If there’s one modern pricing phenomenon The Scrapbook loathes, it’s the add-on surcharge—a deceptive little proviso in the consumer/service-provider compact whereby the latter essentially says to the former, “We’re going to fleece you, but not tell you by how much until later.” There’s nothing worse than having cashed out the college fund so that Mom and Dad and Buddy and Sis can afford airfare to Wally World, only to find out that they are additionally facing bag fees and snack fees, and soon enough, there will likely be a fee to have the 350-pound man sausaged next to Sis in the middle seat keep his meaty elbows out of her ribcage.
So we watched with some consternation, earlier this year, when the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Lori Weisberg reported that all manner of San Diego restaurants, from Sammy’s Wood-Fired Pizza to Rockin’ Baja Lobster, were tacking on a surcharge—an average of 3 percent of a meal’s cost—to help offset the fourth California minimum-wage hike in two-and-a-half years. Restaurateurs wailed and gnashed teeth over everything from how they’re supposed to break even to how kitchen staff see their above-minimum-wage jobs dwarfed by servers, who now make a higher minimum wage, plus 20-percent tips.
Or what will be a 17 percent tip, if The Scrapbook is eating in their restaurant and gets a gun stuck in its back while being told to reach for the sky with a bogus 3-percent surcharge.
Some, of course—and not just uncompassionate conservatives—have predicted that mandatory minimum-wage hikes could be disastrous for the service sector. As the Washington Post reported, citing a study earlier this year, even among highly rated restaurants, every $1 hike in the minimum wage increases a restaurant’s chances of closing by 14 percent.
And while we like to think ourselves a Friend of the Working Person, what about all the working people who now, according to Bloomberg, spend more money eating out per year than they do on groceries, even as, according to the Nation’s Restaurant News, the cost of preparing food at home has dropped by 0.5 percent, while the cost of eating out has gone up at least 4 percent in the last couple of years? Why, the family just running out for fast casual at Chipotle these days can easily set themselves back 50 bucks, and that’s without Buddy ordering extra guac, let alone the emergency room bill after Mom falls ill to norovirus.
Now, Weisberg is reporting that a local consumer rights law firm has spent months filing lawsuits against more than a dozen San Diego restaurants and dining groups over the surcharge. Some of the plaintiffs are other attorneys who ate in these restaurants. The lawyers almost sound personally wounded that others, besides them, would try to sneakily inflate their fees. As one of the plaintiff’s attorneys said, “We’re just really trying to stop this and if they cooperate, we will not sue them. We’re not looking to gouge anyone. They can pay us for our hours and we’ll go away.”
This leaves The Scrapbook in a quandary: who to root against, the greedhead restaurants or the greedhead lawyers? Here’s hoping they can all sit down and work out their differences, preferably over a platter of superannuated shellfish at Rockin’ Baja Lobster.
