The Panarotti franchise is a rip-off

After my experience in Panarottis in the Musgrave Centre in Durban at lunch today, I regret to say that this establishment is in the explicit business of lying to customers and ripping them off.

I am not a complete alcoholic -- but if the menu clearly states that a glass of wine is 250 ml, then I expect 250 ml -- and I have been in enough restaurants to know that this equates to a caraffe of wine that is 250 ml -- or one-third of a bottle. Or an extremely large glass that contains 250ml, as per the menu.

And that is what the menu states -- 250 ml.

There was no caraffe -- it was an ordinary glass of wine, well under 250 ml.

I asked to see the manager and explained my concern. She was very defensive, and then laughably said "we always get four glasses of wine from a bottle". So I said you have proven my point -- you would only get three glasses from a bottle if you were serving 250 ml -- as your menu explictly states, She then backtracked and said well maybe it was 3.5 glasses per bottle, but in any case this is franchise policy -- they only serve glasses, not caraffes.

I said if you state on your menu that a glass of wine is 250 ml, then I expect that, not what I believe is 170ml/180ml.

I indicated my annoyance by not paying any tip -- which of course hits servers rather than the manager -- but since I have been explicitly told it is franchise policy to serve four glasses of wine per bottle (rather than the 250ml stated on the menu), I shall never again set foot in a Panarotti establishment. This kind of customer rip-off might sound trivial -- but it is actually appalling.

We all know that alcohol markups are a major source of profit for restaurants. We accept this. But what I do not accept is the open admission of an establishment that it is company policy to extract further "value" at the expense of the customer, and an absolute refusal to show any recompense at all. I had two glasses which should have been 500 ml of wine -- instead I had roughly 360 ml of wine -- and was made to feel I am at fault.

Cheers Panarotti -- there are plenty of honest restaurants around. You probably get away with it because the majority of your customers are families who don't drink alcohol -- but I for one regard you with disgust and contempt, and you will not get my money again -- not in Musgrave, and not anywhere, since this is franchise policy.