PSA to check your tab at The Red Lion on Bleecker Street

Last night, I braved snow Armageddon along with 2 friends. We stopped at The Red Lion on Bleecker Street since they had live music and more of a scene than the other bars on the street and we all ordered 3 beers. My Voodoo Ranger and the Pilsner were both supposed to be $8 while the Guinness was supposed to be $9 per their bar menu.

When we closed out our tab, I noticed the waitress, Mackenzie, was up charging my beer at $10 so I called it out in the moment and she said she corrected it. Without seeing any of the corrected charges, I tip 20% but my spidey senses were tingling so I put in my email to review the receipt since she wasn’t going to give me one. The emailed receipt clearly shows she still overcharged me for my beer and she didn’t bother to correct my friend’s beers on the tab. When I confronted her about it, she gave me multiple excuses, “that beer is $9 since the prosecco is $9, that beer is actually $10” etc.

I asked for a manager and he initially refunded me $4 while making an excuse that the bar adds an additional charge when they have live music. Mind you, this wasn’t communicated to us, it wasn’t listed on their menu and the waitress didn’t mention that once when confronted. I had to ask for the remaining dollar of my refund back since I had been overcharged $5. Neither the waitress nor the manager ever apologized for this shitty service and no one offered any form of concession. I even had to correct the manager on the refund amount. Keep in mind, tip was calculated based on the wrong amount and this wasn’t corrected either.

Granted, I was only out about $5 this entire mishap but if they overcharge 10 other customers the same way, that’s $50 in scammed revenue and so forth. When I checked their Google reviews, there are multiple other people complaining about being overcharged so it’s not a one off situation.

TLDR: if you go to The Red Lion on Bleecker Street, check your tab before closing because they will overcharge you. I’m sharing this as a PSA, we all work hard for our money and we already pay a premium for drinks. To be overcharged like this is just so shitty.