The most stressful part of my entire week in the Holy Land was negotiating for lunch in Bethlehem. Oh how I hate it when restaurants don’t have posted prices!
We were right in tourist central, near the Church of the Nativity, and hungry for lunch. The touts were aggressive and every placed looked tasty.
We stopped by a couple places and neither had printed menus. I just turned around and walked out. You never want to put yourself in a position to be taken advantage of by a lack of a printed menu. Always ask for the price beforehand lest you be shocked by a huge bill. Best to get it in writing.
But it was getting late in the afternoon and my wife and son were hungry. So against my better judgement, I decided to negotiate when the third restaurant also didn’t have a menu. He wanted 60NIS for a quarter chicken with sides. That’s $17.50…simply absurd.
The way I negotiate is by laughing when I am quoted a price. Don’t show anger. Don’t show fear. Instead just show humor and amusement (even though I don’t find the process of bargaining humorous or amusing).
The restaurant owner was absolutely desperate for my business. It was a rainy day and there were few tourists out and about. Heidi, even more skeptical than I was, just wanted to turn around and go out.
But we negotiated and I got him down to 40NIS for a half chicken (after 10 minutes and once walking out). I also ordered a shawarma for 20NIS. We shook hands, sat down, and ate. The food was tasty.
I was still afraid, though.
There was no printed menu, after all. What if the receipt said 400NIS? I’ve heard of it happening. Heck, it happened to my own brother in Jerusalem…
Before the bill could even come, I paid him in cash. He shook my hand. Then he offered us tea…on the house.
It was mint tea and it was tasty.
And that was it. We shook hands again and headed out. Crisis avoided.
I still would have enjoyed lunch a lot more had there been a printed menu…
@ Matthew — Between this post and “Is Bethlehem Safe?,” my thought is how sad that this is where Jesus was born.
Shut up.
I am the same way, I never walk into a restaurant in a foreign country if there are no printed prices posted for all to see. Even if there are prices on the menu, some countries, like China will have a cheap price for the Chinese and a foreigner price. If the prices are posted then you avoid all of that.
It would be nice if the people in places like this comprehended the negative impressions they are creating of their places by engaging in this type of behavior. Frankly, I’ve started avoiding places where you have to deal with aggressive touts/bargaining for a fair price just to avoid the hassle.
I guess this is how it goes in some places. Not my preference but I would not take issue. From my experience, people can mostly be trusted. After all, these are restaurants, not nightclubs.
For me, going to a restaurant in the US is more nerve wrecking. They have the menu’s but the prices are meaningless as there are all kind of taxes that appear later, followed by hanging around the table until the tip is ‘right’.
Even if you get the right price, which I assume you did, I don’t see how the business owner looks like he’s doing anything other than trying to screw the customer in this situation.
What is a menu without prices? Seriously. Some places don’t have menus, but there’s nowhere that provides a menu (presumably in English, not Arabic/Hebrew) without listed prices. The owner knows he’s not being ethical and he’s OK with that.
What a bummer.
It looks like he’s holding your child in lieu of payment.
LMAO
Thank the Quakers for printed prices:
https://www.vtcng.com/stowetoday/stowe_reporter/opinion/opinion_columns/thank-the-quakers-for-our-system-of-fixed-prices/article_07b5c41c-de73-11e6-85dd-5366d55f2fb6.html
Which brings up a funny story:
I met my wife and took her out to dinner, she chose the place, I was paying, and the menus came without prices.
And we got ripped off.
I wondered if she had set me up. I had to hit an ATM. To this day, I haven’t talked about it with her (married 15 years).
Another place, a manager went out to a place and ordered some pitches of beer off of a menu with prices, but this wasn’t listed. Of course, it came out to something like 15 bucks a pitcher. The bar tab was monstrous. He was ****ed.
Essentially, if someone is trying to rip you off, I’d rather not deal with them even if I can eventually negotiate a fair price. I just feel so dirty.
In my mid teens in the 80’s, I worked in an old style French restaurant. In traditional French restaurants, there were two menus: one with prices and one without. The menu without prices was meant for the lady, so she would not be intimidated to order a more expensive meal. Obviously this was sexist but that’s the way things used to be. Perhaps you were both accidentally handed the menus without prices. Nowadays, that would justifiably fly like a stone kite, but it’s a possible explanation.
We got ripped off with a ridiculously overpriced dinner in the old city of Jerusalem in 2018. It was our first meal of the trip and it didn’t occur to me to have to worry about the price (at that point I was still trying to figure out the exchange rate and was jet lagged). I felt terrible after I realized what had happened. I didn’t catch the name of the place to be able to write a TripAdvisor review. I guess I’ve been lucky in my other foreign travels because this was the first time to be ripped off by a restaurant.
I’m glad you’re cutting costs. It gives an extra dimension to the trip reports eg the bus trip to Bethlehem…far more interesting than boring Uber.
As for restaurant menus with prices: I think you did quite well under the circumstances.
This rip-off is very common in Thailand , whereby unsuspecting tourists are taken by crooked tourists guides/taxi drivers/touts to ‘special’ seafood joints ( ‘special’ being no prices on the menu and a bill that’s 10X the ‘normal’ price). But social media is catching up with these shysters, as receipts are being posted online ( the police do nothing, as they’re just as likely in on the scam). It’s very Thai.
You deservedly had the right to be a bit upset and nervous about this transaction. You paid about double the local price. Which is a bit surprising to be honest for the West Bank. I’ve never experienced this in the West Bank, I’ve never seen a restaurant without printed menus. But again, that’s my experience having darker skin and a bit of Arab language skills. Maybe they hide the menus for tourist. Maybe next time insist on seeing the menu, and see where that gets you.