Tourist livid after getting charged €2 for cutting sandwich in half

A tourist has been left furious after claiming they were charged €2 for cutting a toasted sandwich in half while on holiday in Italy. While visiting one of Italy’s most upmarket lake destinations, Lake Como, the traveller was baffled when they scanned the receipt and saw an unknown charge.

The customer of the Bar Pace, in Gera Lario, looked at the receipt and found it to be €2 over what they were expecting. Going through each item, the tourist then realised they had been billed for “diviso da meta” or “cutting in half”.

Writing on TripAdvisor, the holidaymaker described it as “incredible but true”^[1] following a holiday in June. They explained: “There were two of us and we asked for a toasted sandwich to share at the table. We have to pay because the toast was cut in half?”

Commenting on the charge, the bar’s owner Cristina Biacchi told Italian newspaper La Repubblica: “Additional requests have a cost… We had to use two plates instead of one and the time to wash them is doubled, and then two placemats. It wasn’t a simple toasted sandwich, there were also French fries inside. It took us time to cut it in two.”

Biacchi said that neither customer who went to go on to write the review on TripAdvisor had complained at the time, with the owner claiming they would have dropped the charge if they had an issue.

It’s not the first time Italian cafés and restaurants have allegedly added charges to bills in tourist heavy areas. In 2018, Venice’s Caffe Lavena near St Mark’s Square was criticised for billing customers €43 for two espresso coffees and two bottles of water.

The café responded by saying the large charges were due to a fee for sitting out on the palazzo. The café then went on to claim coffee “without a view” was available for just €1.25 inside.

References

1. ^{^} TripAdvisor, the holidaymaker described it as “incredible but true” (go.skimresources.com)