Enough with the passive aggressive restaurant checks. It's absolutely political (I've never gotten a check that said "5% surcharge because our landlord is a dick"), saw a ton of this crap after San Francisco passed a healthcare surcharge. Just raise your prices like you do when any other cost increases.

And Working Washington isn't politically motivated? You got your wage. Why are you beating up businesses now for implementing it in whatever way they decide to do it? Why must they agree with what you wanted?

Yes, rent goes up, and minimum wage has also gone up every year. Neither of these have ever gone up 61%. This is transitional. Business will either come to absorb it in or they will close down. Leave them alone. they are employing people. They are paying the wages. They are paying the benefits. They are now absorbing the secure scheduling nonsense that most wait staff will hate. Is this not enough for Working WA?

I find it really disturbing the tactics this group uses. They are trying to silence businesses who may have an opinion about, yes, an opinion about politics in the city where they employ people by running a business.

#1, no generally if the rent goes up 61% the business closes or moves. The reality is this is a huge hit and business owners, yes, believe it or not, truly believe that if they raise their costs they will lose business. That is a solid economic foundation they believe in. Otherwise so many wouldn't go out of business, right, they'd just raise their prices.

And believe it or not, people get pissed at little things. Maybe the surcharge is pissing off just as many people as an increase in prices, but who knows. It is all the same. Who cares. Working WA won, so why are they behaving like Trump?

Cost of doing business. Any other business models make a point of crying about business costs?
If your margins are so low you have to whine to your customers about it, the amazing invisible hand should be swatting you away.shortly. Otherwise you are just a crying bitch.

I think everyone is looking at this incorrectly.

You can't police people's motivations. They want to put a surcharge on the bill to be explicit about the need to raise prices? Who cares why they do it?

We need to Obamacare this thing.

That surcharge line? We need to emphasize that, not pop a neck vein over it. Those are our political and social values, in a nice neat summation.

Gladly pay that surcharge! Yeah, people are getting PAID! This is what we voted for, what we care about!

Tell everyone about the surcharge and don't give a fuck about why the restaurant owner put it on the bill. TURN THEM INTO PROGRESSIVES!

Make it a positive, is what I am trying to say.

Toulouse Petit is doing this as well, and I won't be going back there either.

Just a reminder that in Australia (and almost everywhere except USA) people earn a living wage, the Tax is included in the price, and all this bullshit is irrelevant. Move into the 20th century people.

@3 Where are you getting 61%? The Y/Y minimum wage increase for business with 500 or fewer employees is 50 cents and hour each year.

I'll agree with you on one thing—I don't know why a publication larger than a neighborhood blog is reporting on this one business, probably because idiots having slow days like myself feel the need to comment.

http://murray.seattle.gov/minimumwage/

What, the Stranger gets to push an agenda and small businesses don't???

I dunno, as a customer, I'd like to be reminded that my huge restaurant bill is actually funding someone's livelihood, not overpaying for food like we overpay for everything else in this tax-happy, throw-money-at-every-problem town.

Yeah I'll bet their Seattle-Times-reading weak-fondue-eating customers do get off on it.

"The reality is this is a huge hit..."

No, the reality is a 3% surcharge will cover it, at least according to this particular fondue chain.

"Where are you getting 61%?"

That's how opponents of the minimum wage do math. Not really very surprising, is it?

@2 Working Washington is one of the many lobbying groups that basically own the Seattle city government: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news…

And this law was awful and I personally know people who lost jobs over it...but I guess that fascist twit Sawant (aka, the Trump of Seattle) would rather they have no job than one that pays an "evil capitalist wage" of $13/hour.
(and I bet $15 someone will come back with an ad hominem and not actually refute anything I just said)

Bottom line is this: if you don't like it, don't eat there. Freedom of choice is great!
But I forgot, being anti-choice is one of the many things that all fascists, be they Trumpists or Sanderists, have in common.

Funny, no one has mentioned The Melting Pots menu prices. What exactly is stopping them from paying a decent wage W/O having to implement a surcharge?

What @1 said.

If these whiny restaurants want to implement the price increase that way, fine, to me all it does is paint them as pants wetting little loser bitches.

I'm looking forward to going to one of these Melting Pot places where anyone can dine.

People still go out for fondue? What is this, 1992?

Here's the thing with restaurant surcharges: They can do what they like, but it makes them seem sort of shady - like they are trying to convince you that they otherwise operate at cost. Or what Our Dear Urgutha said.

@12: "this law was awful and I personally know people who lost jobs over it"
I just bet you do, cubbie.

