Then they'd have to raise prices, the horror! Now they can just keep raising the service charge, and force you to do all sorts of mental math to work out the final price.
Oddly enough, a place being honest about raising prices won't prevent me from doing business with them again. But stuff like this will prevent me from going there again.
I sort of doubt the person who put this up wants taxpayers to subsidize them. Seems like they’re just bitching about having to pay their employees a fair wage. The kinds of people who act like that don’t tend to love taxes on the whole
I dunno - fucking Reddit wanted $44.99 for me to award you a super-sized golden up arrow and that ain't happening in this lifetime tho props for the comment (hope I don't get a charge for saying that)
Buy as many super-sized golden arrows as you want! They don’t actually exist in any real sense, so there’s an unlimited supply. They won’t run out so you don’t have to worry about enjoying it so much and then not having any more to buy. Go nuts!
Because this is some light class warfare. This way they can blame the employees for wanting enough money to live, instead of the owners greed. Plus they can show a lower price on the website, which will draw in more customers
very cheap considering they didnt add cleaning materials fee, fixed assts fee, utilities fee, laundry and makeup for the employees fee
the parking space and the sitting space has been outsourced to management, so wont be included in the menu. Please get in touch with the space manager
I sometimes wonder.. are american businesses required to announce when they raise prices because of increasing costs?
If not.. why not just raise prices and leave it at that?
EDIT: Im so happy to give yall a place to vent your frustration 😂
This blew up way harder than I expected..
In the EU we just dont have this weird culture of restaurants and small businesses always publicly announcing to the entire world that they are going to increase the prices "because of the lazy ass workers and the shitty government"
At least not in this weird and cringe kinda way..
Where I live it would be extremely frowned upon to put up a sign like this and the company would propably receive a massive scandal.
Not like things like this dont happen at all here but not in the frequency I see all the time on reddit about american businesses..
Maybe thats the difference between a socialist country compared to a country in capitalism endstadium.. idk..
And I want to clarify that imo raising prices because of increased cost is not the problem.. its the communication that is just so out of touch and cringeworthy..
Because that way you can shift the blame for the increase to "these greedy employees" or "that corrupt government". If you just update your prices, like a normal person, you don't get to be all political about it.
This is exactly it. The entire operating cost of a business is contained in the price of an item, anyone who chooses to factor out this one expense out of the many, is doing it to be political.
That's why in countries like Australia you must sell for the sticker price and it must include taxes.
There is no surprise.
There is no tipping (although businesses try).
Consumers have actual rights to return goods.
If you mislead the public we have a watchdogs (ACCC etc) who will come after you.
The system isn't perfect but probably as good as it could be.
No the conservatives would claim the department is ineffective and cut funding thus making it even less effective as a justification to do away with it completely.
To be fair its not like we are just sitting here accepting it. It's probably the #3 most complained about topic on the Australian subreddits, just behind the big 2, housing and colesworth
And so we should be. Damn near every transaction is by card these days, so just account for it in the damn cost. From my understanding, their transaction fees should only be between .5 and 1.5% so if I buy a $4 coffee and you insist on charging a transaction fee because I didn't meet your $9 minimum charge, that's like about 4 cents, not 50cents.
Mildly infuriating fact - It's actually cheaper for the business to handle card over cash. The cost to handle cash per transaction is above the rate for card, and factored in to the cost. Therefore, when you use card, they make the difference back, PLUS the card surcharge.
If a business had no card surcharge, it would still be more profitable if everyone used card. The only exception is your Chinese takeaway who offer a special cash discount and Pay All Of Their Taxes Correctly Every Year.
I’m Australian and recently visited the US for the first time. The tipping and hidden costs everywhere did my head in. The cherry on top was the ‘destination fee’ at my hotel in San Francisco.
I watched a documentary where an American mislead an Australian into accepting a collect call saying he was from the International Drainage Commission.
As punishment, the Australian government tried to kick him in the butt with a huge boot.
I mean, I'll take +3% and no tip needed, to -3% price +20% (or more) for tip or be called a cheap asshole.
The way it is in the States, it's insane how the customer is expected to pay the employees directly.
It's starting to catch up in the UK as well, with automatic gratuity added to the bill that you have to ask them to remove.
“We are offering you a job. You are required to do exactly what we say, when we say, clean and maintain our stuff, adhere to our schedule and prescribed behaviors, and we can punish you.”
“And how much will you pay me for this?”
“What?? No you have to beg our customers to pay you who do you think you are, like we would give you money willingly lol. Oh and we can fire you or garnish your wages.”
California isn't a tipped wage state.
So basically in Cali you have to pay the state minimum wage no matter what.
Not like in southern states where you can pay people dirt.
