being charged differently than listed prices: MN

I just moved to MN less than two months ago and one thing that I have had happen to me already at least 10 to 12 times, is that I have closed out a tab to find that I have been charged prices on beer that are different from the prices posted. I just saw this mentioned as having happened to several people posting on this site, just last night at Butcher/boar for the Founders event. I haven't seen it happen on food orders, just on beer.

And like those who had this experience at BB, mine have been mainly at similar beer bars where consistancy in pricing should not be an problem. For instance, I have visited Happy Gnome twice and on both occasions I was overcharged on beer on my tab. And before anybody assumes that I might be confusing tax inclusive/versus regular pricing or happy hours/specials versus regular pricing; I know that these are not the cases. At HG, for example, they will list the beer by name on the tab and each time, the bartender has had to switch out what was entered as the beer, to get the pricing to work out.

Everybody has been apologetic and cool to fix things, but I have experienced this more in my 7 weeks of living in MN, than I can recall ever happening before in my collective 25+ years of going to import/craft beer bars from coast to coast.

It isn't always above the listed price, as sometimes it has been lower (and again, not during happy hour or specials), so on those tabs, I just treat them as if the bartender had comped me a beer and work it into the tip. But in the back of my head, I know that I am not getting an intentional bone thrown my way, but it is just more of this issue where their POS system is not in sync with their menues/beer list pricing.

Now to my question; in the state of MN, are posted alcohol prices just a vague guide to what you might pay or to give you a ballpark price to what it could be? And to me, that question sounds ridiculous, except for the fact that for everybody mentioning being overcharged for beer at the Founders event at BB, I don't see anybody saying that they had their tab fixed. As if this is just how things are in MN; that you really don't know exactly what you are going to be charged for a beer, until your tab comes and then you just pay whatever it says. If it was just one place, I would say it was just their issue, but I am talking about this happening at 8 to 10 different places around the Twin Cities area.

 

I wouldn't say that was exactly what the problem was, if we take the numerous claims to be accurate. A $6 listed beer does not come out to be between $7 to $8.50 after tax.

But I don't want to focus on that thread, as I wasn't personally at that event to comment. I am talking about places where, once pointed out to them, they then say something such as their systems haven't been updated or the menues haven't been updated, etc. and then they actually have to find a different beer in their system equal in value to the menu pricing of what I had ordered, just to reenter my tab, to finally get the correct total.

And I have to qualify this, because I am not just looking at these beers being rung up incorrectly, as somebody half in the bag, scratching my head at something perplexing. I am a business owner myself and have worked to develop such POS system and/or consulted and/or trained people on retail and service industry POS systems, both for internet and physical space businesses. In short, so much of my adult life has revolved around developing, testing and trouble shooting similar systems, that I can't walk into any business without noticing every nuance these parts of the operations. I am talking about wrong pricing in the POS systems that are being acknowledged and bartenders are having to figure out work arounds to adjust the tab.

Given that I am also talking mainly on rarer pours, I can see one way that it could be happening where a keg X is entered with a specific COG value and the person doing the menues presumes a 1o ounce pour and comes up with a price, but then the person programming it in the system (frequently the bartender) presumes a 12 ounce pour and the formula calculates a final cost that is a $1 to $1.50 off from that determined by the person printing menus. Given that I usually receive a surprised look when I point out the discrepancy, it always seems as if they have been pouring and charging like this without anybody having previously pointed it out to them.

That is why I was trying to figure out if this is more of a cultural thing that I am not yet familiar with (kind of like pickled herring and meat raffles were when I first arrived), where as long as the tab is in the ballpark of what is on the menu, that is totally accepted here. I am just used to setting up processes that are basically flawless with things like this, because in Los Angeles, if the wrong person is overcharged a buck on a beer, they are going to take their tab and lay it on top of the menu to take a photo of the issue, to then text off to a lawyer, before they even point it out to the establishment.

 

I look at this from a business perspective. If my business had such inconsistencies, I would want the customers to tell their server and to have the prices fixed immediately. I have no idea what strange logic that deadbody was using, as if it is a some sort of sign of pride to be overcharged and not say anything to the business. Even if a customer does not catch it, if they order the same beer maybe three times during an evening, that can be anywhere from $3 to $4.50 extra on the tab and then tipping on that total and being taxed on that total. That suddenly becomes a $4.50 to $6 overcharge. If that is on a tab of drinks and dinner for two, that total may go unnoticed as an overcharge, but it leaves the customer with the impression that the business may simply be more expensive than it actually should be. I wouldn't want any of my customers leaving with that type of false impression.

Maybe I have come from a part of the country that keeps people on their toes and maybe people don't review their bills here or, if they do and find an issue, will simply complain to their friends, but that isn't helping these businesses that are going through all the extra efforts to bring in these beers that we love. I have even had an issue, where one beer was $1 over charged and another was $1 undercharged, so even though the end total was correct, I still pointed it out so they could correct them.

 

Also, in no way am I saying this as if these businesses aren't to be trusted. The potential damage from word of mouth doesn't make it worth the extra dollar or two. Like my example where I show how it could be a miscommunication between the person making menues and the person entering the POS prices, I think that this is all just mistakes. And I think that maybe there is a cultural factor that has enabled it. Maybe some of that "MN Nice" that causes people rarely check the line pricing on their tab or if they do and catch an error, would rather not mention it. And this is very specific to the beer bars that tend to bring in the one-off kegs, where such menu/POS discrepancies can more easily occur. No respectable business is going to look at a customer negatively for mentioning a pricing error.

 

1) I understand that you are addressing Bildo's second complaint that was about tax when paying cash versus using a card, but I want to again emphasize that tax included pricing versus tax excluded pricing isn't what I am talking about. I have set up systems for both types of businesses and fully grasp when I see things like that. Tx keeps coming up in this thread, but in now way am I talking about taxes. In fact, I have mentioned a few times that on occasion, the pricing has been off by that dollar or so undercharged while another was overcharged, all on the same tab.

2) I do want to mention that I have been to Bryant Lake Bowl 3 times and this has never been an issue there. Yours is one of my favorite places since moving here. Also love that there is most often a space available in your lot at the times of day that I stop by.

 

Just to update, I was again overcharged this weekend at yet another place on my first visit there. The funny thing is that it wasn't an overcharge for the issues that I had been discussing here, but that I had an extra beer on my tab. I had asked to be closed out and had a card open at the bar, so the waitress just brought me the final total receipt for the cc. When it looked high (I only had three beers), I asked about this and she seemed insistant that what I was seeing may have been that I had two of one of my beers, but she was even vague about it. I asked for the receipt and sure enough, there was an extra beer on my tab and it as easy to pick out, because it was a beer that I have never had in my life. I had moved from the bar to a hightop, so my service switched from the bartender to a waitress, so I have no idea where the mistake was made.

In the short time that I have been here, it has to be close to 40% of the beer bars/brewpubs have incorrectly charged me in one way or another. There is no possible way that I am just being struck by lightening here and that this isn't happening to anybody else. All I can say is that people ought to be watching their tabs a little more closely, just to get some of these places more on their toes about watching for these POS system errors, sloppy entering of items, etc. Let them know if there is an issue with the bill, because it doesn't help anybody if people go home thinking that a place is more expensive than it really is or, if an issue is caught and not mentioned to staff, for those people to be going home and spreading bad word of mouth about that business. I am not saying that any of it is intentional, I just think that for businesses to never hear about these things, that they don't even know to be watching for these issues internally, to prevent them.