re: Will all restaurants please start adding any additional costs to the price of the food?

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It's more comical watching people who don't own a restaurant and have no experience or knowledge about it condemn people who actually do for raising prices without actually understanding why the owners are being forced to raise them.

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Not really

Rarely aren't people condemning restaurants or hotels, etc. for increasing prices. They are being criticized for attracting customers with lower advertised prices via advertised rates, menu item costs, etc. only to add those fees on later at the time of sale or once someone has made their online purchase or actually visited the brick and mortar location.

By in large, most customers expect and want to pay the cost of the item and required taxes, not additional service fees and costs hidden and built in at the end. Look at the ever growing popularity of models like Carvana. The business model has proven to be attractive for the consumer (even though other factors have slowed car purchases in general).

But yet again, people in the service industry defend the practice and tell the consumer that what they want and why they want it is stupid and this is why so many places go out of business.

People: Why are prices so high!!! This is stupid!!!

Restaurants: Here’s a list of our increased costs so you can see what we’re dealing with

People: Why did you list all these costs?!?! This is stupid!!!!!!

Restaurants: OK we’ll just increase the cost of everything without itemizing the costs

People: why are costs so high l?!?!?? This is stupid!!!!!

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People: Why are prices so high!!! This is stupid!!!

Restaurants: Here’s a list of our increased costs so you can see what we’re dealing with

People: Why did you list all these costs?!?! This is stupid!!!!!!

Restaurants: OK we’ll just increase the cost of everything without itemizing the costs

People: why are costs so high l?!?!?? This is stupid!!!!!

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Justifying the reasoning behind increased costs is not going to ease a consumers mind. Give the consumer the experience that equates to the cost and nobody will bitch (outside of irregulars).

"Due to the increased expense to operate and provide you ____ you may have noticed higher costs on some items. We understand your frustration and have dropped costs to you in other areas to do our best to off-set those and will continue to review those areas of opportunities. We will also be investing heavily into our staff training and development. We understand your time and money is valuable and will do our best to ensure your ____ is prepared efficiently and correctly and that our front line staff is fully equipped and trained to handle any issue that may arise."


Reality...."Yeah, have you seen inflation. Here are the extra costs. Pleas ignore that when costs were much lower we were still marking up our draft beer somewhere around 200-300% while requesting the beer distributors to maintain and clean our draft lines."

Meanwhile Taco Bell is still out here offering the Big Box for $5 and selling $2 burritos.

Inflation proof!

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Another reason they don't change the prices is the cost of new menus. This leads to another gripe people have, electronic menus.

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I’m not gonna lie, it annoys the shite out of me when a restaurant tells you to scan a QR code for the menu.

But yes, menu printing cost is a real thing. Not as big a deal as it’s made out to be, especially for places with clear vinyl menu “books,” but real nonetheless. I think the bigger issue for many restaurants is coordinating everything when prices change - getting the new menu pages printed, getting them all into the books, updating POS system, updating website, etc.

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I've seen a local poboy shop and they changed all their prices on their electronic menu behind the register to "market price" at one point due to the turmoil.

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Well that just seems a bit lazy.

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Alcohol provides the only decent margins for a restaurant, Disney boy.

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No shite

ETA..well, not the only decent margins but certainly extremely high.

Many apps have extremely high margins as well with markups of similar ratios to alcohol.

what difference does it make?

I never understood the OT. Everyone is a baller. Yet we constantly complain about tips and 3% charges.

Have your groceries gone up?

100% the over reaction to Covid is to mostly blame.
That said prices aren't about to go down.

I have places in town I can get a hot plate for less than a combo meal.

People just have to change where they eat or pay more.

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I never understood the OT. Everyone is a baller. Yet we constantly complain about tips and 3% charges.

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You don't remain rich by throwing away money.