New Jersey lawyer blasts notorious Mykonos restaurant which charged $560 for four drinks oysters

Another couple has spoken out about a Mykonos restaurant becoming notorious for saddling unsuspecting tourists with towering tabs for a few drinks and a bite to eat.

Theodora McCormick, a 50-year-old lawyer from New Jersey, said she and her husband were slapped with a $557 tab for a dozen oysters and four drinks at the DK Oyster Bar – which they only ordered to be polite while stopping in to call a cab.

She said when they complained about the bill a gauntlet of ‘hulking’ male waiters intimidatingly surrounded them until they agreed to swallow the bill.

Speaking to The Sun, McCormick recounted the ‘weird experience,’ and called the restaurant an obvious ‘scam’ in hindsight.

McCormick’s account comes a week after a young Canadian couple’s headline-making tab of $410 for one beer, one cocktail, a dozen oysters at the same restaurant prompted its owner, Dimitrios Kalamara, to call the couple ‘wannabe influencers’ trying to gain attention.

‘I feel foolish because I don’t normally fall for those types of scams,’ McCormick told The Sun, ‘It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. We weren’t planning on eating there, but we saw the sign.’

McCormick said she and her husband were looking for a taxi back to their hotel on the last day of their Greek vacation when they saw a outside DK Oyster bar saying they could call a cab inside.  

‘I told my husband, ‘Oh, why don’t we call a taxi and grab a drink,” she said, ‘That was my big mistake.’

When she asked for a cocktail menu, McCormick said the waiter didn’t bring one and instead listed drink options aloud. 

The couple ordered two beers, two martinis, and also a dozen oysters which McCormick said the waiter nagged them into ordering.

When the beers arrived she said they were enormous – about three pints brimming to the surface of a pair of great glass boots – and the couple braced themselves to pay premium prices.

‘It was Mykonos, we knew it was going to be ridiculous. 250-odd euros, that’s what we were thinking,’ she said, ‘But when we got the bill and it was around 500 euros.’

 ‘My husband was like, ‘there’s got to be a mistake.’

 She said when they complained ‘a group of big, hulking men’ surrounded them until they agreed to pay the bill. ‘They have no female waiters,’ she added. 

‘I told my husband, ‘We’re in a foreign country. It’s ridiculous, but it’s obviously some sort of scam. We’ll pay up and try to deal with our credit card company later’.’

 She said the restaurant clearly had a ‘bizarre business model,’ which thrived on ‘ripping off tourists and making people unhappy.’

‘They’re never going to have any repeat business, but I suppose they get enough people from around the world that there’s always a supply of fresh meat.’

Early this month, Canadian newlyweds Alex and Lindsay Breen, both 30, shared their experience being gauged by DK Oyster during their honeymoon in May.

The Toronto natives were forced to pay a $410 bill after ducking in for ‘a quick snack’ of one beer, one cocktail and a dozen oysters. 

Lindsay said they were in ‘disbelief’ when they saw the tab, as restaurant staff gave them menus which did not list prices.

The couple also claim that rather than presenting them with the bill at the table, carpenter Alex was taken to a back room to pay and when he asked for a breakdown they showed him their computer screen which was all in Greek.

Lindsay says her new husband settled the bill without arguing as he wanted to avoid a confrontation.

‘He definitely felt intimidated,’ she said.

Kalamaras – owner of the infamous bar – defended his establishment as the Breens’ story made the rounds online.  

‘This person who is trying to get famous through Instagram posts under the name of Lyndsay Breen, starts with a lie.

‘She claims that she ‘repeatedly asked for a cocktail menu’, and adds that ‘the server didn’t seem to want to provide one’.

‘Despite that, she placed an order. An influencer, an experienced well travelled person who makes a living through their experiences in the world did what most adults in the right mind would not do, ordered drinks and food from a waiter who refused to present a menu.’

Kalamaras insisted that his staff provides menus, and that there is a blackboard with the menu posted on it in the restaurant. He added that it is not the restaurant’s responsibility to make sure every customer does their basic due diligence to acquire a menu if they are concerned about their budget.

‘The manager can help before ordering and consuming, not at the time they are requested to pay the charged amounts. I cannot stop every single person entering our premises and explain the significance of such a practice.’

Despite Kalamaras’ insistence that the ownness for negative experiences are on the customers, the McCormicks and the Breens are not the only couples to have complained about the restaurant – a look at DK Oyster’s Trip Advisor page shows scores of irate customers who have described similar questionable experiences.