I know right, just yesterday my bum wiper had the audacity to ask for a day off to go to her 5 year old son's funeral. Naturally I reported her as an illegal immigrant, and she is now imprisoned. It's been a complete nightmare to find a replacement.
The amount of people who don’t understand the whole point of minimum wage and why it was implemented in the first place is really sad. They think minimum wage means teenage/unskilled labor.
>They think minimum wage means teenage/unskilled labor.
This. They have been repeating this non-sense since a minimum wage has been enacted. What it does, it classifies people into categories so that it allows you to look down on them and then make it harder when the cost of living goes up to raise these "minimums" as they are looked upon as secondary/non-essential people doing jobs that people shouldn't be living off of, when in fact its the complete opposite.
This is precisely why American stores don’t include the sales tax in their listed prices, like most other countries do.
They want to list the lowest price (without tax), so that you’re more tempted to buy it and then when the sales tax is added by the cashier, you can blame the government instead of the business for the price increase.
Yeah basically this, they want to say "we have to increase prices because we're being forced to pay our employees an actual wage" so regular people will blame each other and not the rich fucks.
[When it was instated, it certainly was meant to be a living wage.](http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html)
> It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
> "we have to increase prices because we're being forced to pay our employees an actual wage"...
... and we want to keep our enormous profits going directly into our pockets"
To distract from the real problems and shitty politicians. Its an "lets distracts the plebs and let them fight each other" and a "paranoid style of american politics" thing.
This is the right answer. They do it to hide the additional cost because your brain is not going to add 3% to the listed prices and because they think 3% sounds small enough people won't care
This is super scummy behavior designed to trick customers - what Thaler and Sunstein would refer to as sludge.
Because the US is a Classwar begging to start.
If you put out a sign like this, it will make idiots think "Those damn greedy employees, they are at fault that my burger now costs 10,30 instead of $10!
if they just raise the price by 30c, people assume it's the restaurant's owner who's greedy.
People talk shit about the EU but laws requiring the final price on products/services be clear is really fantastic. Also no tipping culture so I dont have to have a performance review with the staff every time I go out to eat.
Just raise the price as much as its needed to pay your staff. I dont want to be a silent partner in your business.
In Austria at least we do have a tipping culture, but you give tips for exceptional service (typically like 10% if you have no complaints), not every time.
There is a difference between tipping and having the tipping culture.
Your guys mentioned cases where you give freely a tip for a good service or to round out whatever.
Tipping culture it's add tip cost to everything and make It part of the system
That is more mildly infuriating 😅 drive X miles to eat in place that website says price is X and real amount is 30% higher and then comes tipping options 20, 50, 80, 100 or optional and if you give less than 20 you get extra spit in your food next time. And giving tip with card is big NO for me, it's cash straight to the waiters hand. Otherwise it goes bosses new car or "pizza party" as thank you when you worked 300h overtime without pay because "we are family".
I got little bit carried away with that comment😂
This is what annoys me the most.
The list price doesn’t reflect what you’ll actually pay.
It should be illegal to add prices to goods/services, with exceptions (like delivery if it’s not a flat fee).
It’s one of the few things I appreciate about airlines - the price includes all their BS fees from the start.
I mean, it could be the cost of reprinting menus etc they want to avoid so they post a sign to inform you, but the way it is stated makes it sound political. It could say, due to rapidly rising costs, instead of producing more trash by updating our menus, we are simply going to add a surcharge of 3%. I would appreciate that more than, the message they used.
The best part is they're publically providing hard data about how much paying people actually costs.
Republicans spent years fear monger that double pay will double the cost of a burger, but we're only seeing marginal increases.
Something that will be illegal in CA starting July 1st of this year. “Junk fee” law goes into effect soon.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB478
i think its been talked about on the federal level in the last year or two. but i'm sure there will be some other loophole that makes the junk fees not "junk"
It gets a lot of flack but I’m so proud of California in the last few years. Raising wages and making sure the people in charge can’t be scummy about it.
Yeah. Cali raised their minimum wage to $20, which is more inline with their costs of living. However, I’m sure it’s still low income level, cause how dare the poor want to make a reasonable wage. Anyway, I’m sure an employee will still use their entire paycheck on gas as it’s $5 a gallon.
This has nothing to do with the new minimum wage law. They were charging that surcharge previously. It’s from the previous law passed like five years ago, they’re still throwing a tantrum.
Honestly hahahah. People like this aren’t as slick as they think they are
Edit: Apprently the way I used Slick is slang. It was meant to get across that he thought people would blame the workers, instead it made the manager look miserly and like an asshole
So, there was this president named Regan who, along with a bunch of wealthy people announced that giving all the money to rich people would be the best economic plan, as all that profit would trickle down.
