Restaurant charge - is this normal?

Several of my local restaurants have the 3% charge for CC. I am ok with that in one of the restaurants I go to because their prices are noticeably lower than others in the area. Otherwise I have stopped going to the ones that have the extra charge for the most part. I live in a big city and have lots of choices near me. The Health charge, that’s a Hell No from me. You will never see me again. But I haven’t  seen that charge yet. What do we tell the server? I don’t need to give you a tip cause I’m already paying for your healthcare?

What's frustrating to me is that the "employee health" line is unexpected. They should just charge enough for the food that they can pay for employee health insurance. By putting it on a separate line, the menu prices appear smaller, which is a bit of deception I don't appreciate.

The credit card charges are irritating, too - back in the day, it was considered worthwhile for businesses to pay the credit card fees because people tend to spend more when they use credit. This is another fee that I would like to see UP FRONT (posted on menu and website) so that I can decide how to spend my money. I rarely carry cash, so it's not a happy surprise to have the cc fee slapped on.

In the SF Bay Area, we voted to add on the 3.5% upcharge to pay for employees’ health care. So I’m not going to hold that against any restaurant.

I don’t really care whether they jack up prices to cover the credit card fees, or add on a percentage … either way, eating out has gotten very expensive. I try not to eat out so often, but I have a large family that likes to get together and eat out, so what am I gonna do?

I've been seeing more and more places charging you the credit card fee they have to pay if you choose to use a credit card. Around it here it started off with some places, mostly gas stations, offering you a lower price if you opted NOT to use a credit card, but yes, post-COVID I've been seeing places charge you instead.

The health care fee I haven't personally seen yet, though.

I just encountered the 3% the other day.
I inquired about hiring day labor employees. They collect 3% on all invoices for health care. That could add up quckly for temporay employee agency with the amount of invoices they send out daily. Their office has about 6 employees. They don't pay health care for any of the temp employees, just help pay towards permanet staff health care. This is so wrong. My brother was going to hire 3 laborers for one 8 hour day with a bill of about $1,000. Can you imainge the money this company is raking in with this charge that the Affordable Care Act allows? What the heck are they doing with ALL that money they collect as I know healh care for 8 employees can't even begin to put a dent in what they collect.
No wonder people get so upset these days.

my dh used to work in the back end at VISA... it is generally against the rules the merchants agree to follow if they accept credit cards, they can't charge extra for that. it could have changed but I doubt it.

like lucyg, i am in the Bay area CA and it is common to see the health charge. our town added a mandatory health care.. so if you didn't have it, the city provided it and if you didn't use it, you personally got that 3.5% to spend on health care. my dd has $800 bucks in a city account to use up..

I don't mind, as I think everyone. having health care is a community benefit.

Never heard of the first one. The CC charge has become more common but I still don't see it that often in restaurants. It shows up most often in small businesses and I completely understand. They pay a lot in fees to take credit cards. They are often competing with large chain stores and they can't make money on volume. I typically pay cash to small businesses anyway.

When businesses add these other charges, it is the last time I go there. I got my oil changed at a new place and they added a 'shop fee' or something like that. They should build in that to their prices. It is part of the cost of doing business.

It did change. Just like it used to be against TOS to check ID, it used to be against the rules to pass along the interchange fee. Both of those have changed in the decade (can’t remember exactly when).

That’s because back in the day, debit cards didn’t exist so when people used a credit card they DID tend to spend more to justify using it. People didn’t want to use a credit card to buy a $1 pack of gum so they would find something else to buy too which was a benefit to the retailer. But once debit cards were available as an option, people DID NOT spend more because those funds come directly out of their bank account but the fees to the retailer didn’t change. So that sale of a $1 pack of gum would likely cost them more than the profit on it generated. What really sucked was that before the Dodd-Frank Act was passed, merchants couldn’t set a minimum purchase for using credit nor could we add it on top, yet we would get dinged by the merchant processor in the form of a higher rate if the average sale was low, and with debit cards no one was adding extra to their purchase anymore. It was a horrible catch-22 that only benefitted the banks.

Personally, I would rather have the merchant be up front and add on the extra 3% or whatever for those patrons choosing to use credit vs. just automatically raising the prices across the board for all customers regardless of how they pay. That way only the people who are incurring the extra costs are the ones benefiting from utilizing that convenience. Yeah, it sucks, but so does paying tens of thousands of dollars in credit card fees annually for the business owner. We own a small business and we saved literally $30K+ last year alone by encouraging DH’s clients to pay with cash or check vs. paying with a card.

To be fair, every business is charging you for their employees’ health care. Most just already have it baked into the price along with their other overhead expenses.

Yes. But the ones that do are passing that cost on to the customer.

Let them know, why? What happens if you said yes or no to the tip? Bad enough to ask for a tip, but the service wasn't even completed so what were you tipping on? Tipping for the sake of giving money.

Paying for employee health care is standard in most businesses. I have no problem with a restaurant passing on their business costs. But that's not the way to do it.

There should be no surprise fees and I don't need to hear how the restaurant is paying their bills. Just charge a price for the food and if I want to pay it I will.