Customer breaks silence over muffin scandal

A customer who sparked outrage after complaining online about a $1 surcharge at a cafe for heating his muffin has spoken out following critiscm for naming and shaming the business.

Motivational speaker and podcast host Peter Williams recently dined at cafe Leaf and Vine in Ringwood, in Melbourne’s east, where he was charged $1 to heat up his $7 raspberry and white chocolate muffin.

He told his 26,000 Facebook followers that the charge to heat up his muffin, which he said was added to his bill without his knowledge, left him with a “real bitter taste” in his mouth.

The post, which went viral and sparked outrage from people online who scrutinised the charge, has since sparked a war of words between the owners and the customer.

On Wednesday, owners Bec and Pete Murray, who have run Leaf and Vine for a decade, told Channel Nine’s A Current Affair the charge was a “mistake”.

However, Mr Williams soon fired back, saying he believe it “specific, purposeful, and perfectly aligned with their actions”.

Ms Murray told Channel Nine’s A Current Affair the charge had been a “human error”.

“It was a mistake made by someone who was in training,” she said.

Ms Murray said there were at least 2000 options on the register, including preloaded options.

“Those 2000 items don’t always work to plan,” she said.

“In this instance, this one didn’t work as it should. It had a surcharge attached to it but it shouldn’t have.”

Ms Murray, who said she found out about the social media storm from a friend, said Mr Williams named and shamed their business without contacting them about the incident.

She said it was “unfortunate” that when she contacted Mr Williams, he took more than six hours to reply to her “after then watching the plethora of a snowstorm of comments about us on social media damning us”.

Mr Murray said had they known about the charge, they would have given Mr Williams his whole bill off.

On Thursday, Mr Williams responded to Mr and Ms Murray’s comments, telling NewsWire that up until this point, he had refrained from commenting publically as he “thought the matter was already resolved”.

Mr Williams told Newswire he pulled his Facebook post down at Mr and Ms Murray’s request as soon as he was able to.

“I agreed to remove the post because (a) it was not my intention to call out the business specifically and (b) they apologised for adding an additional charge,” Mr Williams said.

“I accommodated this request as I felt for them, given the barrage of attention the post received,

“In hindsight, I don’t know if I should have removed the post, but I felt it was right at the time and at the request of the owners.”

Mr Williams said he posted about the charge on social media rather than approaching the cafe directly because he had already left the cafe when he noticed the fee and was travelling interstate.

He said he did not believe the charge was a mistake.

“To be honest, l did not believe it was an error – system, trainee, or otherwise,” Mr Williams said.

“The charge was specific, purposeful, and perfectly aligned with their actions. No different to the charges of almond milk and mug charges on the previous receipt from the cafe.

“I felt the charge, and more importantly, not being told about the charge was wrong, so I called it out.”

Mr Williams denied slandering the cafe, and said he didn’t make the post for likes or content, but rather to “inform people to check their receipts and to call out poor business practices.”

“People have had enough sneaky charges coming at them from all directions.”

But he said he had been made “the bad guy” for “calling something out that affects everyone.”