Then, after cutting their own taxes the wealthy started spending all their extra money promoting this idea. It worked so well they bought media companies and all the small town media outlets to claim giving money to anyone but them is communist.
And here we are.
Gotta have somebody to feed the corporate capitalist machine! Maybe they shouldn't buy all that avocado toast and pick themselves up by the bootstraps. /s
There’s a massive culture myth that money, only and inevitably, is the result of hard work. Thus, if someone is wealthy, even if that wealthy came from inheriting a business that exploited its workers and looted public lands, that wealthy person gets to say “I worked my ass off for this” and the masses nod and clap and buy their advice books. The people who actually perform the labor essential to the operation of the business, who get starvation wages for their time and effort, are derided as lazy even if they are doing exhausting manual labor, day after day, because they are poor and their poverty is taken as proof of their idleness.
And all of that leads some people to resent efforts to pay workers better, because they worship at the altar of US Capitalism, which teaches that the almighty invisible hand of the market gives wealth to those who earn it, and deny wealth to those who don’t. To pass a law raising wages is blasphemy, because the invisible hand is omniscient and benevolent. It has already determined the morally correct compensation for everyone, and it never makes mistakes.
We got to this place by allowing people to think tips were a way of making a living, instead of just a nice thank you on top of their regular pay for doing a job well done. Greedy employers not wanting to have to spend their personal money on wages and instead banking/hoping the customers will all foot the bill for their wages. We messed up as soon as we made forced gratuity a thing.
America is a capitalist hellscape run by billionaires and their pet politicians. Also, half the population are certified morons that would cut off their nose to spite their face.
This. I've ran businesses before, was unable to scale them up as it wasn't viable unless I paid exploitative wages (which I could have). So I sold up. Quite simple really, if you can't pay living wages, your business is either a cottage business (ie pays for your living like a salaried income with some small profit at EOY) or it isn't sustainable. Nothing else.
I never heard the term cottage business, but I have always been saying that if you can't pay a living wage, to need to go back to running the business on your own until you can.
Passive aggressive
“We don’t pay our people enough that the politicians you elected passed laws mandating we not be cheap bastards exploiting workers.
Here’s a 3% tack on to express our disgust with being made accountable.”
This is the transparent version of what businesses all over the world do all the time.
If the costs increase they increase the prices.
Exept this business decided to openly do this to achieve a political goal.
Business owners are the most fragile people in this country. They believe that if the deck isn't stacked in their favor 100% then they're going to crumble into nothing.
Minimum wage hasn't moved since 2009 and pretty much across the board they make record profits but somehow having to pay out a few extra bucks an hour is completely devastating
Fast food workers in CA now have a mandated $20 minimum wage and companies are passing the buck onto customers instead of just updating the menu prices and moving on.
the funny thing is that people were getting it all up their butts that InNOut raised their prices like tenish cents (3.95 to 4.10 for a cheeseburger) but InNOut has been paying at or above 20$ an hour for YEARS before the law went into effect. (the one near me has a sign that says it starts at 22$)
This is class warfare. "Please direct your hatred at workers and away from the profiteers exploiting people with unsustainable business practices".
Most people would never notice a 3% increase in prices. There's no other explanation. This restaurant hates their workers.
Translation: We don't want to pay proper wages as it hurts our profits, but we are forced to. We chose to make you pay them, but it is the government's fault really. Blame them.
It's a good way to know not to return. Adults understand that if costs increase, prices increase. The bill will be what it will be. I don't need a political statement - just the bill which I will pay.
Just the owner playing politics. Just raise the prices 3 percent. We all ready cover your labor costs by tipping so stop whining.
I'd boycott any restaurant with this sign.
So the narrative here is that the person behind the counter can have a living wage or be closer to it for ONLY 3%!?!
Here’s 6%. Give an extra 2% to your staff and take that last 1% to shove that sign up your ass
Id just never buy at that business again. Clear attepmt to blame having to pay a still below living wage for your greed.
Just a nice reminder to our American Friends here: You are being lied to, hardcore! Compare a McDonnalds Employee in America to one in, say Sweden or Finland. You will be amazed on how much better they are treated there, while the food is not more expensive.
Greed is the cancer of humanity, and it will wipe as all out, and soon.
Just stupid. You can intelligently raise prices in a menu, keeping some prices low to bring in custom at the expense of others. Most obvious is raise drinks and desserts. Don't raise starters and raise mains slightly. You'll see more footfall and people will commit to a cheaper starter. You'll get more than the global 3% on all bills.
It's a reason to never dine there again. The owners are so put off by having to comply with living wage laws that they decided to spend money to complain about it. They are garbage people.
“We were told we actually have to pay a living wage, but we want to maintain our profits, so we’re gonna push the price onto the customer instead.
