Even more victims of an ill-famed Greek tourist trap have come forward, angry about being ripped off.
A furious couple from Montana said they were stuck with an $860 bill after being forced to order light bites and drinks at a Mykonos restaurant notorious for scamming tourists.
Jessica Yarnall, 31, and Adam Hagaun, 30, were strolling around the Greek island in May 2022 when they casually walked into DK Oyster bar.
“There were waiters outside trying to get people in. They asked if we wanted to eat and we said we’d get one drink,” Yarnall recounted.
She remembers asking for a menu to check the prices and believed the restaurant to be “affordable.” The couple had saved money for two years to explore Greece and were prepared to “splurge” — but not like this.
“We sat down and talked about whether to eat or not. They were very pushy. We thought maybe that’s how it is and we didn’t want to be rude,” Yarnall told Kennedy News.
The couple asked the waiter for recommendations, and he suggested crab legs and Greek salad. They said they would think about it but were quickly brought bread rolls and pressured into accepting the food.
“We told them we didn’t order anything yet, and they said we had,” Yarnell said. “There was a little bit of a language barrier, so we think when we said we’d think about it, he thought we meant yes, so when we were trying to work out how much it was going to cost, they started bringing out the food, and they said we definitely ordered this.”
“It was a forceful moment where we didn’t want to be weird about it but we were also trying to relax. We didn’t want to get into an argument with a server.”
The couple agreed that the meal might be “a little bit expensive” but decided to dig into what was brought out to them anyway.
“I thought worst case scenario it would be $300. We were expecting it to be a little more expensive but not as much as it was with the quality of the food,” she said.
They were completely shocked when the check actually came.
“Adam got the bill and said ‘It’s bad,’ ” she remembered. “It was over 800 euros, and I thought ‘absolutely not,’ so I went to the manager and said I was really confused and wanted to see an itemized bill.”
The unhappy customers Googled the menu and were confused by the discrepancy between the 25 euro mojito and the 100 euro mojito on their bill when the server aggressively explained the reasoning.
“He came to the bar and slammed down a shot glass and said, ‘That’s a 25 euro mojito. You ordered a 100 euro mojito,’ and I told him I did not and that I wasn’t given choices,” Yarnall said.
“They charged 100 euros for the grossest mojito, the mint wasn’t nice. It was disgusting.”
She also noticed that “it looked like 38 euro for a crab leg, it was 38 euro for a gram of crab leg and there’s a minimum you have to order.”
“The Greek salad was vegetable and oil so not complicated but it wasn’t the best one we’d had, it got gross really fast. I’m no chef but think the crab legs tasted [bad], it wasn’t amazing and not even worth 100 euros.”
The server then angrily insisted that the couple pay their bill and refused to discuss the situation any further. Yarnell said she remembered looking around the room and noticing other diners “freaking out” about their bills.
“We were so taken aback that we thought we’d pay the damn bill and get out of there. We were super upset,” Yarnell said. She claims that as well as being the most expensive meal out they had, it was also the worst and forced them to cut back on spending for the remainder of their trip.
When the couple returned to their hotel, Yarnell immediately made a TikTok recounting their horrible experience and left several terrible reviews of the tourist trap.
But her negative reviews weren’t the only ones.
DK Oysters on Platys Gialos in Mykonos has 1,712 reviews on Tripadvisor, earning them 2.5 stars. The page is flooded with one-star accounts of people accusing the restaurant of terrible service, aggressive tactics and sneaky outrageous prices.
The review site also issues a special warning about the restaurant, which reads: “Tripadvisor has been made aware of recent media reports or events concerning this property which may not be reflected in reviews found on this listing. Accordingly, you may wish to perform additional research for information about this property when making your travel plans.”
The beachfront spot has gone viral and made headlines several times as outraged customers feel that they were fooled into paying extremely high prices for subpar food and sketchy service.
The owner of DK Oyster, Dimitrios Kalamaras, has hit back at tourists’ bad reviews, claiming they’re all influencers trying to score a free meal.
“Unfortunately, all of us who work in the hospitality sector have been approached by notorious ‘influencers’ who, instead of making their living by advertising products and services to their audience, they put pressure on certain businesses for exorbitant fees and free meals,” Kalamaras told Kennedy News.
“In DK Oyster we have advertised in the ways we consider suitable for our restaurant and we will not succumb to the influencers who have been attracted to the beautiful island of Mykonos,” he continued.
Despite Kalamaras’ denial of the complaints, DK Oyster was recently fined more than $30,000 for scamming two American tourists, the Greek City Times reported.
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The restaurant sits on the shores of the Aegean Sea on the Platis Gialos beach, welcoming tourists with free beach seats as they explore the top tourist destination.
The owner described the spot as a “very popular destination” for people that certain influencers would like to mingle with and claims that the accusations and bad reviews are all unfounded.
“This false claim has been used so much against our restaurant by dozens of anonymous users in Tripadvisor, that we decided to place three huge blackboards by the entrance of the restaurant displaying the menu and the prices,” he said.
But Kalamaras stands by his restaurant and workers, insisting that cheap clients are ruining the reputation of the spot.
“Every time I received such a complaint, always by anonymous users through Tripadvisor, I consulted with the personnel, reminding that it is crucial for our reputation to be sure that procedures are followed carefully,” he said. “They always assured me that they abide by the rules.”
Kalamaras also said that he replies to some of the Tripadvisor comments to defend the shop and the quality of their service.
“We believe that the value of the offered experience is high and we have no intention to explain why we charge more than a supermarket or a traditional taverna, which can be quite wonderful but is surely a completely different concept than ours,” he said.