The owner of a trendy bar in Luxembourg City has responded to an unprecedented complaint about the price of cocktails with, “Yeah, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”
Damien Bouze says that when he opened his bar three years ago, he had planned on charging fifteen euros for a cocktail, which he thought was already a lot.
“But everyone was doing it, so I said what the hell,” he said. “In the worst case scenario, we’d cut prices.”
However, a printing error led to all the menus showing 20 euros as the price for all mixed drinks like mojitos and cosmopolitans as well as simpler ones such as gin and tonic or rum and Coke.
“We were under pressure to open, so I told the servers to inform customers about the real price, but everyone forgot, charged the full 20 euros, and you’re the first person in three years to mention it,” he said.
Bouze says that he now realizes that no one in Luxembourg City is willing to publicly make a fuss over prices lest others think they are stingy, impoverished, or Dutch.
“Actually, people feel good about themselves when they blow a hundred euros on a round of five vodka tonics,” he said. “It makes them feel all-powerful.”
While Bouze doesn’t plan on raising the price of mixed drinks in the near future, he is playing with the idea of serving craft beer in tiny glasses, calling them “aficionado tasters,” and charging five euros a shot.