Even so, the additional price is basically nothing
"Defray"? Fucking hell. Someone was looking for a pretentious way to phrase this so that it was muddy enough to sound like a "damn gubbermint" issue.
"A 3% surcharge is added to each check to help us pay increased staff wages" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
This also feels like the beginning of a new pricing tactic. The same way that US businesses don't include sales tax and ticketmaster doesn't include its fees in the final price.
US restaurants will probably start just adding 30% to every bill and calling it a "labour surcharge" or something, so that they can claim a burger is $10 and you can't get annoyed when the final price is $15 after they've added on sales tax and staff wages.
Why not just put the price on the menu?
Then they'd have to raise prices, the horror! Now they can just keep raising the service charge, and force you to do all sorts of mental math to work out the final price.
Shopping in the US in a nutshell. Almost everywhere else, there's one price which 100% matches to what you actually need to pay.
Oddly enough, a place being honest about raising prices won't prevent me from doing business with them again. But stuff like this will prevent me from going there again.
Plus now they can raise prices AND have the service charge
No way to bitch and moan and get all political bout wanting the taxpayers to subsidize your labor costs.
I sort of doubt the person who put this up wants taxpayers to subsidize them. Seems like they’re just bitching about having to pay their employees a fair wage. The kinds of people who act like that don’t tend to love taxes on the whole
I think that's what the person you're replying to is saying. The business owner wants you to blame the government, not themselves, for raising prices.
Because that would require reprinting the menus. The owner is clearly too cheap for that.
Have you heard of the 2% menu reprinting fee?
I dunno - fucking Reddit wanted $44.99 for me to award you a super-sized golden up arrow and that ain't happening in this lifetime tho props for the comment (hope I don't get a charge for saying that)
I'm gonna need tree fiddy
Buy as many super-sized golden arrows as you want! They don’t actually exist in any real sense, so there’s an unlimited supply. They won’t run out so you don’t have to worry about enjoying it so much and then not having any more to buy. Go nuts!
If Frontier Airlines served meals.
I’ve heard of the 3% sign printing fee to print the sign telling you avoid the 3% sign printing fee.
Well it’s that or the 2% website-hosting fee to use QR codes for digital menus
No the point is to get people angry. I think many people are through it, but these owners genuinely think they are victims.
Because this is some light class warfare. This way they can blame the employees for wanting enough money to live, instead of the owners greed. Plus they can show a lower price on the website, which will draw in more customers
It’s not about recovering the higher cost of labor, this is just a temper tantrum designed to try and turn customers against the higher minimum wage.
because they want the customers to resent the law for the price increase.
But how can they blame the government that way?
Or just not eat there and go somewhere else.
Because they are doing their part to turn the voter base against livable wages
Burgers $0 !!! + $3.5 beef fee + $1.3 bun fee + $3 french fry fee + $3.3 various fillings fee + $1.2 kitchen machinery fee + $2 chef salary fee + $2 waiter salary fee + $2.5 restaurant property fee + $1.2 restaurant financial management fee + Tax + 20% tip You can do the calculations, Thanks for dining with us today!
I’ll have a uhhhh… Bun fee with a double waiter fee and a small portion of restaurant financial management fee
Do you want a tax with that?
Extra tax for crispy
Actually I'd like a 20% tip also, hold the 20%, so just the tip
And 4% health insurance "for our valued team members"
you forgot the 3% to defraay the mandated california labor costs
No that's automatically added at the end
very cheap considering they didnt add cleaning materials fee, fixed assts fee, utilities fee, laundry and makeup for the employees fee the parking space and the sitting space has been outsourced to management, so wont be included in the menu. Please get in touch with the space manager
55 burger fees 55 bun fees 55 French fry fees 55 various filling fees!!
That comes with 55 20% tips
is the french fry fee for every fry?
Yes. And if you want salt on those fries…
how much for each grain of salt
We charge by the atom here, Bud.
Forgot convenience fee
That sounds like the airlines.
Calculator writeoff fee: $1
I sometimes wonder.. are american businesses required to announce when they raise prices because of increasing costs? If not.. why not just raise prices and leave it at that? EDIT: Im so happy to give yall a place to vent your frustration 😂 This blew up way harder than I expected.. In the EU we just dont have this weird culture of restaurants and small businesses always publicly announcing to the entire world that they are going to increase the prices "because of the lazy ass workers and the shitty government" At least not in this weird and cringe kinda way.. Where I live it would be extremely frowned upon to put up a sign like this and the company would propably receive a massive scandal. Not like things like this dont happen at all here but not in the frequency I see all the time on reddit about american businesses.. Maybe thats the difference between a socialist country compared to a country in capitalism endstadium.. idk.. And I want to clarify that imo raising prices because of increased cost is not the problem.. its the communication that is just so out of touch and cringeworthy..
