Originally Posted by
JohnnyColombia
Sorry but COP$38,000 for a main course is not a modest restaurant. A modest restaurant costs COP$7000 for two courses and a fruit juice...
McDonalds is an upmarket treat for Colombians and certainly not a staple. See a Big Mac meal costs double the two courses in a cheap restaurant. McDs are normally found around shopping centres and wealthy areas.
p
+1 to all of that.
"American-style" fast food restaurants, not just USA-based chains, are expensive. However, my normally frugal wife considers some of them to be a treat (Kokoriko) and happily pays the price. We went to El Corral for the first time (McDonald's-like chain). We paid COP 73,000 for three adults and two little kids. The food was very good for fast food, but it will be a long time before we go there again.
I also think an entree that costs COP 38,000 would be on the high end for a mid-priced, not modest, USA restaurant (e.g. TGI Fridays), so maybe the OP uses a different scale than I.
On the topic of automatically adding the tip, two data points: Yesterday, I ate in two different restaurants. Neither automatically added the propina, which surprised me. Both were part of small chains, one in the "suburbs" of Medellin and one in the city, and I would think they are a little too big to fly under the legal radar screen.
My wife's theory is that in the waiters prefer to not add the propina to the bill and hope to get a cash tip that they can keep for themselves. I believe the law was designed to get some cash to the kitchen workers, so if her theory is true, they are screwing their co-workers when they do that.