It is said that good manners don’t cost you anything and, for the customers of one café, they could even help save the pennies.
A cafe in the south of France has called out its less-mannered customers by hiking the price of a coffee if they don’t say please. The Petite Syrah cafe in Nice is charging customers e7 (R99.86) for “a coffee”, but a more affordable e4.25 for a “a coffee please”.
But those customers who request their caffeinated beverage with a cheery “good day, a coffee please” get the best deal of all. Their coffees will set them back just e1.40.
The French are well known for their love of pleasantries, even having two versions of the word “you” depending on how polite the speaker wants to be when addressing an interlocutor.
So when standards drop it can be a particularly unpleasant shock, which is why the Petite Syrah has decided to enforce polite deportment by hitting rude customers in their pockets.
Fabrice Pepino, the manager of the Petite Syrah, said: “It started as a joke because at lunchtime people would come in very stressed and were sometimes rude to us when they ordered a coffee.”
Pepino said the sign was a success. He never had to enforce the pricing scheme but had nevertheless noticed a marked difference in the behaviour of his customers.
“Most of my customers are regulars and they just see the funny side and exaggerate their politeness,” he said. – Daily Mail