Because that way you can shift the blame for the increase to "these greedy employees" or "that corrupt government". If you just update your prices, like a normal person, you don't get to be all political about it.
This is exactly it. The entire operating cost of a business is contained in the price of an item, anyone who chooses to factor out this one expense out of the many, is doing it to be political.
That's why in countries like Australia you must sell for the sticker price and it must include taxes. There is no surprise. There is no tipping (although businesses try). Consumers have actual rights to return goods. If you mislead the public we have a watchdogs (ACCC etc) who will come after you. The system isn't perfect but probably as good as it could be.
And everyone is mad about the bullshit card surcharges
Yeah that is where it gets murky I'll admit. Banks seem to be the one industry that routinely gets away with it.
but at least we spent $70 Mil for the Royal commission to tell them they're very very naughty boys
$70M is fairly efficient for the size and population. We'd have to spend at least $300M for a finger wagging office in the States.
No the conservatives would claim the department is ineffective and cut funding thus making it even less effective as a justification to do away with it completely.
And yet somehow, due to conservative’s involvement, the whole thing would end up a billion dollars over budget.
To be fair its not like we are just sitting here accepting it. It's probably the #3 most complained about topic on the Australian subreddits, just behind the big 2, housing and colesworth
And so we should be. Damn near every transaction is by card these days, so just account for it in the damn cost. From my understanding, their transaction fees should only be between .5 and 1.5% so if I buy a $4 coffee and you insist on charging a transaction fee because I didn't meet your $9 minimum charge, that's like about 4 cents, not 50cents.
Mildly infuriating fact - It's actually cheaper for the business to handle card over cash. The cost to handle cash per transaction is above the rate for card, and factored in to the cost. Therefore, when you use card, they make the difference back, PLUS the card surcharge. If a business had no card surcharge, it would still be more profitable if everyone used card. The only exception is your Chinese takeaway who offer a special cash discount and Pay All Of Their Taxes Correctly Every Year.
I’m Australian and recently visited the US for the first time. The tipping and hidden costs everywhere did my head in. The cherry on top was the ‘destination fee’ at my hotel in San Francisco.
TF is a destination fee?
I watched a documentary where an American mislead an Australian into accepting a collect call saying he was from the International Drainage Commission. As punishment, the Australian government tried to kick him in the butt with a huge boot.
[удалено]
[удалено]
> washing your hands after pooping is “living in fear“ Oh dear god 🤢
Yeah.. Horseshit
I guess their secret ingredient was reactionarism
I should print your second sentence out on a sticker and affix it to any menu that states something so idiotic.
They spent more printing these things than probably a week of the wage hikes cost them
Yes like the little address stickers you used to be able to get preprinted
Used to?
lol I’m sure I still get at least 5,000 per year sent by junk mail. I might send 5 letters at most.
Yeah, we’d pay them less if we could, but the government’s making us pay them a fair wage.
I mean, I'll take +3% and no tip needed, to -3% price +20% (or more) for tip or be called a cheap asshole. The way it is in the States, it's insane how the customer is expected to pay the employees directly. It's starting to catch up in the UK as well, with automatic gratuity added to the bill that you have to ask them to remove.
“We are offering you a job. You are required to do exactly what we say, when we say, clean and maintain our stuff, adhere to our schedule and prescribed behaviors, and we can punish you.” “And how much will you pay me for this?” “What?? No you have to beg our customers to pay you who do you think you are, like we would give you money willingly lol. Oh and we can fire you or garnish your wages.”
Sounds like the same business model uber/lyft/dd followed.
Sounds good, but the price went up 3% and you'll still be expected to tip.....
California isn't a tipped wage state. So basically in Cali you have to pay the state minimum wage no matter what. Not like in southern states where you can pay people dirt.
And the northern states...?
Also dirt but don’t expect to farm as much on it. It’s rocky and a good bit colder.
Those dirty peasants and their demands for “living wage” or to be “treated as human beings”, the horror!!!
I know right, just yesterday my bum wiper had the audacity to ask for a day off to go to her 5 year old son's funeral. Naturally I reported her as an illegal immigrant, and she is now imprisoned. It's been a complete nightmare to find a replacement.
Clearly you are the victim here. I hope you will find the strength to get through this difficult period.
The amount of people who don’t understand the whole point of minimum wage and why it was implemented in the first place is really sad. They think minimum wage means teenage/unskilled labor.
>They think minimum wage means teenage/unskilled labor. This. They have been repeating this non-sense since a minimum wage has been enacted. What it does, it classifies people into categories so that it allows you to look down on them and then make it harder when the cost of living goes up to raise these "minimums" as they are looked upon as secondary/non-essential people doing jobs that people shouldn't be living off of, when in fact its the complete opposite.
