I realize that we are in a period of inflation, but the brazen attempt by the St. Regis Chicago to pass off a phony inflation “surcharge” as a tax is really pathetic.
Sleazy: 3.5% Inflation “Surcharge” At Miru In St. Regis Chicago
You might remember that the St. Regis Chicago was the hotel that thought it could get away with denying Marriott Bonvoy elites their breakfast benefit when it first opened in 2023. After a lot of pushback and bad publicity, the hotel backed down.
Now the hotel is at it again, with a 3.5% surcharge masked as a tax.
A reader was dining earlier this week at Miru, the hotel’s Japanese restaurant (as an aside, he said the food was not great either). When he received the bill, he noticed a “restaurant surcharge” line item on the bill directly below the subtotal and above the tax.
Looking at the bottom of the reciept, he found this explanation:
As a way to offset rising costs we have added a 3.5% surcharge to all checks. You may request to have this taken off your check should you choose.
Yes, an inflation surcharge…costs are up so we are going to add a 3.5% tax to your bill and hope you miss it or just think it is a tax. That strikes me as both pathetic and unethical.
At least, in this case, it was optional…the reader asked that it be removed and it was.
CONCLUSION
I know restaurants tend to be a low-margin business and inflation has hit both labor and food costs. Even so, the smoke and mirrors of adding surcharges (like British Airways has done the last two decades) strikes me as worse than simply updating the menu prices to reflect rising costs.
What do you think about the practice of the St. Regis Chicago? Is adding this optional surcharge a better solution than forcing a price increase on the menu, or just sleazy?
> Read More: St. Regis Chicago Shamed Into Offering Elite Breakfast Benefit
Sleazy, insulting, cheapness. Added costs like this should be required in a bold and larger print to be legal.
This hotel also charges for the butler-complimentary coffee in room. I confirmed that butler service is included in all rooms and rates then ordered two coffees, they charged our room $65 and the agent at the front desk advised that it was “a change we’ve been receiving a lot of feedback on in the past month”. I had to email 3x, left a vm for the manager, and finally filed a case with Marriott, received a refund shortly after with no apology. Awful awful awful property.
Certain Vegas restaurants have been doing this for a decade. They call it a CNF (concession and franchise) and like this will take it off if you ask, which most don’t sadly. Look it up before going to Vegas because the print is much smaller than this disclaimer.
Of course it’s crooked and sleazy and I’ll never understand why they don’t just raise prices which the customer mostly never notices.
Douchebag Dave Edwards, you’ll NEVER understand because you’re a moron incapable of understanding anything.
So I called you out on the copy and paste and you stopped.
Ha!
Your obsession is definitely making you the next Covid boy.
Douchebag Dave Edwards, 6 comments on this 1 blog entry, proof of your empty pathetic life.
Douchebag Dave Edwards, “I called you out on the copy and paste and you stopped”, yeah, THAT’S why I didn’t do it that one time, you’re a legend in your own mind you pathologic narcissist. Thanks for proving that it bothers you you SHPOS.
Douchebag Dave Edwards, we haven’t seen your fellow TDS sociopaths Brainless Brandon or Dirtbag Derek or Sch*tt Hsuan for a while. You should do the same as them and crawl back under your rock.
Douchebag Dave Edwards, here’s your copy and paste moron, proving with your every (too frequent) comment that your nickname is absolutely accurate and completely deserved and that you have nothing better to do with your pathetic waste-of-oxygen life than to post abhorrent and revolting comments here over and over again every single day. Confirming once again that you and other MAGAs are stupid hateful racist cretins. Trolling or not, the extent and frequency of your comments are indicative of severe psychiatric and/or addiction problems. Your insults, undoubtedly projection, speak much more to your lack of character than to anyone you attack. You should crawl back under whatever rock you crawled out from you SHPOS.
Looney Tunes!
When you gonna Ace yourself like the Covid guy?
Puppet on a string. I call out the copy and paste, you bring it back.
You count my posts.
Who’s obsessed with me and a couple others here?
Dance for me clown.
Lay off the Cocaine dude!!!
This is so stupid from them. Just increase food prices by 3.5% and let the client decide if food is too expensive or not. I would gladly pay more for the food if I thought the price was acceptable. BTW, they charged a glass of wine $29 which is what the entire bottle of that wine costs at a liquor store so definitely not a low margin business as you described.
