Italian café defends charging diners $2.20 to cut sandwich in half - Insider

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• An Italian café went viral for charging a diner 2 euros, or about $2.20, to cut a sandwich in half.
• The owner of the café has doubled down on the charge and said the extra "work must be paid for."
• But she said she wouldn't have insisted on the fee if the customer had disputed it before paying.

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The owner of a bar café in Italy has defended her decision to charge a diner 2 euros, about $2.20, to cut their sandwich in half.

Bar Pace, a winery and café near Lake Como, made local headlines last week after a customer wrote on TripAdvisor that they were charged 2 euros for their sandwich to be sliced.

Posting a photo of the receipt, the customer said they were dining in a group of two and wanted to share the dish.

"Unbelievable but true," the reviewer wrote in June. The receipt showed they spent 15.70 euros and had been charged for a service called "diviso a metà." The customer did not reveal their identity, but their TripAdvisor profile says they are a woman from Milan between 50 and 64 years old.

The comment went viral in early August, and Bar Pace has since been getting review-bombed on Facebook, Google, and TripAdvisor by people offended by the practice.

TripAdvisor has since suspended new reviews for the café, citing concerns about ratings from people who had never visited.

"Due to a recent event that has attracted media attention and has caused an influx of review submissions that do not describe a first-hand experience, we have temporarily suspended publishing new reviews for this listing," TripAdvisor wrote.

Cristina Biacchi, who owns Bar Pace with her husband, has questioned why the upset customer didn't raise their concern before paying the bill.

"We would have explained to him that each additional service must be paid for," she told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Sunday. "We had to use two plates instead of one and the time to wash them doubled, and then two placemats."

"To cut it in half took us some time, and work must be paid for," Biacchi added.

The café owner said time was money because of rising industry costs, but she also told La Repubblica that Bar Pace wouldn't have insisted on the fee if the customer had disputed it.

"All of this would not have happened," Biacchi told the outlet.

Meanwhile, a flood of new negative reviews has sunk Bar Pace's Facebook star rating to 2.7 out of 5 stars.

"It's strange when someone who writes a negative review has never actually been to this bar," one user said of review-bombers.

"People are using social media to warn others to avoid this bar, and they're absolutely right to do so," another user said. "If you care so much, go ahead and keep going there, paying 9.5 euros for a toast."

Bar Pace did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.

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Italian café defends charging diners $2.20 to cut sandwich in half - Insider
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