restaurant with VISA/MC logo does not accept cards
 

So traveling in the US, I have been used to being able to pay with CC in restaurants , unless they specifically have "NO CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED" notice. For my first real trip to Europe, I brought some euros but wanted to use CC as much as possible. We found a small (less than 10 tables) restaurant in Paris that had clear, newer, and undamaged VISA/MC logo stickers on the front door. After having the meal , I tried paying with VISA but the waiter/host simply told me they don't have wifi and don't have machine. Had this happened in the US, I would have had a fit . But it was another country and the meal was good , I just paid with cash and didn't leave the tip I had planned.

So I guess, what would be acceptable to do in such a situation where a dining establishment clearly advertises credit card logos but only tells you after dining that its not true? For a retail store, you could just put the merchandise back, but not so with a restaurant ...

Tell them you'll go to an ATM and will be back later to pay. And since they wrongly advertised accepting credit cards I wouldn't even leave a collateral (e.g. ID, etc.). In any case, the tip would be 0€.

And if the ATM charged a fee, said fee would be deducted from the bill.

I would let Visa/MC know. Not sure what if anything they can do, but I would assume they don't like this type of situation occurring since it reflect badly on them and also represents a lose of revenue on their end

This might be a dumb question, but is it possible that you have to pay at the counter for this particular restaurant in order to use a card? I'm not sure about France but not every restaurant in the UK has the wireless terminals in my experience.

There is a way to report this to Visa. Don’t know about MC. I’ve reported places in the US.

I would be willing to bet a few Euros that if you didn't have cash, the restaurant would have magically found a way to accept your card.