Corking Fee Fiasco
Myself, and a group of 8 others had made reservations to go to Bella Notte in Whitby for my lovely girlfriend's father's birthday party. Traditional Italian family with a flare for food, reservations had been made and we had shown up on time and seated promptly. After hearing their specials from one of the waiters the owner came out to question us about a bottle of wine my girlfriend's brother had bought for the occasion. The owner informed us the corking fee for this bottle of wine was $35 CAD which we said we were fine with. Dinner was had, and although there was a few problems (calamari was very undercooked and rubbery, other elements of dinner were not al dente or soggy) we didn't really complain and continued on. As the rather large bill for 9 guests came to the table, the brother (whom was paying for the meal) noticed the owner had silently increased the corking fee to $50 CAD. We decided to question him about this, which began this restaurants downfall. The owner quickly danced around the question of the increase in price and decided to take us on a business lesson of his margins, and how if we had purchased this "rather generic" bottle of wine at his restaurant he would've made more money - and thus, should punish us for bringing it by increasing the corking fee, even though he had simply stated earlier it was $35 as he picked the bottle up. The owner began to tell us the bottle was larger than he expected, and this was the reason for the increase. I can assume the owner who had quite a good wine selection on the other side of the restaurant had seen a bottle of this size before, and upon grabbing it could tell it was larger and thus inform us of the increase, but he decided to sneak it onto our bill. After a few exchanges, excuses, and rude comments in regards to giving us a measly $15 refund, he came back with a $15 gift card and threw it on the table. At this point, he might as well have given us a blank piece of paper as we weren't coming back to this restaurant ever. As a small business owner myself, there's a larger lesson here - if you make a mistake and tell a customer something, suck it up and make it right. $15 is nothing in this transaction where he probably had made hundreds of dollars in profit on us that night, and to satisfy a customer (and have a repeat visit), as well as accept you made a mistake it would've been no problem for him. We had left upset, and angry at the fact the owner would not accept he made a mistake, and charged us for it. I would seriously consider not visiting Bella Notte any time soon if you are interested in going. If the owner is not willing to bend a bit for customer satisfaction, it shows a much larger problem trickling down from top, to your plate.