It’s sweet, sweet capitalism baby!

Caelynn Miller-Keyes and Dean Unglert

I’ve seen this take a lot more in real life. And the owners usually go way out of their way to let you know which liberal policies caused you $1 worth of pain. Some of these were pretty unintentionally hilarious, like “We are penalizing our dear customers $1 per order so we can buy our employees health care” written…

Laura Dern is the perfect person to consult. 

“$2.50 employee benefits surcharge”

Bet you hadn’t thought about that in eons, but reading this brought back the memory, AND the fact you voted with your feet. So that just proves how little we like these types of things. Had the entrees been $6.50 instead of $5, and the bread not been a separate charge, you may have become happy regulars.

Yeah, whenever I see that kind of notation on a receipt I know it’s because the restaurant is mad that they have to actually pay their workers or provide them with benefits. I make a note to never patronize those restaurants again. 

Now, why is it a separate line item?

This. It’s a passive aggressive protest by the restaurant owner

Exactly....this is like XYZ corporation making a donation to a charity, where XYZ gets all the recognition and PR, even though 95% of that donation came from them soliciting their own employees.

It may be a noble surcharge, but fuck surcharges. Tell me up front how much something is going to cost me.  Hotels, rental cars, plane tickets, cell phone plans... etc.  if the surcharge is part of the cost, include it in the listed price.

Back when we did not go out often to places with waitstaff, we went to somewhere and the first thing that the waitress did was get our drink order and ask if we wanted garlic bread. And it was the type of place where they brought you some sort of bread in a basket for free, so we were thinking that’s what it was, she…

That’s some real dumbfuckery right there. Bitching about “Obamacare” to your clientele is a bad look, period (bitch to your friends, bitch to your elected representation, whatever... I came in for a piece of pizza, not to hear your views on political issues, chucklehead). Even worse is the total lack of awareness that…

Whatever she’s saying, I’m sure she’s right. 

Tips used to be a thank you. Now it’s a “my employer is to cheap to pay me a living wage” compensation device.

This is the kind of play I thought of and expected.

“The restaurant wants you to know that it’s doing right by its workers....It’s showing off, plain and simple.”

I don’t care. This is not my problem. I understand that we live in a tipping culture and I believe I tip more generously than most. But it’s not my job to ensure every employee gets benefits, that’s the employer’s job. You make a gross profit selling goods and services at the listed price and out of the profit you…

Yeah, some places (thinking specifically of Dirt Candy in NYC), don’t do tipping and say outright on the menu (and maybe also the check) that they pay a fair wage and include that in the prices of the food.

Personally, I think salaries and benefits should be calculated as a part of the cost of business instead of as line items. What’s next? A $5.00 utilities surcharge? $1.50 for silverware? We customers already complain about getting nickle and dimed to death for things like a $0.50 charge for a 2nd small cup of BBQ…