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If I read this on a menu in a situation where I could go elsewhere, I would.
there’s a shitty restaurant near me that does this.
they call it the ‘honest to goodness fee’ and state the fee is to ensure they can bring us the lowest possible prices, by charging 3% on the whole bill… when I saw it on the menu after sitting down, I left.
I don’t participate in bait/switch pricing since it’s illegal
That’s insane to me. It’s literally just a sales tactic so they can look cheaper on their menu but you still pay the increased prices. I would have left also.
I might say this could be a temporary way around having to pay to get all your menus reprinted, but these doofuses appear to have printed it directly on the menu. So yeah, they can get fucked with an egg beater.
Is there an upcharge for said fucking.
5%
So yeah, they can get fucked with an egg beater.
🤣
Note to our restaurant: Due to unnecessary 5% surcharges, we will no longer be eating here.
Sounds like i need to open a *Everything’s $1 ** store and just make sure I get the fine print squared away…
I actually kind of appreciate this.
This is like separating out the tax from the total in the US. If the price is the price, you just get used to it.
If you see the increased prices as a surcharge, broken out, the suppliers don’t get away with their price increases. You have to see it looking you in the face every time. Maybe it’ll motivate people to action.
Inflation isn’t something that just started happening last Thursday.
Not to make excuses for this, because it’s not fair to customer, and it’s bait and switch pricing IMO… but I understand how you could get there. Sorry this is long winded.
Based on the “thank you for your support”, and their clearly not having a legal department, my guess is this is a small business. Prices have swung so wildly in the US in 2025 it’s basically unmanageable without a dedicated team.
For example in August of 2024 the price for a lb of coffee according the US Bureau of Labor Statistics was $6.31. In August of 2025 it was $8.87. That’s a 40% increase in one calendar year. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000717311
Eggs were $3.20 a dozen in Aug. of '24, but by March of '25 they were $6.22 that’s a 94% increase in 7 months. Then they crashed back down to 3.58 (a 42.44% decrease) by August. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000708111
Now for the sake of a practical example, here’s a pretty typical menu for a family diner in New Jersey. It’s 11 pages. Maybe 20 items per page. Each item may have 5 to 10 ingredients.
https://www.pomptonqueendiner.com/menu_main/- You can either try to recalculate all of that every week or two based on tariffs, inflation, bird flu, etc… then reprint and spiral bind 50 to 100, 11-page menus (technically 6 laminated front and back).
- You can overhaul your business model to be leaner, but maybe lose some customers.
- Or you can try to guestimate a number you think you and your customers can live with and distribute your gains and losses across the whole menu and reprint one page with a fee (hopefully) once.
It’s a shit sandwich. I don’t think this was a good solution, but I don’t think a lot of small businesses (or consumers) have good solutions these days. McDonalds has a procurement team, and can lock in terms with their vendors a year in advance. They can update prices on digital menu boards on the fly. They can handle these things pretty easily. Your local greasy spoon may not.
I’d personally weigh whether I think this place and the people who run it are maliciously trying to exploit me or just find a way to get by selling cheese burgers and eggs in this economy.
As a restaurant owner, I disagree. It’s shitty of them to charge a hidden fee like this
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It’s really easy to update prices. Sysco, the bulk supplier of >70% of US restaurants, provides a very easy tool that can update your prices automatically based on increased wholesale price. US Foods has a similar tool
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The biggest pain in the ass there is printing new menus. If you’re doing 1 page, the whole thing really isn’t any worse. Dealing with shitty printers is the real nuisance. Maybe if it were a sticky note on the menu or something, I could understand it. If they’re re-printing the menu, it’s bullshit
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It’s shitty to those of us that are honest. Customers will see another pizza place selling larges for $15.49, and my prices at $16 and go with the other one because it’s cheaper, despite the fact that after the 5% mine is cheaper. Seriously, I’ve had customers tell me that type of thing
I don’t want to do the hidden fees, because I hate them personally, but I know I’m giving up some sales not tacking on some bullshit charge
Related rant: For DSP delivery, like Doordash, I charge regular menu price, but charge $3.50 for delivery. I know I’d get more marking up the menu 20-30% and offering “free” delivery. I can see the cart abandonment rate. I hate the dishonest business model though
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As someone who has worked in a few service-oriented jobs, I support unfairly charging check users more. 😈
Do they mean checks as in cheques, or do they mean check as in when you ask for the check, e.g. every single bill is 5% more?
They mean the bill for the meal.
