I usually don’t frequent any of the higher-priced restaurants, but has anyone heard of a “kitchen appreciation fee” in any eatery?
“Increased menu prices and additional fees on receipts like kitchen appreciation, fuel surcharge, or wellness, are the latest efforts by restaurant owners to offset higher food and labor costs. However, these costly checks may also risk the loyalty of returning customers.”
I feel if I am going out to eat I should be willing to tip well for great service. There have been many times when I feel generous and have tipped more than what the meal cost. If you put a built in tip on the check, then that is what you get because you have pre-decided the value of your service. If the establishment chooses where any of my money goes, I then choose to never give them anymore. But to answer the OP’s question I have not seen the surcharge on the check. I am seeing more of the mom and pop places simply taking a sharpie and blanking out their prices due to them raising faster than they can justify printing new menus.
Not sure if this is the same, but I was recently charged $1 extra to get my Scotch neat. The bill actually listed the fee as “neat”. I asked, they gave some stupid answer. That was for a glass of Balvenie 21 Portwood. Worth it, but still…
We live on a resort island that is at the end of the road. The off island area has grown so much that the food service workers no longer have to come all of the way to the island to work. The top shelf restaurants don’t have a labor problem because wait staff can make six figures ++. My non resident neighbor’s daughter spent the summer here a few years ago and made 58K tips in 2 1/2 months. Big tits and long legs probably had a lot to do with it! The mom/pop joints are the ones getting killed by the labor shortage. That and fast food. We have lost a KFC, Popeyes and Arby’s in the last few years. McDonalds and convivence stores advertise starting pay at 15-20 bucks an hour and still cannot fully staff the stores. To the OP’s point… Restaurant’s adding surcharges after the fact will no longer get our business.
Around here, many of the mom-n-pops are killing dinner service and going Breakfast-Lunch Only, mainly because they can’t get or keep people worth having on the payroll. My usual old haunt in college, the owner usually has to sling hash in the kitchen himself…
I havent seen that. I have seen prices go up though.
Ive found the increase definitely more noticeable in the cheaper restaurants than the higher end ones. I have noticed paces that were normally 30-40 bucks a meal (for the family) are now 60-70 dollars. However when the wife and I go out to a really nice place that normally is 200ish a meal, it’s pretty much the same.
Granted, the cost spikes from minimum wage hikes don’t help either… a Big Mac by itself will almost invariably be pegged at half an hour’s wages at local minimum wage. $30 an hour? Say hello to fifteen-dollar crapburgers…
I’m currently living outside of CONUS. You would be surprised how slow service is, I had to mention to the wait staff that five tables needed busing before we could sit and eat.
Apparently this stuff is contagious and I don’t know where it’s coming from. Standing around with your phone in your hand is now the norm even in the Philippines.
I hate being the ugly American, but it’s hard to bite my tongue.