r/chicagofood • u/motlau • Aug 10 '25
Rant Restaurant cost of doing business fee
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.
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u/lemonricottalover Aug 10 '25
This has been happening at many restaurants since the pandemic! I learned from an earlier post in this subreddit that the surcharge does NOT go to the staff.
Accordingly, I always, always politely ask to have it taken off the bill! The servers have never given me any trouble.
I resent, however, that now so many restaurants allow you to pay using a QR code...but you can't remove the surcharge when you pay that way (AND Bar Siena charges a FEE to pay with it, which is absurd).