What is not being said is the Illinois State Government attack on business. Just in the last couple years they have increased minimum wage to $15 ($1 a year for last 5 years), imposed something called Illinois Paid Leave where all hourly workers receive 1 hour of Paid Time Off for every 40 hours worked, up to 40 hours a year. Therefore a minumum wage worker gets an additional $600 per year plus payroll taxes. Lettuce Entertainment group must employ thousands of hourly workers. Add that one up. Then this year they’ve imposed a 10% tax on everything rented or leased. In the example of this restaurant that includes the linens and napkins they get from linen services, tax on software/equipment systems, leased equipment like ice makers, soda systems, the list is endless. You can only raise prices so much. At least they offer to remove it. But it shouldn’t be called inflation adjustment, more like Illinois Hidden Tax. I know, I run a restaurant group.
Also if they need the money that much, why are they removing the charge on request? This isn’t “our costs are increasing”. This is “we’re greedy and hopefully you won’t notice”.
No, this isn’t illinois. It’s the city of Chicago.
If a business can’t afford to treat it workers like humans then the business shouldn’t be in business. Illinois is requiring companies to offer 40 hours ie a single week of vacation time in jobs that tradionally don’t offer leave or raises.
Illinois raised their minimum wage which historically has in no way kept up with inflation.
That’s absurd! Minimum wage workers should be treated like garbage, have no benefits, and live in perpetual poverty.
@Mark, I don’t understand your point. Are you suggesting that because restaurants are facing rising costs, it is ok for a restaurant to advertise $20 for a menu item, and when the bill comes, add a 3.5% bullshit fee? Because the vast majority of the restaurants I’m going to are also facing rising costs, yet they’re not pulling this stunt.
It’s understandable for your average family-owned restaurant, but part of the luxury hotel experience imo is paying high up front & not worrying about anything past that. No one really believes you need that 3.5% when your prices are already highly inflated by virtue of location within a St Regis lol
Absolute insanity. If they really want nickel and dime customers, all they have to do is increase the food prices on the menu. Then there’s no way a customer can opt out of the charges.
This 3.5% fee is now unfortunately on many restaurant bills in Chicago
Always optional?
Trendy upscale places are doing this. Not regular restaurants in the city. Some are optional. Some will remove the fee if you pay with cash. It’s very dependent on the location and ownership group.
I think you may be confusing this with a credit card surcharge. Not the same thing.
Yes – always optional, however its added to the bill and a pain to remove so most of the time folks don’t ask for it to be removed.
So do you just tell them before they bring the bill to remove the bogus surcharge?
It’s a mixed bag because different places do it different ways. Sometimes it’s an “optional” fee for using a credit card. Sometimes it’s a “surcharge”. Sometimes it’s in small print on the menu. Sometimes it’s only on the receipt.
Then, if you split the check, and don’t look at the main receipt closely, you might miss it entirely. It’s really all ovver the place at “nice” places in the city.
It’s not bogus, they have to do it this way and an increasingly large number of Chicago restaurants are. If they raised prices 3.5% then customers fewer customers would come and the ones who did would tip 20% on the inflated price. The city of Chicago is requiring restaurants to pay their servers a much higher base wage instead of the tipped minimum wage. The money has to come from somewhere.
Can you block and remove the posts from above with the rude personal attacks at each other.
Dont beleive it’s the point of this forum
Thinking about banning soon…stay tuned.
This is pretty common at higher end restaurants in Chicago…as it never went away during Covid. Lettuce Entertain You basically pioneered it here….and all of there restaurants still have it. Miru is a Lettuce restaurant so assuming it just carried over there….and is not really directed by St. Regis management.
I eat at a lot of Lettuce resturants as well as others that all have this fee. I have it removed 100% of the time with no push back.
Matt,
Are you only now noticing this trend? Every time I have been to California in the past 10 or so years, some restaurant has petulantly added a 3 or 4 percent surcharge to make up for their servers’ increased wages. It is crass – restaurants (you know, participants in the “hospitality” industry) should not involved their customers in their butt hurt.
I can count on one hand the number of times I went out to eat with my family in the US in the last 5 years. If I am on a business trip, it is a necessity and company pays for it but not with my own money. Not only regular food prices are outrageous but all the BS fees, expected tipping and bad customer service (I can’t stand when a waiter drops the check at my table while I am still eating) makes me avoid eating out at all costs. MN had for many years a mandatory “health&wellness” fee of 4.5% which was finally prohibited earlier this year. I rather go to Whole Foods or a local Coop, get the freshest ingredients and cook a healthier and cheaper meal at home.
Honestly, I’m not used to this.
Read this: https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Price-Transparency/PriceTransparencyLaw_FAQ.pdf
This law was passed earlier this year after many years of literally extortion from restaurants and businesses that thought they could charge whatever they wanted. I paid this only once since I was not aware and when I asked the waiter to remove he said it was mandatory. Never again went out to eat here.
This odious trend started about when your kids were rolling in.
Ahhh the trickle down from the BBBendover bill. I heard that companies will eat the tariffs??!!
