Yahoo Finance reports that a Minnesota restaurant has added a minimum wage surcharge of 35 cents per check to customers’ checks following an increase in the minimum wage in that state to $8 an hour for large employers and $6 an hour for small employers.
The restaurant claims this adds transparency to its bills, and is not a political statement.
The restaurant’s owner said in a Facebook post that its servers make over $20 per hour including tips, while its dishwasher staff make $10 to $11 and cooks make $12 to $16.
3 More Things We’d Like To See This “Transparent” Restaurant Do
1. Advise what the family of five on your company’s Facebook page is licking off of their plates. Because if this is how your customers traditionally treat their dishes, we hope servers get paid a little bit extra to take them away.
2. Advise whether they are making a profit off of this minimum wage fee. We’re not math geniuses, but let’s say the server is making the $8 minimum wage before tips, that means $12 in tips per hour, which means if the tips are 15%, the average server is serving at least $80 in food and drinks per hour.
Given your Facebook page shows a family of five licking their plates, we’ll assume that the average check is for five people. Given the price range on your Facebook page is zero to $10, we’ll assume the average family got a $25 check, which means at least three checks per hour to get to $80. Since your cooks and dishwashers make far more than minimum wage, we assume the only added cost to you is $0.75 per hour, for which you appear to be charging $1.05 (3 X $0.35). In fairness, you never did tell us whether you have bussers, what they get paid, or whether they are unnecessary because people start licking their plates after every meal, and then eat the plates.
But we’re not lawyers from Minnesota, so this is just speculation. But if you are being transparent, we’re sure you’ll let the public know if you’re profiting from your transparent fee, along with all the free publicity your restaurant received.
3. Advise how food inflation, and programming to change your receipts to add a minimum wage fee, and other costs are impacting your restaurant’s prices. We’re just wondering if every time a price changes at your restaurant, if you also put an extensive break down of that on your customer’s bills. Also, please include all other boring details costing 35 cents on your menus, because some readers of this blog didn’t fall asleep after reading the math in paragraph 2.
