Free beer in Luxembourg

When I went up to pay for the beer that I had just drunk, the owner of the Tavern in Luxembourg refused to take money, I learnt a lesson.


Long story short, we (Me, wife and kid) boarded the wrong bus and ended up in a remote place and were to wait for over 45 minutes in the cold night (< -2 degree Celsius) for the bus in the opposite direction in a shelter-less bus stop with no one else in sight. Checked with the nearby Tavern owner (probably in his 60s) in my broken German if it was OK for us to sit inside till bus time and he said it's perfectly OK and welcomed us.

I ordered a beer as I felt it is not so nice for us to sit inside without consuming food and drinks there. He probably understood this and he said, look, you don't have to order, it's fine. He served me after I insisted. But when I went up to pay, he didn't take the money at all even after insisting.

Why was he so nice to us? He was also offering orange juice, which we declined and candies for my kid. We will probably never see each other again. Why didn't he take the money for the beer? Why was he not thinking that he is making a loss? Why did he have to care for strangers? He did something nice to me and family without expecting anything in return from us. Feels very unusual.
The lessons  I learnt -  Business is not all about money.  Even small nice timely gestures can create a long lasting impact on people.

Sitting now in the bus back to city, I told my wife, next time I am in Luxembourg I am surely visiting him, even though it is away from the city and I have no business there.  We even consoled ourselves that it looks like we took the wrong bus to get a chance to meet this nice person.

Comments

  1. Anoop1 December 2019 at 21:48

    I was very lucky and unlucky. Lucky because after almost a year I got a chance to go to Luxembourg again to speak at the EU DataViz, 2019 on the 12th of November. I was very happy that I got selected as one of the speakers and in addition I was happy that the location was Luxembourg. So I decided that I will go to that tavern and meet the person.

    I searched over internet based on the bus routes and found out the name and location of the tavern, it is Restaurant Taverne Monte Cristo Sàrl , 133 Route de Trèves, 6940 Niederanven, Luxembourg.

    So on 11th November evening I reached Luxembourg airport and took a taxi to the tavern, I had bought a small gift from the Munich airport to give him to show my gratitude. And now the unlucky part, when I reached the tavern the man was not there, he was away, and his wife couldn't speak English or German (of what I could speak), so one of the customers helped with the conversation, I wrote a letter, handed over the gift and left from there both happy and sad, happy to have been there, and sad that I couldn't meet him. May be there is next time :-) .

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