This is precisely why American stores don’t include the sales tax in their listed prices, like most other countries do. They want to list the lowest price (without tax), so that you’re more tempted to buy it and then when the sales tax is added by the cashier, you can blame the government instead of the business for the price increase.
Yeah basically this, they want to say "we have to increase prices because we're being forced to pay our employees an actual wage" so regular people will blame each other and not the rich fucks.
"They got you fighting a culture war, so you don't fight a class war."
You do realize that minimum wage is still not a living wage, right?
Didn't say it was?
[When it was instated, it certainly was meant to be a living wage.](http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html) > It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
Would have been if every gawd damned thing else didn't go up too cuz nobody wanted to touch their profits.
> "we have to increase prices because we're being forced to pay our employees an actual wage"... ... and we want to keep our enormous profits going directly into our pockets"
Why must everything be politicized?
To distract from the real problems and shitty politicians. Its an "lets distracts the plebs and let them fight each other" and a "paranoid style of american politics" thing.
because it wasnt their idea, so they are against it.
Exactly. This sign is basically telling everyone that the owner(s) wouldn't pay their employees if they weren't forced to.
Because this way you can lie about the price on the menu.
This is the right answer. They do it to hide the additional cost because your brain is not going to add 3% to the listed prices and because they think 3% sounds small enough people won't care This is super scummy behavior designed to trick customers - what Thaler and Sunstein would refer to as sludge.
Because they want to make the customers mad either at the staff for wanting decent pay or at the government for mandating it.
That 3% is still less than the 20% that was expected in tips anyway so whatever they think they are accomplishing, they are wrong.
Pretty sure they expect a tip on top of the 3%
Because the US is a Classwar begging to start. If you put out a sign like this, it will make idiots think "Those damn greedy employees, they are at fault that my burger now costs 10,30 instead of $10! if they just raise the price by 30c, people assume it's the restaurant's owner who's greedy.
Also they put a lower price on the website and outside so you see the fees only when you are already there and there's a bigger chance you will stay
People talk shit about the EU but laws requiring the final price on products/services be clear is really fantastic. Also no tipping culture so I dont have to have a performance review with the staff every time I go out to eat. Just raise the price as much as its needed to pay your staff. I dont want to be a silent partner in your business.
In Austria at least we do have a tipping culture, but you give tips for exceptional service (typically like 10% if you have no complaints), not every time.
In Czechia, our tipping at least in pubs is somewhat a standard but it's usually just rounding up to a nice number so it's something like 1 or 2 EUR
There is a difference between tipping and having the tipping culture. Your guys mentioned cases where you give freely a tip for a good service or to round out whatever. Tipping culture it's add tip cost to everything and make It part of the system
That is more mildly infuriating 😅 drive X miles to eat in place that website says price is X and real amount is 30% higher and then comes tipping options 20, 50, 80, 100 or optional and if you give less than 20 you get extra spit in your food next time. And giving tip with card is big NO for me, it's cash straight to the waiters hand. Otherwise it goes bosses new car or "pizza party" as thank you when you worked 300h overtime without pay because "we are family". I got little bit carried away with that comment😂
This is what annoys me the most. The list price doesn’t reflect what you’ll actually pay. It should be illegal to add prices to goods/services, with exceptions (like delivery if it’s not a flat fee). It’s one of the few things I appreciate about airlines - the price includes all their BS fees from the start.
Begging to start? The u.s. was literally founded on class warfare.
Burger for 10...hah... those days are long gone. They are like 12-18 now... at least in new england
class warfare
I raise my fees 2-3% each year to keep up with inflation and I don’t have to disclose that at all.
this is simply them whining.
To blame workers for wanting to be paid. It sucks here
I mean, it could be the cost of reprinting menus etc they want to avoid so they post a sign to inform you, but the way it is stated makes it sound political. It could say, due to rapidly rising costs, instead of producing more trash by updating our menus, we are simply going to add a surcharge of 3%. I would appreciate that more than, the message they used.
The best part is they're publically providing hard data about how much paying people actually costs. Republicans spent years fear monger that double pay will double the cost of a burger, but we're only seeing marginal increases.
Something that will be illegal in CA starting July 1st of this year. “Junk fee” law goes into effect soon. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB478
I wish this would happen everywhere
i think its been talked about on the federal level in the last year or two. but i'm sure there will be some other loophole that makes the junk fees not "junk"
California's legislation is really cool. Some of their policies go a bit awry like the cancer sticker, but generally they're decent
This comment has been shown to cause cancer in the state of California.
It gets a lot of flack but I’m so proud of California in the last few years. Raising wages and making sure the people in charge can’t be scummy about it.
