Diners were left shocked when an Italian restaurant in Sicily charged them £17 to slice a cake they had brought in for birthday celebrations.
This week, a photograph of a bill showing the “€20 x Servizio Torta” fee, which translates to “€20 x cake service,” went viral on social media platforms.
The additional charge reportedly worked out as 86p per attendee, despite the group spending £103.49 on pizza, wine, beer and water.
The name of the Palermo restaurant wasn’t revealed, but it has left people baffled by the exorbitant service charges.
“A family in Italy was charged €20 for cutting a cake into 20 pieces which they had bought themselves,” reads the original tweet alongside a photo of the bill. “They had ordered food and beverage amounting [to] €121, still they were charged extra. If this is not malpractice then I wonder what is!”
Another person added: “Wow this is completely outrageous.”
This isn’t the first time an Italian restaurant has charged its customers an unexpected service fee.
Earlier this month, a British tourist was left shocked after a €2 charge was added to his restaurant bill for cutting a sandwich in half.
The unnamed visitor was dining at Bar Pace in Gera Lario by popular holiday spot Lake Como in Italy when the incident occurred.
He scanned his receipt to find a “diviso da meta” or “cutting in half” charge of €2 for his toasted sandwich.
Soon after the news went viral, Bar Pace’s owner defended the charge.
“Additional requests have a cost,” owner Cristina Biacchi told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
“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.”
She added that the customer in question made no complaint at the time and, if queried, the charge would have been struck from the bill.
