Are you Kidding Me?

Okay, this has to be a joke... I was in Niagara Falls with some of my friends last week. Across from the Fallsview Casino and Hotel we saw a IHOP restaurant (in the Four Points Sheraton Hotel). I hadn't seen one in Canada before. I used to go with my friend Lawrence whenever we headed over the boarding into the U.S. The food was decent and the prices reasonable.

Anyway, one of my friends (who had also gone to an IHOP in the States before) and I suggested to our two other friends that we should grab breakfast there. We told them it was a pretty good place to eat.

We went inside and were seated at a table where there was a really foul odor. If you know me, you know that my sense of smell pretty much sucks. I seem to have permanently clogged nasal passages. So for me to have smelt whatever it was that we all smelled, it must have been pretty horrible. Anyway, we just asked to be seated in another area by the windows. To be polite we just said we wanted to enjoy the sunshine or the view or something like that.

But, that wasn't the big shock we received. It was when our server came and gave us the menus. When we opened them up we saw all the omelettes going for $17 or $18, coffee for $3.50 and, if I remember correctly, 2-eggs going for something like $10. Two eggs! You get the idea. The whole menu was priced similarly. Who are they kidding? This is IHOP for goodness sake, not some Michelin three-star, fine dining establishment.

I believe they sucker people like my friend and I in. There is no menu posted outside. Of course not. No one would enter the restaurant if they saw prices like that. We just assumed, in good faith, that the prices would run on par to what we were used to paying in the past (or slightly higher to compensate for inflation). I mean, why wouldn't they be? And it's not like you can say the value of the U.S. dollar is higher because, as of this moment, we're slightly above parity (the Canadian dollar).

No, they're just plain scammers. No one likes to get up and leave a restaurant after they've taken their coats off and been seated. It's kind of embarrassing. I'm sure the management at this particular IHOP is banking on that. So, we stayed and ate and now I'm going to blog about it. So, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

To the restaurant manager there, this is all I have to say, have some kahunas... post the menu (with prices) outside your establishment. Because if you continue to deceive patrons like this, word will get around and your establishment will soon be as empty as the vacuum in Brittany Spears' head.