaurant I've never been in before, I ask the waitress: "When you bring me my meal, do I need a knife and fork, or a camera?"

Why gripe. No one forced you to go to this restaurant. It was your choice .. get on with it.

Whatabout the restaurants which automatically add a service charge (normally 10%)! You want money to serve me or a tip for great service? Why should I tip - you get a salary/wage - you knew how much you would be paid before you started the job, why should you get more? No one tips me for doing my job!

I often go into macdonalds but cannot stay in there for long because they play such loud rock music.They do that to keep young people in and old people out. But they are wrong to do that because us olduns do not go into there toilets to sniff that crack cocaine like those young people do nowadays.

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Great article Stavanger9, I totally agree with you!

The quality and value for money that we are presented with in these so called "restaurants" beggars belief!

On average, I would say that out of every ten restaurant meals I have had, eight of them have been inadequate, despite paying roughly £12 to £15 for a main course.

Maybe I have high expectations, but if I visit a restaurant in the UK and pay those kind of prices, I want to enjoy food that I wouldn't or couldn't easily cook at home.

Italian restaurants have been both my best and worst experiences.

The best was a restaurant where I had boar steak served on a bed of garlic mashed potato. It was so good, that even now, ten years later, I still remember the meal. There were small bowls of tasty olives on the table when we arrived, the waiters/waitresses were polite and competent. The music was authentic and just at the right volume, the dishes arrived in order and at the same time for everyone at the table. Fantastic.