Reader Saurabh says:
So I was at the Pittsburgh Airport, and decided to get some food at Au Bon Pain. I ordered a Milk Chug, and a Mediterranean Veggie Wrap. When I saw the receipt, I knew you guys would want to see this..somehow IHey, who ordered the Eliot Spitzer on rye? Too soon? Not soon enough?
also managed to snag an order of boobs?As a guy... I am not sure what this means... is Au Bon Pain serving more than just food these days?












Comments
Where do you think the Milk came from? :-)
Were they as delicious as they sound?
[quote]When I saw the receipt, I knew you guys would want to see this..[/quote]
WRONG! Your story is stupid.
This story makes me want to shop at the Pittsburgh Airport Au Bon Pain. Looking at the line item for boobs on the receipt, it seems as if the boobs are complimentary with any drink and sandwich combo.
An innocent cash register gaffle, or a clever marketing campaign?
Ah, I remember Au Bon Pain from my time in Boston. I think it's French for "undercooked muffin."
7% tax? I thought sales tax in Pennsylvania was 6%. Or is there a special tax in Allegheny County?
@HunterJoules: Interesting thought. I wonder if this or any other restaurants might be doing this (although I think the cashier just entered boobs as a customization to the order or the customer's name (and it wasn't busy so they could match up orders with faces)) for publicity.
@smoothtom: Yep, extra 1% there and in Philadelphia. Mmm, gotta love it.
What sucks more is for businesses it has to get reported separately (more paperwork headache if you do business in and out of these counties, which I do), a lot of times you'll see the standard 6% tax as one line item and the extra 1% for Allegheny/Philadelphia.
But the city loves you back like a brother.
@smoothtom: Yes. But don't worry, the new casino opens in a few months and we won't ever have to pay any taxes ever again forever.
Slow news day?
Guess we need a "workers can put whatever they want on a receipt" tag.
@backbroken: And the crime will go away and lollipops will rain from the sky.
@bustit22: relax
Maybe Saurabh has nice cleavage, and the cashier just wanted to give a heads up to the person handing out the food...
@bustit22: Is it wrong that I think it is funny that your username contains a combination of "bust" and "tit" given the headline?
BOOBS FTW
@bustit22: = shill.
Why is this "Digg"? It's an honest mistake.
@bradanomics: Well played.
@bustit22: This coming from someone whose screen name includes the word "bust."
@bradanomics: Aww I was too late!
@smoothtom: No tax on clothing though.
I will be flying out of there for work in a few weeks. I am SO stopping for my side of boobs.
How were they? Where they real? Did you give them the motorboat?
@am84:
supersize it.
Boob also equals moron.
Hmm.. Au Bon Pain, why do you insult us?
@backbroken:
And by "we", surely you mean SEPTA and the senior citizens? Ed Rendell FTL. :-(
That's a remarkably good price for boobs. So much for not playing with one's food...
This is where they were supposed to put your name, so that when the order came up, they knew who to give it to. The cashier probably forgot to ask for your name, noticed you had nice cans, and put "boobs" in instead of your name.
You got the right food, so clearly it was a successful identifier. I'd need pictures of your chest to be sure.
@Will Clarke: I'd need pictures of your chest to be sure.
I'm not judging you, but from the sound of your post, I don't think you'll be getting exactly the kind of pictures you're expecting.
The amazing thing is that the Au bon Pain at the PIT airport actually got the order right...
Would have been a much more interesting story (and potential lawsuit) if customer had been a woman, and the clerk just tagged her by feature rather than name.
Or maybe on slow days, they don't ask your name for the orders (do they ever at au bon pain as they do at starbucks ? not sure) and just have a "catch all" key for women?
I Don't like any of these options.
@bradanomics: Alex Trebek: It's not "Ape Tit." It's A Petit.. (shakes head) ...Never mind! Let's just go to "Animal Sounds" for $600.
A (slightly long) word of warning about Au Bon Pain franchises (particularly those in airports):
Upon graduating from college in Southern California, I prepared to hop on a United Airlines flight to head back home to Chicago. I had to catch a connecting flight in Dallas before I made it to Chicago. While in the Dallas airport, I picked up a plain chicken sandwich from their Au Bon Pain since I hadn't had the chance to eat anything more than toast since I woke up that morning. The sandwich looked fine and the service wasn't at all memorable.
