Abusive behaviour of a Spanish restaurant. 10 euros for booking a table.

These summer months are the most profitable for restaurants in Costa Brava (northern Spain) as the summer season, which means that more tourists come to enjoy the beach and their holidays in Spain. Also, many locals escape from Barcelona to spend their holidays or a weekend at the beach. Due to this high demand, some smart restaurants cross the line and try to take advantage.

These days, a restaurant has become controversial because it charges 10 euros per person as a fee for booking a table.  The point is that they don’t discount that fee from the final invoice. Therefore, a family of 5 members would have to pay 50 euros only for booking.

The restaurant replied to the critics, saying that they outsourced the booking management service and made the customers pay for that fee to make sure that there are seats for everyone, and that the available seats are occupied.

This case escalated, and even the Catalan consumers’ agency, which is a public entity created to make sure that the law and consumers’ rights are protected, stated recently that this is not allowed. A restaurant can make you pay a fee for booking to prevent the ‘no show’, but the fee amount should be discounted from the final cost.

In my opinion, I don’t like this kind of business and I am not a very big fan of the restaurant, as by experience I know that many want to take advantage of as much as they can. Obviously, there are very good restaurants, and many of them are not going to scam you, but in Spain, there are a lot of tourist traps. If there are a lot of foreigners and no locals, just be careful and check the price of everything before entering. And remember that taxes should be included in the prices, shouldn’t be charged separately. Due to this kind of business, I always prefer to avoid restaurants if possible.

Source (in catalan). 324.cat