From looking at the receipt, it appears that the restaurant is adding the surcharge after tax. Shouldn’t this be taxable? It’s no different than if he’d raised his prices $0.35, right?
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I think bank CEO’s should have to itemize the “keep you in the poorhouse while I get a second yacht charges.”
Yeah, we’re charging you $5 for that non-bank ATM withdrawal (on both sides), but you see…we need a second yacht.
If you’re going to itemize your costs to inform the customer where their money is going be fucking honest.
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My bad - I previously posted a link to Blue Plate Co., which I now understand is not the owner of the Stillwater restaurant in the article.
They do “add a fee to servers when a credit card is used to pay a tip.” because of the minimum wage hike, per the article, which seems kind of uncool to me, but less overtly political I guess.
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NB : edited to correct math mistake someone else caught
If each server works every day for 8 hours a day, that is 48 hours of labor a day. Raising minimum wage is then adding $36 a day to his costs. If he has enough business for 6 servers, then the marginal cost per meal is probably about 15 cents if he serves a couple hundred meals a day. If he serves a lot more than that, the cost is even less.
So passing along this cost is trivial. Or it would be trivial if he wasn’t such an a-hole.
Who would’ve thunk that a not-so-thought-out kneejerk reaction by some T’bagger owner to protest gubmint interference (read Muslim Kenyan Usurper) in his right to make crappy food would blow up in his face!
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Sorry, but your math is wrong. It’s a .75 bump in minimum wage, not .35. And if you move it to a forty hour work week, you’ll see it’s close to $10k.
But all the same, this is a ridiculous political stunt which can’t have any upside for them, and they’d have been better off quietly increasing their food prices by ten cents rather than trying to make political statements that can piss people off. And yeah, once you realize a ten cent price bump more than offsets the wage increase, it all becomes silly.
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If you actually get to the courts, probably not. So, go ahead and give your money to a bunch of lawyers instead of some $7/hr peeps.
Go religion!
It’s a 75 cent bump, so it’s closer to $8,000.00
You’re making the same mistake Darcy made. It’s a 75 cent wage increase, not 35 cents. Changes your numbers considerably.
To reach $10k, it’s just 43 hours a week for 52 weeks. Or if you want to give them two weeks off for vacation (which I doubt they get), it’s 45 hours a week.
Absolutely. I don’t even have to be a customer of this restaurant to think the owner an asshole. Does he add a surcharge when Sysco raises the price of his frozen vegetable medley? Raise the prices of the food if that’s what it means to the bottom line.
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Exactly so. It would have been a miniscule raise in the price of each item. But no, he had to make a political statement by making it a separate fee and labeling it as a “minimum wage fee.” And that’s what his customers are really objecting to.
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Exactly. The owner has just given his customers an open invitation to demand a line item accounting of each cost that went into the preparation of their meal.
My guess is people are not interested in the owners political tantrums, they just want to get something to eat.
Check out yelp by the way, they are getting slaughtered.
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Don’t know where I was on my calculations. Still getting over Ann Coulter’s remarks is my only excuse.
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Duh! Quietly raise your prices and it is a cost of doing business. Make a political statement by imposing and publicizing a fee, and you invite those who disagree with your position to call you out. Thanks for letting me know not to patronize any of your establishments. I won’t see you there.
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yes, thanks for pointing that out. It could very well be costing him $10K a year, but it is highly doubtful that it is costing him 35 cents a meal. The marginal cost is trivial. Assuming an average bill of $20, then the extra $0.35 fee is 1.75%. Just raise all prices across the board by 2% and you’ve got things covered.
Good catch. And since it’s not added into the base price of the meal, it probably also cheats the server out of a small portion of his/her tip.
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I would walk out of a restaurant if I saw something like that on a menu (ditto with a healthcare fee or any other itemization of his costs). If that’s how he treats his employees publicly, I can only imagine what it’s like behind closed doors.
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As an aside, it’s time to do away with tipping. I hate sitting after a meal and having to calculate a tip. The wait staff works for the restaurant not the customers. Pay them a professional wage and charge what you need to do that and still make a fair profit. And provide them proper training so they can do their job well.
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Are patrons upset about the FEE or about Beemer getting all pouty about it?
“We’re all appalled at the response for just protecting his employees…”
Nice attempt at deflection. They’ll truly be appalled when they see sales drop. Of course then these wingnuts will say it was all due to the minimum wage increase rather than their foolish decision to make a “statement” by charging this fee.
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