After boarding the plane, I began to sweat and feel generally ill. About two hours or so after I ate the sandwich, I was vomiting every 20 minutes for the next 15 hours, 2 of which were trapped in an airplane with United flight attendants yelling at me because "I wasn't allowed to vomit inside an airplane."
We called Au Bon Pain's Dallas airport franchise supervisor and all the corporate contacts we could find, but each one of them hung up on us as soon as we uttered "suspected food poisoning."
I know it is nearly impossible to link food poisoning to a particular meal, but having not eaten anything else but whole wheat toast, the link seemed particularly strong in this case. Too bad the managers, supervisors, and corporate staff didn't want to hear any negative feedback.
My suggestion? Avoid airport Au Bon Pain's like they're the plague. Because they might give you food poisoning that mkaes you wish for an early death.
I work at a restaurant/bar and at the bar when we start tabs for the customers, we have to put a name. Sometimes we just make up something like "Couple 1" or "Bar 2" or something rather than ask their names. No one really ever reads the top of the bill, they usually just review the total or the items on the bill. On Christmas Eve, I put some guy's tab under "Dude" and he laughed hysterically when he got his check and saw that. So maybe that's what happened here?
I have to: CHARGEBACK!!! You obviously had ordered a side of boobs and Au Bon Pair failed to provide them.
@am84: "I will be flying out of there for work in a few weeks. I am SO stopping for my side of boobs."
right.
half of you virgins wouldnt even know what to do if you saw some boobs in real life.
the other half would feign shock and mental anguish, then try to sue.
Heeee heee heee hee boobs! hee hee hee hee
When did boobs become veggies????
@oakie: what exactly are you supposed to do... if in case I do see them.
Whoops, some programmer forgot to remove his testing code.
I'll take those if you don't want 'em...
@thesabre: Amen brotha.
2002 - "The billions of dollars the casino will bring in will provide much needed property tax relief."
2009 - Actual result: A handful of seniors will have their property taxes reduced by a couple hundred dollars.
Don't even get me started on the fact that this same group of seniors who are getting all of the property tax relief paid a pittance in property taxes for 50 years because the house they bought back in 1950 wasn't reassessed until 2000.
Yet we can't figure out why Allegheny County bleeds young professionals.
But you did get boobs with your order eventually, right? Here posting comments about your receipt on Consumerist?
Present company excluded, of course. I'm talking about everybody else.
If there are boobs on your receipt and you didn't get any, take it to the cashier and demand your boobs.
Hey, at least the boobs were "no charge". Not many places give you complimentary fun bags, anymore....
@backbroken: Except for the frickin 10% drink tax.
@kateelindsay: Yes, I have had that lovely experience, only it wasn't two hours trapped in a plane, it was ten, and the flight attendants stopped freaking out so much when I suggested that I would in fact be willing to spend the whole flight in the bathroom and accept all legal responsibilities involved in that (there were at least eight in coach, thank god). My neighbors were pleased. Even more pleased when I revealed that my last major meal involved a particularly heinous looking hotdog-in-a-blanket I'd eaten in Russia 24 hours before. I'd seen it sitting out on their counter, the last lonely hotdog, for at least three days, so it was probably not a wise choice, but the alternatives involved similarly aged mayo which seemed even less wise.
Point being, I was later told that you can get food poisoning up to 48 hours after you eat the offending food, and almost none of us can point to having eaten just one perishable food in two days. So I'm not surprised Au Bon Pain treated you like a crazy and hung up on you. Not that they should have done that, just that they know damn well they can do it and get away with it, and the bad rep for hanging up on one concerned customer will be much less than anything they'd have to do if they admitted to serving even one tainted sandwich. I'd considering contacting airport management directly and letting them know one of their food service leasers has employees who need a refresher course on food safety. They probably care considerably more about the risk of people getting sick in their airport and giving their fellow passengers a memorably bad time flying out of that airport, and chances are they could put more pressure on that Au Bon Pain location than you could alone.
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