A small cafe in Stillwater, Minn. is serving up burgers, fries, and a stand against the state’s minimum wage hike.
On August 1, a law went into effect raising the minimum wage in Minnesota by 75 cents. Craig Beemer, the owner of Oasis Café, says this hike will cost him $10,000 annually.
Instead of silently raising customers’ prices, Beemer decided to offset the cost of the hike with a 35-cent minimum wage fee, listed separately on meal tabs. Backlash quickly ensued.
“I visit Stillwater on a fairly regular basis and bring my tourist $$ with me. It’s a shame you won’t be seeing one red cent of it,” as one person posted to the café’s Facebook page.
“Congrats on pitting your customers against your employees… All politics aside this is a distasteful way of airing a grievance,” another remarked.
The cast of NBC’s Today echoed these sentiments Thursday, arguing that the restaurant should just silently boost prices, rather than broadcast its struggle to adapt to a higher minimum wage.
“I’d rather not know. Hike a cost here or there, get your 35 cents and don’t tell me,” anchor Carson Daly said.
“Because they’ve probably done it other ways without letting you know,” his fellow panelist, Al Roker, added.
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But that argument doesn’t sit well with Oasis Café manager Colin Orcutt. As he told the Star Tribune, “If you raise prices and don’t tell anyone, that seems more backhanded to me.”
Beemer and his wife Deb added in a Facebook post Friday that they saw the fee as the most “honest and transparent way to communicate a significant increase in our operating cost,” and that they meant to offend no one.
“To those of you who are causing my phone to beep every couple seconds…Really? How is our country ever going to solve the problems for which we are so divided with responses that can only be described as hateful?
(H/t Newsbusters)
