California Bay Area Restaurants Add Fees to Address High Labor Costs, Worker Shortages

[mystery-ak]

California Bay Area Restaurants Add Fees to Address High Labor Costs, Worker Shortages

Penny Starr 19 Jul 2021

As restaurants open up in California’s Bay Area, diners may be surprised to see a new charge added to their meal tab: a fee operators say is necessary to pay workers more in a post-pandemic economy where millions of Americans are still getting paid to stay home.

At the Refuge restaurant in San Mateo an explanation is included on the bill: to “compensate (for) high labor costs in the Bay.”

Refuge co-owner Matt Levin told the San Francisco Chronicle that the two percent “wellness fee” is tied to the struggle to find workers. He is already paying 15 to 20 percent more than he paid pre-pandemic hires.

The Chronicle reported on the trend of adding fees for restaurant dining services directly related to the high cost of labor and worker shortages:

    Although replacing tipping with automatic service charges is already gaining momentum, some of these new fees are in addition to an expectation to tip. Pinstripes, a restaurant and bowling alley near Refuge at Hillsdale Shopping Center in San Mateo, is also charging a 3 percent wellness fee to “offset the stringent safety standards and practices” put in place during the pandemic, said Don Hoffman, chief marketing officer. At San Francisco’s Che Fico Alimentari, the aim of a new 10 percent “dining-in” charge, owners say, is to provide a living wage for the staff.

    Many restaurants are raising wages to stay operational. Chipotle recently increased prices by about 4 percent to cover the cost of higher wages. According to a recent survey by job-hunting website Joblist, 39 percent of former hospitality workers said they would return to those jobs for higher pay, and 23 percent want more benefits. In the Bay Area, the high cost of living continues to be a significant factor for workers.

    The cost of food is also going up, including basics such as dairy, meat and vegetable oil. Global food prices have increased every month for the last year, according to Reuters.

more
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/07/19/california-bay-area-restaurants-add-fees-to-address-high-labor-costs-worker-shortages/

[GtHawk]

Well that oughta help build transactions, say thank you democrats for turning the bay area into such a hole that people are moving out and tourists unless they are nuts are avoiding it plus paying people to sit at home and turn into good little state dependents makes it harder to staff. Of course staffing shortages shouldn't be such a big deal with declining transactions.

[Kamaji]

Quite honestly, I think it would be beneficial in the long run if restaurants and other businesses were to add line-item details reflecting each customer's share of the various taxes and fees the government imposes on them, directly or indirectly.  Particularly in liberal areas, the average person seems to think that all of these government mandates are costless - that businesses are some sort of magical bottomless money pit, with greedy owners hoarding all the lucre for themselves until the paladins of government ride in to free it for the workers - and putting line items like these on their bills is simply a way of demonstrating, in a very personal way, that all of these mandates have a cost, and that the cost ultimately comes out of their pockets.

[PeteS in CA]

Whether the higher labor cost is the cost of government-imposed artificial minimum wage rates or the cost of attracting workers off the government's elevated Covid "unemployment" payments, government increased the restaurants' expenses. A restaurant faces a three-way choice: cut costs elsewhere; raise prices; go out of business. Since a well run restaurant has already minimized waste it can't cut costs to any significant degree without cutting quality. So restaurants' realistic choices are between raising prices and going out of business.

Whether government-imposed artificial minimum wage rates or the government's elevated Covid "unemployment" payments, neither of these are peculiar to the SF Bay Area nor California. One or both are affecting businesses in every state, though some states have wisely ended (or soon will) the government's elevated Covid "unemployment" payments.

What these surcharges do is make visible to customers the cost of government-imposed artificial minimum wage rates and the government's elevated Covid "unemployment" payments. I doubt whether many Bay Area Progs have enough understanding of business to understand all that. I think most will be POed, walk away, and later wonder why their favorite restaurants are no longer in business.

[Wingnut]

Liberal parasites should never kill their host.

[skeeter]

Quite honestly, I think it would be beneficial in the long run if restaurants and other businesses were to add line-item details reflecting each customer's share of the various taxes and fees the government imposes on them, directly or indirectly.  Particularly in liberal areas, the average person seems to think that all of these government mandates are costless - that businesses are some sort of magical bottomless money pit, with greedy owners hoarding all the lucre for themselves until the paladins of government ride in to free it for the workers - and putting line items like these on their bills is simply a way of demonstrating, in a very personal way, that all of these mandates have a cost, and that the cost ultimately comes out of their pockets.

That is an excellent suggestion, as the state is finding ever clever ways to mask what amounts to tax hikes. They might even use the same tactic the utilities companies use, add a line showing per unit cost at the same time last year for comparison.

Every knucklehead I've ever heard declare businesses need to pay their employees more if they want to lure them back to work has never ran a payroll themselves.

I mean, why should those of us who've spent our life savings to build a business and create jobs expect to actually make a return that made it worth the risk?