I guess that isn’t true after all.
The billionaire class still wants record profits and they want you to pay for it.✅
Some restaurants in Chicago will go ahead and add an 18% fee for service in lieu of gratuity. That’s fine and dandy. The lettuce entertain you fee and additional service fee always creates an issue with groups, and then someone takes the lead in having it removed.
It’s a wild west of fees on restaurants in Chicago and one reason that it’s beyond affordable for the average person to eat out at restaurants in the city and it’s easier to dine out in the neighborhoods, but still plenty of neighborhood restaurants are doing this too….
Every hotel that has a St. Regis has a better “luxury” hotel to choose from. The only property in that group that still comes close to the glory days is the Washington DC property. Otherwise it’s a pale shadow of the real thing, and costs an arm and a leg to boot.
Something I have started seeing recently — they charge extra if you pay with credit card. I’m sure there were places that have been doing this all along. It seems every time you turn around, there is some additional fee for goods and services that wasn’t there before.
* Tip prompts on self service checkout.
* Baggage fees and seat selection fees on airlines (they have been around for a few years now, but they didn’t exist in the past).
* The “inflation surcharge” mentioned in this article.
* Automatically adding a tip in a restaurant but leaving a tip line on the credit card slip hoping the person isn’t paying attention and will tip twice.
* Charging an extra amount to cover the credit card fees. I completely understand that those fees cost the business, but it’s yet another example of these “oh, and by the way…” costs when you make a purchase.
@Matthew: I hear many readers mentioning restaurants adding a credit card surcharge. What are your thoughts on that as if this becomes a trend it could have a big impact on credit cards and points/miles. I have seen places charging credit card fees if you want to pay a school tuition with credit card, car dealers, but restaurants?
They fell for a scummy pitchman who sold them on all the CC fees they are paying with a pitch to “eliminate” them. So the business adds a 3% charge for all cards, including debit cards which usually cost the restaurant 1-1,5%. Most cards are under 3% but they new processors keep the entire 3% and the restaurant owner thinks he “saved” thousands. Instead he pissed customers off.
Again a good owner moves his prices up enough to cover the fees and makes far more but for the most part, restaurant owners aren’t the smartest people in the bunch and only see that they are “saving” tens of thousands in CC fees annually.
The shady processors count on their stupidity.
I only carry one $100 bill in my wallet for emergencies. It has been there for years without me touching it. I also do not carry or have a check book. I used to receive 500 checks on the mail that was a huge waste of money so I simply do not order checks anymore. I either pay everything electronically or worst case have my bank issue a check directly to the person I need to pay. Thus, if restaurants start to charge a credit card fee it will be another reason for me to avoid them.
Not sure about your area but honestly I’m seeing it all across the country. And it’s not just one or two places, it’s a lot of them sadly.
As I mentioned before, I rarely go out for dining so haven’t seen credit cards charges at all here. I buy most of things I need online and haven’t seen these fees on regular stores online either. The only places I have seen extra charges for paying with credit cards are my kid’s high school and College tuitions which I chose to have auto payment from my bank account. Other than those, everywhere I use credit cards with no extra fees (I assume they are embedded in the listed prices already).
I circle the charge, deduct it from tip, and make it very obvious. When it happens where I live in TX, I also make sure to report it to the AG’s office. Law requires clear disclosure, and most restaurants and bars don’t mention it until the check comes.
I get that it isn’t “fair” to the server, but if everyone did this, they’d eventually pull the charge when the servers kept complaining.
I have found it depends on the area and the jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions do not allow CC fees, but instead allow a cash discount, which I’m fine with. It’s not a good practice if you’re a business, because handling cash is inherently riskier than electronic transactions. You have to place controls around theft, inventory mismanagement (i.e. servers not ringing up stuff and keeping the cash), robberies, cash lost, cash pick up service, etc. But whatever, it’s fine if a restaurant wants to go that way. What I have an issue with is restaurants charging more than they are allowed for CC fees, and I have reported them to Visa before. Not only do they usually not pay the full 3-5% that they charge and pocked the difference, but also Visa does not allow merchants to charge more than I think 2.7% or so. First and foremost, credit card companies frown upon merchants charging fees for accepting their cards. It is highly discouraged, for obvious reasons. But they also cap the fee. If a merchant is charging more than the allowed fee, there is a mechanism to report them to the applicable credit card company.
They do this in Venice, CA all the time. You just have to actually read your bill and ask to have it removed.
And who ever told you restaurants are low margins businesses. I know of a couple in Venice that make a fortune! They practically print money and get away with charging fees like this all the time. This whole narrative that no one involved with a restaurant doesn’t make any money may be true in the fly over states, but not in big cities. I know managers, waiters, and owners and they all do very well.
