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| - I was very excited to come to this place for my friends 30th birthday. I can tell you it was a mission finding a place in the city to accommodate a large party for a Friday night. After months of searching and reading lots of party contracts from various restaurants we landed on Gusto 101. The reason we picked Gusto was 1. location, 2. reviews on food, 3. the minimum spend wasn't astronomical and they mentioned we would have a semi-private seating space.
Well, let me breakdown my/our experience as things started going from bad to worse. We arrived and went upstairs to the "semi-private" dining area, which was their rooftop, and I guess the semi-private portion of the space was that we were placed along the wall. There was zero privacy let alone semi-privacy. Nevertheless, we were happy to be celebrating.
We started to grab our seats and I had switched from sitting next to someone to across from them. The waiter, in one of the rudest tones stated "If you are going to move around then you can't have separate bills. I will not be the accountant". I was completely taken off guard by his demeanor, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt that he just had a lapse in judgement.
The evening proceed with us all sitting down, ordering drinks and enjoying the $45/family style dining option. It included a delicious Kale Salad and the mushroom pasta was amazing. The nice thing about this menu was that in included 5oz of house wine (sold by the $ - which is amazing) or a beer. I ordered a 9oz glass to start and was going to pay for the differential of the 4oz.
As the evening continued, and we enjoyed our meals and drinks, the guest of honour had asked the waiter to pass something on his way down the line to an individual. It was tough for us to get in and out due to the seating and it wasn't really easy to move down the aisle. The same waiter who started off the evening with a bad attitude continued by stating "I am here to take care of you guys, you take care of each other" and walked off. Fair, he isn't our personal courier, but come on - you are expecting a 18% auto gratuity - at least pretend to have some type of hospitality, tact and professionalism.
The evening has come to an end and we ask for our bill. Here is where the whole experience comes to the grand conclusion of errors and bad business ethics. Our bill consisted of 2 family style dining plates, 4 - 9oz glasses of wine. With the family style dining (as mentioned above) we are entitled to receive 5oz as part of the $45. We flagged down the waiter to request that we get credit for the 2 x 5oz glasses of wine. He took our bill, mentioned that the waiter must have thought we already had our wine...well after the stern talking to about moving around, I assumed my bill should be 100% correct. We receive our bill and notice an "administrative fee" - which I was aware of when reading the contract.
Now lets all take a minute to mull over the fact that restaurant charges 3% of a $2,100 minimum spend to book a table for you. For the sake of accuracy - their contract states the following "an administration fee of 3% of the minimum spend requirement,
will be charged to the credit card on file upon booking". Simple math leads me to believe that 3% of $2,100 = $63.00. There were 32 of us at the table - so as per their contract and billing us individually for the fee it means each of us should be paying $1.90 to cover that cost. Gusto 101 decided that they would charge us each of us individually 3% of our total bill. After checking out the numbers - Gusto would be walking away with =/- $100 for administrative fees. So a nice pocketing of an additional $37.00 just for booking us a table. Now for the coup de grâce, Gusto decided to apply their 18% tip to the final taxed amount. As a consumer, we agree to pay a tip on our food and liquor total; however, tipping on tax (the governments money) is not appropriate in my opinion. I can comment that the tip differential is not that high, but when you add it up among everyone...it becomes a pretty nice number. I also don't think I would not have had a problem tipping the 18% on the tax amount if we had a server who was polite. In all honesty, the individual deserving a 18% tip was the server ruining around taking individual orders from all the other tables on the rooftop, not the rude, inconsiderate individual we had serving our table, who just plopped down one dish after another and who we had to flag down to order a drink.
For most situations I like to give a restaurant the benefit of the doubt, and more likely than not give them another shot. Unfortunately, with these unethical penny wise pound foolish business practices I will never step foot in here again. I will also make sure that I advise people of the way this company conducts itself. Truly disappointing.
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