Rock House Restaurant

My girlfriend and I, plus another couple, received gift certificates to Rockhouse for Christmas. After looking at the menu, it looked like a nice place to spend last Friday night. I won't complain about the food. While it wasn't the best I've ever had, it was far from terrible. This is about the experience we had there. We, like everyone else, are on a very limited budget right now, which is one reason we chose Rock House (gift certificates). My girlfriend and I opted to drink water to save money but my friend wanted to order a bottle of wine. He ordered a $24 bottle of Chianti, because it was the cheapest on the menu. Our waitress came back and said they were out, but suggested a similar bottle, which my friend read as $30. We had the wine and the meal, which I said was decent but nothing superb. Then it's time for the check. Since the coupons had stipulations, we had to add both meals together and then split it down the middle for us both to receive the discount. She brings out the ticket and without looking at it, we both throw our credit cards down. The manger comes back and informs us that their credit card machine was down. This irked me because there were people there who left before us, who more than likely tried to use a credit card. Why the staff wouldn't alert the patrons that the credit card machine was down beforehand still baffles me. The manager asked if we had cash or check, neither of which we had. So, she asks us if we could walk down the street to an ATM. I was a little speechless and honestly couldn't believe that a restaurant was asking a customer to walk to an ATM. While we could've just skipped out on the ticket, I try to be honest and I don't want bad karma. We said we would and now we looked at the ticket, which seemed way off. It was $100 after our $50 discount. I thought about it while walking the block to the ATM. I figured they must have overcharged or given us the wrong ticket. When we returned to the restaurant to leave our cash, I looked at the ticket and they charged us $80 for the bottle of wine. My friend looked at the wine list and he read $30 again. We stopped by the front to point this out (since no one was around when we dropped the money back off) to the host. He picked up a completely different menu and pointed out that we were charged $80 for a $30 bottle of wine. The host said that "it's just scratched out. It should be $80. Sorry." When questioned, the manager said that they clearly read it as $80 (since they know what the price is) and there was nothing they could do since we drank the wine. I think for starters, tell your servers not to recommend $80 bottles of wine when patrons are browsing the $20 bottles. I am still amazed we were asked to walk to an ATM to get them cash and it's safe to say that I'll never be going to Rockhouse again. I just wish now that I'd chanced the bad karma and hopped in the car instead of throwing away $60 that I didn't have.

Also, the manager told me she would have the owner call me. It's been 5 days and I still haven't received a call from them.