What to Do When A Restaurant Puts a Minimum-Wage Service Charge on YourBill
The joke in media circles is that if you can find three instances of anything, no matter how ludicrous—people wearing their pants backward, anti-deodorant activists, a tiny online community that doesn’t believe tornadoes exist—you can write a trend piece about it in the lifestyle section of your local paper.
Well, have I got a trend piece for you: three Washington state restaurants recently started adding surcharges, fees, and charges to customer bills, ostensibly in response to increased minimum wages statewide and within the city of Seattle. More specifically, a handful of restaurant owners and regional managers made that decision — it’s very likely the wait staff and dishwashers weren’t consulted on this policy before it was implemented.
Here are the restaurants in question:
Case 1: Michael Tomasky writes at the Daily Beast about a weird charge that appeared on a room service bill at Seattle’s W Hotel:
On the morning of Jan. 31, the man ordered room service. Yogurt and granola, bread, juice, and coffee. The staff person brought the food and the bill, which came to $23 even. The man looked down at the bill and noticed that there was a $2.21 food tax charge; nothing unusual there. But then there was also something called the “MW Surcharge,” totaling $1.50. MW Surcharge, the man thought; what the heck is that?
His question was answered immediately as he looked at the bottom of the bill, where he saw the words: “A 6.5 percent surcharge has been added to help offset the cost of the Seattle Minimum Wage. This is not for services provided and is not paid directly to service staff.”
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