If bitcoin was a currency the meal would have been denominated in bitcoins not dollars. Bitcoin is an asset like gold or a stock certificate, not a currency.
Following your logic, s/bitcoin/Euro/ would mean that the Euro is not a currency. That's just plain goofiness -- the USD is just the default currency at this establishment.
The logic seems to say more that the owner is not treating it as a currency. You can't really define something as a currency or not based on one person's actions.
And those people do not willingly use that currency - they are forced to by their government.
Whatever currency it is that they are comparing to is the currency they really want to use, and probably do on the black market. I'm also confident that that is the currency they keep (or try to keep) their savings in.
And you see real currencies being used in many of them as black market currencies instead of the national currency. You can also see countries trying to stop inflation by indexing to other, stable, currencies.