If I could give a zero score for this place, I would and I'm a pretty reasonable patron. Restaurants like Paul Stube are the reason why American tourists have bad experiences while traveling in Europe and the reason why establishments fail. The staff at this place are disrespectful, rude, and straight-up awful towards anyone that isn't a local or doesn't speak German. Look I get it, living in a small and crazy touristy town like Salzburg can be rough, but get out of the service business if you can't handle good customer service!!! If it hadn't been for me being able to understand the language spoken amongst the employees, I wouldn't even know how horribly mean and unprofessional they were towards us. We arrived after running through a sketchy alleyway and walking clear across town to get to this place. We were sold on its high ratings, solid reviews, and great photos. It was our first hour in Salzburg and we were stoked, excited to check this outdoor biergarten out. We climbed a flight of stairs and were greeted by three guys. We spoke basic, broken German and asked nicely for a table. Before one of the staff members replied to me, he made a hush hush comment to the other two guys along the lines of "...oh these are Americans... Just great. " with negative undertones he grabbed two menus and told us to sit wherever we wanted. He came by almost 10 minutes after we sat and handed us two menus, in English. We ordered two Weissbiers. He brought the beers a few minutes later and asked if we had any questions. I asked if he could provide me with a "deutsch menu" aka German menu. He replied with a guilty and confused tone and asked why I needed a menu in German. I said I wanted to see the items in German since I didn't understand some of the translations on the English menu. He finally agreed and returned a minute later with the menu I requested.
I reviewed the German menu and to my disbelief found discrepancies in pricing across the ENTIRE MENU. Everything was legitimately 0.50-3 euros more PER ITEM on the English menu. This place was ripping off everyone that came through that needed an English menu. Not just Americans! Wow. My dining companion and I realized we were being scammed and our beers even cost us a euro more than if we had spoken German! We have photos to prove it. We will post them. This business should be shut down.
As soon as we realized all of this we immediately got up to leave and pay. We were so shocked and taken aback. We weren't about to order food here and let them get away with a 20-30% bonuses our entire bill just because we spoke English!!!
We walked to the bar to wait for our server to come by so we could let him know we were leaving. When we approached the bar another employee was serving beer. He noticed us and asked if he could help with something... In German of course. I replied kindly letting him know that we were trying to pay for our beers. He glared at me and starting raising his voice in German saying things that were abrupt and rude along the lines of "you are served at the table and you MUST pay at the table! You crazy fool! You need to wait at the table so your server can collect cash from you. Dumb American!" My dining companion and I were so incredibly pissed by this overall experience. We gave the server cash and left as fast as we could.
Can't say cheers cause this was a horrible experience; honestly, probably the worst experience I've ever had in my life at a restaurant. Steer clear of this place. read more