TO MANAGEMENT: A Restaurant Upcharge Rant
21% and you don’t even tell us?
I have enjoyed your restaurant for many years and would like to continue to patronize your business. On a recent visit, I was very surprised by the 21% upcharge on my bill on top of very high prices.
Your restaurant has always been at the high end of the pricing ladder, and I understand that. But $95 for a steak that doesn’t include any sides struck me as extreme. That’s okay… I selected around it for my meal, settling on a $10 basket of fries (also high) and a $23 pasta plate.
What irritated me far more than your prices was the 21% fee added to my bill on top of those prices. I was not made aware of this charge before ordering by your wait staff or by the menu. Full disclosure would at least help. We were shocked by the bill and spent a long time trying to figure out why it was so high. Then, we found the charge and the little card inside explaining it.
As a consumer and a customer, I object to this practice for multiple reasons. The fee is buried in the taxes line and hard to see. We were given no advance notice. The supposed reason for this is to pay higher wages to staff, but the 18% that goes to the staff is actually less than I would tip, and the tips would go directly to the wait staff, not to the restaurant. The argument that it benefits the wait staff seems specious to me, and as the customer, I have to wonder, where is the incentive for the wait staff to provide excellent service? Do you really think we should tip beyond your 21% upcharge? That doesn’t even pass the smile test.
As a customer, this practice disempowers us to make good decisions, reward good service, and dis-incent poor service. It hides the true cost of dining or drinking in your establishment. And the fact that the fee is so hard to find leads to double tipping — I know because this has happened to me in other establishments. This practice dupes the customer.
Here’s a novel idea: How about if you compete on quality service, atmosphere, food quality, and a fair assessment of price, rather than burying the true cost at your establishment and disempowering your customer from rewarding wait staff appropriately. Need a 3% upcharge? Make your prices honest and reflect that. Want to reward your staff? Let us tip them for good service.
I hope you will reconsider this practice.
Behind this Letter
The letter above is nice and polite, even though complaining. It hides my outrage. I am incensed. How the hell do restaurants get off adding a 21.3% upcharge onto the bill and then justify it by claiming they are paying higher wages? Going out to eat is becoming like going to the doctor — you know you need to eat and will buy something, but even though there are prices on the menu, you have no idea how much you are actually going to end up paying.
Anthony Signorelli
I don’t usually write about restaurants… just had to sound off. My other work is about postcapitalism, #MeToo, Eloquence of the Heart, and climate change. Check them out here: https://medium.com/@ASignorelli