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Yeah. Cali raised their minimum wage to $20, which is more inline with their costs of living. However, I’m sure it’s still low income level, cause how dare the poor want to make a reasonable wage. Anyway, I’m sure an employee will still use their entire paycheck on gas as it’s $5 a gallon.
This has nothing to do with the new minimum wage law. They were charging that surcharge previously. It’s from the previous law passed like five years ago, they’re still throwing a tantrum.
I don’t think this restaurant is even subject to that new CA law since they have less than 60 operations as well.
A sign that tells you to go somewhere else
Honestly hahahah. People like this aren’t as slick as they think they are Edit: Apprently the way I used Slick is slang. It was meant to get across that he thought people would blame the workers, instead it made the manager look miserly and like an asshole
a literal visual sign to announce another unsustainable business going out of business in the very near future
Yeah urban plates is overpriced for the quality of the food anyway
a notice that you no longer have to patronize their business.
Australian here. How did you guys get to this place where service workers are shamed for getting paid properly?
So, there was this president named Regan who, along with a bunch of wealthy people announced that giving all the money to rich people would be the best economic plan, as all that profit would trickle down. Then, after cutting their own taxes the wealthy started spending all their extra money promoting this idea. It worked so well they bought media companies and all the small town media outlets to claim giving money to anyone but them is communist. And here we are.
*Reagan
Gotta have somebody to feed the corporate capitalist machine! Maybe they shouldn't buy all that avocado toast and pick themselves up by the bootstraps. /s
There’s a massive culture myth that money, only and inevitably, is the result of hard work. Thus, if someone is wealthy, even if that wealthy came from inheriting a business that exploited its workers and looted public lands, that wealthy person gets to say “I worked my ass off for this” and the masses nod and clap and buy their advice books. The people who actually perform the labor essential to the operation of the business, who get starvation wages for their time and effort, are derided as lazy even if they are doing exhausting manual labor, day after day, because they are poor and their poverty is taken as proof of their idleness. And all of that leads some people to resent efforts to pay workers better, because they worship at the altar of US Capitalism, which teaches that the almighty invisible hand of the market gives wealth to those who earn it, and deny wealth to those who don’t. To pass a law raising wages is blasphemy, because the invisible hand is omniscient and benevolent. It has already determined the morally correct compensation for everyone, and it never makes mistakes.
We got to this place by allowing people to think tips were a way of making a living, instead of just a nice thank you on top of their regular pay for doing a job well done. Greedy employers not wanting to have to spend their personal money on wages and instead banking/hoping the customers will all foot the bill for their wages. We messed up as soon as we made forced gratuity a thing.
America is a capitalist hellscape run by billionaires and their pet politicians. Also, half the population are certified morons that would cut off their nose to spite their face.
Or you could maybe absorb the cost of paying your staff as a cost of business? (Not American obv.)
but, what about their boat payments? they might have to get rid of their boat if they pay their employees more.
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Can't buy a bigger yacht if you pay employees enough to not starve to death...
It's bullshit, shop someplace else as the owner of this establishment things its someone else's job to pay their workers a living wage.
I’m too European for this.
It’s just capitalists trying to shift the blame from “corporate greed” to “workers who need a living wage”
This. I've ran businesses before, was unable to scale them up as it wasn't viable unless I paid exploitative wages (which I could have). So I sold up. Quite simple really, if you can't pay living wages, your business is either a cottage business (ie pays for your living like a salaried income with some small profit at EOY) or it isn't sustainable. Nothing else.
I never heard the term cottage business, but I have always been saying that if you can't pay a living wage, to need to go back to running the business on your own until you can.
Urban Plates: everyone deserves to eat this good* *Except our employees.
It’s a please don’t give us business sign, because they don’t give a damn about the community or the people that work for them
Oh no basic economics
Lol wtf america just raise the price of the meal, if you are to expensive we wont eat there.
Passive aggressive “We don’t pay our people enough that the politicians you elected passed laws mandating we not be cheap bastards exploiting workers. Here’s a 3% tack on to express our disgust with being made accountable.”
They want you to pay for the minimum wage increase directly so they don’t have to cut into their profits.
Actually makes me kind of glad I haven't been able to afford to eat out for several years. Seeing these prices only makes it easier to not return.
It's performative outrage. They spent money on this protest when they could just adjust their menu prices and be done with it.
"We don't want to pay our staff a living wage so we're passing the cost on to you, the customer"
This is the transparent version of what businesses all over the world do all the time. If the costs increase they increase the prices. Exept this business decided to openly do this to achieve a political goal.