Totally correct.
Covid provided the opportunity and many restaurants have taken advantage of it to increase profits. Margins have never been higher.
Brazen and disgusting. This practice should be called out by as many people and media outlets as possible.
I concur that this is sleazy and despicable. However, I also must point out that in London all the Hyatts (or most of them and definitely the nice ones) add a “discretionary” 5% service charge. Some IHGs do too, but Hyatt milks every last cent it can when you visit London. Only astute travelers know to look for it and ask for removal. The price of London Hyatts is already high enough, and while I prefer Hyatts most of the time, I do NOT want to be haggling over having a fee removed that I never consented to be added. It makes everything awkward. Make no mistake, I WILL be awkward when a room is $400-800 a night and WOH’s greedy suckers think I might WANT to pay 5% more.
This is actually almost every hotel in London, period. Not just Hyatt. Same sleazy tactic – though at the very least it (supposedly) goes to the workers.
FYI this is not the St. Regis implementing the surcharge. It is the Lettuce Entertain You Group. It’s been 3.0% since COVID began & recently increased to 3.5%. You can ask for it to be removed from your bill. The servers love hearing that because they do not receive a penny of it.
Inside the St. Regis hotel on St. Regis receipts that can be charged to room.
But not owned by the same company….but are a partnership that streamlines the process… And benefits guests…as they can to the room and get points.
We are all appalled by the surcharge….but in this case it’s not a St. Regis issue (unlike the bfast issue). Continue to throw a hissy about it….but literally just ate at Shaws (another LEYE and they took it off with 0 issue).
Happy hour martinis are $10 and huge so apologize for the spelling and grammer.
The restaurants are listed as the hotel restaurants on the website. They are the ONLY restaurants on the property, one which considers itself a luxury full service hotel. Sorry, this is St Regis. I understand alliances with restaurant brands as a whole but ultimately for the hotel guest this is absolutely reflecting on the property and their responsibility to reflect their brand and position. This is not a Hilton Garden Inn attached to a TGI Fridays. This is a hotel which charges often close to $1000 a night during peak periods. The choice? Downgrade your hotel to a mid tier property, charge $300 a night, and stop telling people you have world class dining as one of your benefits.
I get it. I understand the miserable situation for all. But fresh in my mind is an email received just this AM from the dental practice I patronize. Advising that (although it was received JUST today) that as of August 15th they were going to charge 3% to any amounts put on a credit card. And yes it perturbs me. They have the ability to cover these times of increasing labor costs and supplies at will. We are a captive audience because unlike it being a choice to eat out, we NEED dental or medical care, and most of us WANT to be responsible and pay for the services we receive from the provider we have a long standing relationship with. In other words we are somewhat captive. Putting the balance due on a card allows us to not be in debt to them, and pay it off in however many payments we wish…yes often at high interest rates, more than the 3%, but given that these professionals have the ability to charge as they wish, I am left thinking would it kill them to NOT charge the 3%? They also do not offer any senior discount…Seniors btw who are on fixed incomes can’t get increases like this at will. Yes, fees can be avoided by paying via cash, check or debit card…but if one had the cash they would have used that in the first place.
What stands out to me here is that at least it is OPTIONAL. In fact it strikes me as being deliberately guilt inducing telling the guest you may request to have it taken off…thereby indicating to your lowly server who worked so hard to serve you that you don’t care…that even though you could spend a small fortune on your meal and beverage, you can’t afford a measly 3% additional…which does not appear to be a tip…Again this is an optional situation, not like a needed service for health care. So we can show our displeasure in other situations by walking IF we know in advance. And if enough of us stop patronizing such places, places close and people lose jobs…And might I add that charging $9 for miso soup and $5 for a side of rice is outrageous. For a hospitality company (in which I am a tiny shareholder) I find this very inhospitable!
We don’t need medical or dental care but it certainly helps and is majorly benefitial. There’s not much one actually needs: sleep, food, water, air, shelter, clothing
This ‘Service Fee’ has also been on my check at some of the Lettuce Entertain You concepts in the city of Chicago. Service Fee, then pay it to the servers, or simply leave that to the guest based on the service. It’s deceptive and frustrating.
Are they also adding 3.5% or more a year to every employee for their salaries to track with inflation?
This is at all Lettuce Entertain you Restaurants in the city of Chicago. It is a total scam in their part and i dont even want to think about how much extra koney they are making by people not noticing or thinking it is required a tax. Lettuce entertain you restaurant group us unethical and deserves to close. Miru is part of the group it is really not St. Regis adding this tax, the headline should be changed.
I don’t agree – it is inside St. Regis hotel. The buck stops there.