Het Wapen van Münster - Tap Water Ripoff

Below you can see a receipt for the most expensive tap water in the world. I ate lunch at this family-run bar/restaurant/café. As you can see I ordered a €18.50 steak (the most expensive item on the lunch menu). This was a small (6.3 oz) plain tenderloin steak with fries (chips). That's all I got. No mushrooms. No sauce. No salad. No bread. I also asked for tap water. I clearly specified tap water. I was *NOT* told that there would be a cost. Now I drink tap water at home when I eat, so I order the same when I eat out. The glass was only 200 ml. So I asked for two more. Only the third had a little ice in it.

I get my check. I was charged €5.40 for 600 ml of water. When I questioned what this charge was on my bill they confirmed it was for the tap water. At the time of this incident the dollar/euro exchange rate was about $1.58, making it a total of $8.53. (Which is a rate of $54/gallon for tap water! In the US tap water costs about $0.01/gallon.) Converted to dollars the steak was $29.

For comparison, later that afternoon in the same vicinity I bought a 500 ml bottle of mineral water at a small supermarket. I was charged €0.59. In American that's a rate of $7/gallon.

Now I have a very strong dislike of being charged for tap water when I'm ordering food. This was the only time I was charged on this trip. After this I asked first and walked out of any establishment that charged for tap water. Fortunately none of the Indian restaurants charged, and following a gluten-free diet they are the easiest places for me to eat at.

Receipt for Most Expensive Tap Water In The World

As you can see this establishment Het Wapen van Münster does have a web site. There is a lunch menu on the site. You can find the steak on it with mushrooms and bread that I did not get (nor wanted). There is also a salad included, which they did not bring, nor did they tell me it was included. I guess since I didn't know it was included, and I didn't ask for one, I didn't get one. I was given no discount for no mushrooms. (At another place I ate there was a €3 difference between no sauce and with sauce.) And, of course, tap water is *not* on the menu.

Addendum: Two years after putting this web page up it was finally noticed by the restaurant and I received the following e-mail. As you can see it is in Dutch. I am unable to read it. It doesn't appear to be overly friendly. I leave it to the Dutch speaking visitors to this page to get a feel for the sort of people that run this restaurant.

From: "Wapen van Munster" <wapenvanmunster@quicknet.nl>
Subject: e-Mail from Expensive Water Page
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 16:50:33 +0200

Wat een lul van een vent, als je water uit de kraan wil moet je dat aangeven, 
en buiten dat we zijn er niet om alles weg te geven. Mag je niks meer 
verdienen ! eikel!

Met vriendelijke groet,

Dennis Blokdijk
"Het Wapen van Munster"
Grote Dam 3
1483 BK De Rijp
T: 0299-671496
F: 0299-674831
www.wapenvanmunster.nl