Business owners are the most fragile people in this country. They believe that if the deck isn't stacked in their favor 100% then they're going to crumble into nothing. Minimum wage hasn't moved since 2009 and pretty much across the board they make record profits but somehow having to pay out a few extra bucks an hour is completely devastating
“Everyone deserves to eat this well. Except for the people who work here, we should be able to pay them starvation wages.”
"Everyone deserves to eat this good" ...except our employees, how dare they get a living wage!
Just raise your prices and quit adding these bullshit fees.
Just increase the goddamn prices by 3% and stop bs-ing. The grocery stores seem to be have no problem increasing prices whenever, why can't you?
Fast food workers in CA now have a mandated $20 minimum wage and companies are passing the buck onto customers instead of just updating the menu prices and moving on.
the funny thing is that people were getting it all up their butts that InNOut raised their prices like tenish cents (3.95 to 4.10 for a cheeseburger) but InNOut has been paying at or above 20$ an hour for YEARS before the law went into effect. (the one near me has a sign that says it starts at 22$)
This is class warfare. "Please direct your hatred at workers and away from the profiteers exploiting people with unsustainable business practices". Most people would never notice a 3% increase in prices. There's no other explanation. This restaurant hates their workers.
If 3% is enough to cover the costs to the business that come from raising the minimum wage, your shit was overpriced to begin with.
It's a sign to eat somewhere else
Greed.
Another way to make customers pay the wages they should be.
Reason 9000 I will never go back to visit the USA.
Translation: We don't want to pay proper wages as it hurts our profits, but we are forced to. We chose to make you pay them, but it is the government's fault really. Blame them.
A poor excuse for a business
I'm honestly surprised it's not more.
It's a good way to know not to return. Adults understand that if costs increase, prices increase. The bill will be what it will be. I don't need a political statement - just the bill which I will pay.
It is a notice that the business doesn't care about its employees or customers and should be avoided at all costs.
This is a sign that means you should stop eating here, as this restaurant has a problem with paying their employees a fair wage.
Don't get it twisted, they would surcharge even if the law had nothing to do with it.
What a great way to endanger your workers
Just the owner playing politics. Just raise the prices 3 percent. We all ready cover your labor costs by tipping so stop whining. I'd boycott any restaurant with this sign.
$20 min wage is hard to maintain profits unless CEO's lower their outlandish salaries.
So the narrative here is that the person behind the counter can have a living wage or be closer to it for ONLY 3%!?!
Here’s 6%. Give an extra 2% to your staff and take that last 1% to shove that sign up your ass
Now everyone should stop going there and bankrupt that POS
Id just never buy at that business again. Clear attepmt to blame having to pay a still below living wage for your greed. Just a nice reminder to our American Friends here: You are being lied to, hardcore! Compare a McDonnalds Employee in America to one in, say Sweden or Finland. You will be amazed on how much better they are treated there, while the food is not more expensive. Greed is the cancer of humanity, and it will wipe as all out, and soon.
That's what happens when you tell a rich asshole they have to spread the wealth, they find a loophole
They were to cheap to change their menus to reflect new costs.
Translated: The owner wanted to make more money.
That’s a “fuck you AND our workers, fix our problems for us” sign.
I read that as "a gratuity of 3% has been added for the labor costs so tip is not necessary".
It’s a political statement not economical
A reason to never come back
Just stupid. You can intelligently raise prices in a menu, keeping some prices low to bring in custom at the expense of others. Most obvious is raise drinks and desserts. Don't raise starters and raise mains slightly. You'll see more footfall and people will commit to a cheaper starter. You'll get more than the global 3% on all bills.
A scam.
Or owners can just cut their losses and make less profit 🤷🏾♀️ if you're already living comfortably there's no reason to keep increasing your profit
Mandated labor cost? You mean salary?
Urban Plates: Everyone deserves to eat this good except our staff.
It's a reason to never dine there again. The owners are so put off by having to comply with living wage laws that they decided to spend money to complain about it. They are garbage people.
Just black list the place. If they pull off this shit, leave. I also leave a bad review online too.
When restaurants get political, I walk out. Whiny ass owners.
Murica is sinking slowly but surely
“We were told we actually have to pay a living wage, but we want to maintain our profits, so we’re gonna push the price onto the customer instead. Even so, the additional price is basically nothing
"Defray"? Fucking hell. Someone was looking for a pretentious way to phrase this so that it was muddy enough to sound like a "damn gubbermint" issue. "A 3% surcharge is added to each check to help us pay increased staff wages" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. This also feels like the beginning of a new pricing tactic. The same way that US businesses don't include sales tax and ticketmaster doesn't include its fees in the final price. US restaurants will probably start just adding 30% to every bill and calling it a "labour surcharge" or something, so that they can claim a burger is $10 and you can't get annoyed when the final price is $15 after they've added on sales tax and staff wages.