Photo: Lesterman (Shutterstock)
Running a restaurant requires a lot of hard work—hard work that’s only gotten harder in recent years with rising labor costs, supply chain difficulties, and the impact of a little thing known as the global pandemic, aka the Era of Staying Home and Learning How to Make Your Own Bread and Fancy Meals. And all of this is in service of one of the lowest profit margins in business, which sits at about 6% in a good year.
It’s little wonder that restaurants resort to some trickery in order to goose up those margins as much as possible. The patron’s enjoyment of their experience is paramount, so most restaurants work hard to keep their tricks hidden and subliminal, but that doesn’t mean those tricks aren’t effective. You might think it’s impossible to bamboozle you into spending more than you need to when you go out on date night, but you are wrong: You have been bamboozled, and you will continue to be bamboozled.
Don’t believe it? Go through this list of all the ways restaurants try to incept you into spending more and we bet you spot at least one you’ve fallen for.
