Three people went out for a Christmas meal in a very nice restaurant. They had an excellent dinner with some quality wines and were presented with a bill for £300. (We did say it was a very nice restaurant!). They each paid their share of £100 and prepared to leave.
At this point the restaurant manager realised that there had been a terrible mistake, and the bill should have been £250. She summoned the waiter and gave him £50 in ten pound notes to give to the three customers as a refund. (Anyone would think it is Christmas – oh wait, it is)
Now the waiter was a bit disgruntled with these particular customers, as they hadn’t given him a tip despite paying a large sum of money for the meal. Furthermore, how were they going to split £50 between the three of them?
So the waiter pocketed two of the ten pound notes as a tip and handed the customers a ten pound note each. The customers left and everyone seemed to be happy with the situation – the customers had received a refund, the waiter had his tip, and the restaurant manager had been paid the correct amount. But should they have been so happy?
Each of the three customers had paid £90 for their share of the meal which makes £270. And the waiter has £20 which makes £290 in total. But the diners paid £300, so where is the missing ten pound note?
As usual you can post your answer as a comment on this website, reply to the post on Facebook, or retweet or reply on Twitter @quizmastershop.
We’ll give the answer and explanation on Monday morning at 9.00 as usual.
There is no missing £10. The revised price of the meal is now 250, not 300. The amount of cash in play is however 300. Which should have been allocated 250 for the meal and 50 back to the diners. Instead the restaurant has 250 and is happy. The diners have 30 and are not as happy as they should be while the waiter is a smug, thieving sh1t with 20 quid he shouldn’t have. Merry Christmas!