A restaurant in Italy has sparked fury after charging diners a whopping £50 to cut their birthday cake.
A family attended the restaurant in the southern area of Arezzo to celebrate their mother’s birthday after asking in advance whether they can bring a cake from the pastry shop.
However, after enjoying a calm meal on Thursday, the €659 bill included a charge of €58 to cut the cake and bring it to the table.
The cost turned out to be even more expensive than the birthday cake – which cost €45 euros – with an expense of €4.50 for each of the 13 guests, Corriere Fiorentino report.
It comes after it was revealed that diners in London were being charged for the ‘privilege of paying their bill’ on top of a 13.5% service charge.
A look at the €58 fee a restaurant in Italy charged for cutting a cake for a family birthday
The charge of the cake turned out to be more expensive than the cake itself (stock image)
Unleashing a storm on social media, the daughter of the mother told the story in a post on an Arezzo Facebook group.
She claimed the restaurant said it is the rule of their establishment and they were required to pay it.
The owner of the restaurant told the Italian media site: ‘We do not charge a cover charge and we mainly serve dishes of our own production, so we try to discourage those who bring things from outside.
‘If we consider that in Arezzo the average cover charge is 2.5 euros per person, there is not such a big difference.
‘My restaurant has to pay for the waiter who serves at the table, the dishwasher and other related services. We have to recover them somehow.’
However, the owner did admit: ‘I wasn’t there that evening and my employees were perhaps too fussy in managing the situation that had arisen, perhaps cutting the usual price a little or even not charging anything for the cake.
‘Better 50 euros less and people going home happy than this misunderstanding in which we are all damaged.’
In August last year, another restaurant in Italy shocked their customers by charging them €20 to cut a birthday cake.
The family had brought in the cake with them for a celebration in Palermo, Sicily.
But the party-goers were astonished when they found they had been charged €20 (£17.26) for cutting it into pieces.
