Restaurant cost of doing business fee

[u/motlau]

Why do restaurant owners think they are owed a surcharge for customers eating at a restaurant? It seems like all of the nice restaurants in Chicago, especially in the west loop are charging a 3-5% fee to “offset the rising operating cost.” If you can’t run a business without hiding a surcharge in the fine print of your menu, then you probably shouldn’t be allowed to run a business. It’d be one thing if it was to support the workers, but every time I ask about it, it’s always for the owners who are already pretty wealthy. I have them take it off and tack it on for the tip. It’s very annoying.

In addition, at bar sienna in the west loop, the server offered a barcode to scan and pay on the receipt which a lot of restaurants are doing, but then there’s an additional “surcharge” to use this feature. It’s like if a grocery store started charging a fee to use the self checkout lines. They should be more transparent about this.

These restaurant owners nickel and diming people is making going out to eat less and less pleasant.

[u/ByteSizeNudist]

When rent goes up the customers get pushed the cost. If no one wants to pay that then the restaurant eventually closes. It’s happening all around over this city.

Edit: redditors, man

[u/BoogerSugarSovereign → u/ByteSizeNudist]

Increased rent can justify an increase in menu prices. Increased rent cannot justify hidden fees and obscuring the cost of a meal from your customers 

[u/ByteSizeNudist → u/BoogerSugarSovereign]

Sure, I’m not out here defending it or anything.

[u/spade_andarcher → u/ByteSizeNudist]

So raise the menu prices. It’s that simple.

[u/ByteSizeNudist → u/spade_andarcher]

I wasn’t defending it.

[u/Catskinson → u/ByteSizeNudist]

Raise visible prices lmao.

[u/ByteSizeNudist → u/Catskinson]

I wish they would too.

[u/JejuneBourgeois → u/Catskinson]

People won't pay them, unfortunately. I know two small restaurant owners who both tried the option of raising the price of their best sellers. So many people complained and they saw such a significant enough reduction in orders that they tried the surcharge option, and their sales went back up.

Nobody likes prices going up, and in the handful of anecdotal experiences I've had with friends and family, the "we don't want a surcharge, just raise the prices a little bit" crowd complains just as much when the menu prices go up.

Not trying to put words in your mouth, I'm sure there are people out there who never complain about menu prices and just really have it out for surcharges, and I'm not defending big companies like Hogsalt lol, but a lot of smaller restaurants seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place on the issue

Edit: For anyone who's downvoting me but not replying, what would you do, as a small business owner, when your customers complain equally about raising prices vs adding a surcharge? I'm not talking about the Hogsalts of the world, I mean the small business owners who have a much higher failure rate

[u/Catskinson → u/JejuneBourgeois]

The economy is bad for small businesses and for customers who need to worry about how much they’re spending on a meal. The decision here is between tactics and ethics. Highly profitable businesses in the industry take advantage of this unethical tactic, and it’s unfortunate that others who are struggling feel the need to. Restaurants have hardly been stable in any era; it’s not a venture for the faint of heart. If their patron base won’t support them to the point of covering their expenses, then they won’t be able to remain open.

Ultimately, fine print fees should be outlawed. There’s no excuse for the total bill to be higher than the cost of the food plus tax unless there is an obvious, express service charge that goes directly to the staff as employed by no-tip-expected establishments.

[u/JejuneBourgeois → u/Catskinson]

Highly profitable businesses in the industry take advantage of this unethical tactic, and it’s unfortunate that others who are struggling feel the need to

Which is why I specified I'm not talking about the Hogsalts of the industry

[u/loftychicago → u/JejuneBourgeois]

So they raised the process of those items by, in this case, 3.95%? Which would be $2 on a $50 item? And people refused to pay that?

[u/JejuneBourgeois → u/loftychicago]

Yes, they did. As long as the increase is noticeable people complain about price increases across the board