Mumbai woman orders sandwich without cheese at US cafe, gets charged extra for it

A Mumbai content creator said a San Francisco cafe asked her to pay extra to remove cheese from a sandwich. The exchange sparked online debate over whether customisation fees reflect process changes or staff labour.Mumbai woman orders sandwich without cheese at US cafe, gets charged extra for it (Photos: @thatindianchick_/Instagram)A Mumbai-based content creator was left baffled after a simple order for a sandwich without any cheese at a cafe in San Francisco came at a cost, quite literally.Content creator Vagmita Singh, who was on a trip to the US, shared the experience in a video on Instagram, where she questioned the logic behind being charged for an ingredient she did not want.In the video, Vagmita filmed herself in selfie mode as she narrated the experience. She said she had visited a cafe in San Francisco and ordered a sandwich, asking the waitress if it could be made without cheese.The waitress, however, told her that the request was possible, but would cost an additional 75 cents, which Vagmita calculated to be around Rs 72. Surprised by the extra charge, Vagmita questioned why she was being asked to pay for something she had specifically asked the cafe not to include. She jokingly wondered whether customers would also be charged for choosing not to drink Coke, use the bathroom or pay with cash.She then asked the waitress why removing an ingredient would attract an additional fee. The waitress explained that the sandwich recipe was fixed and that the chef would have to put in extra effort to prepare it without cheese. Vagmita summed up the experience in her caption by joking about the irony of being charged for the chef to put less into the sandwich, asking viewers to share their own unusual restaurant experiences.Watch the video here:The video, however, prompted a wave of mixed reactions online. Some viewers shared similar experiences, with one person saying they had encountered the same kind of charge in Paris and had simply chosen to remove the unwanted ingredient themselves.Others offered a different perspective, explaining that the charge could be linked to a restaurant’s standard operating process and the additional labour involved when a customised order falls outside the usual preparation method.Some users also saw the incident as an example of restaurants placing a monetary value on workers’ time and effort, suggesting that the charge was less about the cheese itself and more about the extra human labour involved in modifying a standard order.- EndsPublished By: Yashna TalwarPublished On: Aug 25, 2026 13:00 IST