“How Did We Get To $530?”: Woman Appalled After Being Charged Extra For “Prepping” Cocktails

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Going out for a drink or two is a nice way to unwind at the end of the week. In fact, a 2017 report shows that 51% of young people in the U.S. go out to drink at least once a week. But lately, it has become a luxury.

And that’s what the TikTok creator @blondeswhoeat found out when she went out for margaritas with some gals. She claimed that the restaurant charged them $80 extra for prep to shake their drinks. Confused and appalled, the woman asked people online whether this was normal. And many replied: no, it is not.

Having a drink with some friends is quite pleasant, that is, if it doesn’t break the bank

Image credits: Doğu Tuncer (not the actual image)

One woman recently shared her experience about ‘prep charges’ on drinks and went viral

Image credits: blondeswhoeat

Okay, I just needed to do this now because I just got home, and tomorrow, I feel like I just won’t care anymore. We went to dinner here tonight in Dallas, and I’m not gonna say the name of it cause the food was exceptional.

But we’ve got the bill… Normally, I don’t look at bills. I’m just like, “Yep, sounds good. Here’s my card.” I know that sounds ignorant, but whatever. We got the bill, and I, in my head, knew that we only got like $100 worth of food (which food was great). So how did we get to $530? Let me tell you.

Image credits: blondeswhoeat

I’m doing this because I just need justification or, like, [to know] if this is normal, if you’ve ever heard of this before?

So I’m going through it. Right. Okay, so Haley got three cause I only got one. There’s four on here. Lalo Blanco skinny spicy margaritas, right? $14 plus prep, $3. Okay. What?

Image credits: blondeswhoeat

When we get further, you’ll understand. But I was like, “What’s prep?” and he was like, “Oh, it’s the shaking of the Margarita.” I was like, “You charge $3 to shake the Margarita?”

Image credits: blondeswhoeat

So our Lalo Blanco margaritas are $17. That’s fine, right? Just put $17, don’t put prep.

Image credits: blondeswhoeat

So then we go further down, and we get to the Fortaleza (sue me if that’s not how you say it). Fortaleza Blanco, $32. Okay, great. It’s fine. Some drinks are $32. The prep for that specific one was $13. $13 to shake the Margarita.

Then Topo Chico, $7. Okay, whatever. Alright, moving on.

Then another girl got a Casa Dragonis Blanco, three of them, $28. That’s fine. Right. Okay. Her prep was $15. Then she got a double, which was $22. $75 drink. What?

Image credits: blondeswhoeat

So I was like, “Also, wouldn’t a double be half of what the drink would cost? So it was $28, so it should be $14, not $22.” And he was like, “Well, normally, in a double, they put more in it”. So I was like, “So a triple?” What?

Okay, so anyways, all this to say, what the F? This place charges to shake your Margarita. And he was like, “They charge the shaking, or the ‘prep,’ per the tequila of your choice.”

Image credits: blondeswhoeat

So if you got this far, thank you for being here. Yeah. $530, and $400 of that was alcohol. Pretty bad, right? So, yeah.

Image credits: blondeswhoeat

@blondeswhoeat Charging extra to “prep” aka SHAKE your drink is WILD! Or better yet.. a $70 margarita is wild! Has anyone ever seen this before? #dallas #dallasrestaurants #dallasfoodie #fypage ♬ original sound – Blondeswhoeat

Internet detectives quickly deduced which restaurant the creator was talking about

This video comes from a sister duo Kristi and Morgan, or @blondeswhoeat. The women have been foodie influencers since 2015 and blew up around 2019 when they posted photos of themselves eating large slices of pizzas.

The video in question, posted on TikTok on September 5, caused quite a stir on social media. It went well beyond their usual audience: 400k followers on TikTok, 240,000 on Instagram, and 10k on Facebook.

The creator never mentions the restaurant’s name in the video. She also blocks out the receipt so the viewers can’t see it. Many people in the comments demanded the woman expose the restaurant so they could boycott it or swarm their social media with angry messages. @blondeswhoeat remained silent nevertheless.

However, Internet sleuths got to work fast. Many did the math and started speculating that the restaurant in question was Mar Y Sol Cocina Latina in Dallas. And the restaurant possibly confirmed those suspicions when they posted a snappy caption on their Instagram page on September 6. “No extra fees were charged in the shaking of this cocktail,” the text below a photo of a bartender shaking a drink read.

It seems that this approach might have backfired, as many people in the comments didn’t think this was funny. “This was your chance to apologize and correct the issue, but instead you’re just going to gaslight us? It’s 100% you guys and lots of people have experienced this to know. Just own it and change policy,” one person commented.

“We were looking forward to dining here but after the poor reviews we might just have to cancel our reservation this Saturday,” another user wrote. Since then, neither the restaurant nor the creator have commented any further.

Image credits: Solen Feyissa (not the actual image)

Many different factors come into pricing cocktails, yet a ‘prep fee’ is one you’ll see rarely

Cases like these raise many questions about cocktail pricing. What even is a “prep fee?” Can restaurants and bars actually put an extra charge like that in the bill? And what are the general rules for pricing a cocktail?

The first factor of a cocktail price is, of course, the place you’re drinking it at. Even a martini will have a different price at one of the trendy bars in Manhattan than at your local restaurant. As Serious Eats writes, a cocktail is a combination of different ingredients, each with its own costs.

Aside from that, there’s also the pour cost – the percentage of the cost incurred by the bar needed to produce a drink. So if an owner sets a cocktail’s price at $10 and it costs $2 in ingredients, the pour cost of that drink is 20%.

Jeffrey Morgenthaler, the bar manager at Clyde Common in Portland, Oregon, claims that the standard is between 18% and 24%. Other owners, however, choose to have all drinks at the same price, like at Betony in Midtown Manhattan.

Eamon Rockey, general manager of Betony, says he wants each drink to be an experience and for customers not to choose a drink based on the cost of its ingredients. “It’s less about parsing things down between ingredient to ingredient, milliliter to milliliter,” he explained to Serious Eats.

“[It’s] more about knowing that, regardless of whether your cocktail’s ingredients are a buck or two more a bottle…you are going to have a cocktail that is caringly crafted by somebody who was trying to produce something that is peak of quality for that exact spirit and for that exact list of ingredients.”