Shady Waitress Dupes Fool Into Buying $3,750 Bottle of Wine
Joe Lentini ordered a bottle of Screaming Eagle Oakville 2011 for the table during a business dinner last week at Bobby Flay's Steak in Atlantic City's Borgata Hotel. He was allegedly informed by their waitress that the bottle cost "thirty-seven fifty." The bill, however, contended otherwise, listing the bottle at its actual price: $3,750.
Naturally, Lentini and his dinner companions were shocked. NJ.com reports that after haggling with the restaurant's manager, the diners were able to get the price of the wine down to $2,200, which they split between them. The debacle has become a real he said, she said.
"I asked the waitress if she could recommend something decent because I don't have experience with wine," Lentini told NJ.com. "She pointed to a bottle on the menu. I didn't have my glasses. I asked how much and she said, 'Thirty-seven fifty.'"
Another dinner guest at the table with Lentini corroborates his account of the night.
"Joe had asked for a suggestion on the wine and the waitress pointed to a wine," Don Chin told NJ.com. "Joe asked the price and she said 'thirty-seven fifty,' not 'three-thousand, seven-hundred and fifty,' which is what I would have said, so we all thought it was $37.50."
The Borgata is standing firm—citing surveillance footage with no audio that they refuse to release—that the waitress was not at all deceitful in her suggestion of a bottle of wine that costs more than most people's rent.
"Due to these factors along with very detailed accounts from multiple sources regarding the incident, Borgata is confident there was no misunderstanding regarding the selection," Borgata executive vice president Joseph Lupo told NJ.com "We simply will not allow the threat of a negative story that includes so many unaccounted and questionable statements to disparage our integrity and standards, which Borgata takes great pride in practicing every day.”
But! It would appear not all of Lentini's dinner companions are so innocent either—at one point in the meal, the host of the dinner apparently found out the price of the wine, but said nothing:
Indeed, the host, who asked not to be identified, did confirm to Bamboozled that he asked about the price of the bottle before dinner was completed, but he said he did not hear and was not part of the conversation when Lentini ordered the wine. The host said the bottle was already opened and possibly empty when he learned the price, so he didn't see a reason to say anything.
Lentini's review of a nearly $4,000 bottle of wine? "It was okay. It was good. It wasn't great. It wasn't terrible. It was fine."
