(Click to enlarge) Priceless menu at Bill’s
South DaCola decided to do a food review of the new sports bar, Bill’s. The new restaurant is a great concept from one of our local hospital’s for-profit divisions.
At first glance when you arrive, it’s your typical memorabilia sports bar with some local flare.
While we found the food to be your normal bar food fare and the service friendly, we wondered why the menu at Bill’s didn’t have any prices listed on menu. So we asked our server, who grabbed a shift manager to answer the question for us.
The shift manager came over and grabbed the menu from us, looked on both sides and said, “Huh? You are right, no prices are listed.” He walked off without explanation and seemed confused. He returned a short time later and said, “I checked our POS computer, and the prices are not listed there either, not sure what to tell you.” I asked if there was someone else he could check with. After waiting about 20 minutes we decided to order anyway, two 16 oz fizzy American tap beers and two bacon cheeseburgers with fries. We were about to finish up our meal when the shift manager returned with a phone number scribbled on a piece of paper and told us if we call this number they could give us the pricing. Since my guest and I have never experienced such a strange thing before, we decided to call. It was about 5:43 PM in the afternoon when we called. I got voicemail that said, “Thank you for calling Bill’s price coding office. Regular business hours are 9 AM to 4 PM, Monday-Thursday. If you need immediate menu pricing please dial ‘0’.” I tried that several times, and all I got was a recorded message that said, “Thank You for calling Bill’s, have a nice day.” and the phone disconnected.
I waved down the shift manager one more time and told him what happened and he responded. “That’s to bad.” and walked off.
We asked for our bill figuring we would finally get the pricing with a receipt. The tab arrived with a Bill’s header on it and a line that said amount due; $172.57. I asked our waitress if there might have been a mistake and she checked her POS and told me everything was rang in correctly, then gave me a phone number to call for customer complaints and coupon for free onion rings on our next visit.
I didn’t bother calling. Anyone want my coupon?
*This article was a parody. There is NO sports bar in Sioux Falls called ‘Bill’s’. It was an attempt to make light of the fact that most hospitals won’t show patients a price list of procedures that are usually overpriced.