Nice to see you back here. Say, did you ever move to Texas like you were threatening to a few years ago? Come on down, the weather's fine!

collectivism_sucks dear, welcome back. I thought you had died.

If you think that Working Washington "owns" city government as part of a liberal cabal, you are even more naive than I had assumed. Other than Sawant - who I am no fan of - city government is owned by developers, corporations, and other wealthy interests. The almighty dollar runs Seattle, despite the fancy window dressings.

As for The Melting Pot, it's just a banal franchise restaurant. Those are almost always run by people who fancy themselves to be "self-made", and who somehow scrape together enough money to buy into an idea, because they are incapable of having ideas of their own. It's not surprising that the owner would engage in this sort of "activism", and it's no surprise that you would be impressed by it.

'@12: "this law was awful and I personally know people who lost jobs over it"
I just bet you do, cubbie.'

Funny, isn't it? If the opponents of the high minimum wage (or any other liberal policy) were actually correct, Seattle would be a raging sinkhole of high unemployment, and places like rural Idaho and Mississippi would be economic paradises. There would be no need to cite anecdotal evidence of anonymous (and possibly fictional) persons.

61%? Yes, $9.47 to $15. The melting pot is a large business. I'm curious, those who are surprised by this simple math, do you now look at it differently?

Whether you support it or not it is a large increase that all businesses have to figure out to handle. It's easy to sit in a cube and judge when you don't have to pay the bills.

ahumanbeing dear, The Melting Pot is a franchise operation. That means that the owner pays a franchise fee for his/her restaurant. In exchange, he/she gets a brand name, generic marketing, standard menus and recipes, and a set of expectations that they have to meet to keep the franchise agreement. In exchange, the franchise company gets a percentage of the profits.

The Seattle franchise is operating in a city that easily bears higher prices, even for something as banal as a chain restaurant that depends largely on melted cheese and/or self-cooking of various meats to draw people in, so your crocodile tears are not particularly effective, at least in my "cube".

"61%? Yes, $9.47 to $15."

Thank you for demonstrating the validity of my point @11.

"I'm curious, those who are surprised by this simple math, do you now look at it differently?"

No one else here is surprised by the math, although your ability to do it seems to impress you.

I'm curious, those who decry the 61% increase in the minimum wage, why do you not mention the 3% surcharge The Melting Pot actually claimed was the resultant increased cost of doing business? Does your self-proclaimed great concern about their increased cost of doing business not actually extend to listening to what the restaurant management actually tells you?

Now, after you've recognized the fact that a 61% increase in the minimum wage results in an actual increase of 3% in the cost of doing business, will you understand that 3% is not "a big hit"? Better yet, will you do the actual math, which gets you from 61% to 3%? If you can do that, then maybe we'll take you seriously.

(Maybe after that, you can tell us why no restaurant ever imposes a "greedy landlord" surcharge, no matter how many increases in the rent happen.)

#24 - several commentators do not seem to understand the increase. It also doesn't stop at $15. I would assume you understand how you get from 61% to 3%. It isn't for me to decide whether it is a big hit for that business or not.

Of course keep in mind that secure scheduling is rolling out where now this business owner will be paying $15 for someone calling in sick, and $22.50 to replace that person. Also on the table is a payroll tax for parental leave. While we may agree all these things are good and even necessary, they do impact the bottom line and businesses have to adjust to it.

My point is that businesses in Seattle have to deal with this reality and I don't really understand why people care how they do it. In particular what business it is of Working Washington's.

If a landlord raises rent by 61% and they don't do that, then I guess we could discuss it but until then it doesn't mean much.

I have no "crocodile tears for the owner of the melting pot. I do believe that we will see less opportunity for people who would like to start businesses in Seattle and for the employees that work here. I do worry about them and this debate over a surcharge is a ridiculous distraction. Of course the jury is still out on this experiment. It could be that I will be wrong.

For my business, it is working out great by loosening up the job market a little I'm better able to find good employees and my competitors are all closing.

@24 The answer to my "where do you get 61%?" question is "we're condensing the schedule which is staggered over a period of time", but condescending lectures are cool too! My point was making a big to do to customers is political (and tacky). When I see that on a bill or posted in a restaurant, my first impression is oh God these people work for a total prick. It doesn't mean you are, but that's the appearance it gives.

I know it's tough out there and I wish you luck. It's also tough out there for employees.

Sorry, that was meant for @25, as if anyone's coming back to this.

"I would assume you understand how you get from 61% to 3%."

No, that was me suggesting you do the math to get from the 61% you claimed to the 3% the restaurant claimed. That was not me saying you get to assume the very thing you need most to prove.

"It isn't for me to decide whether it is a big hit for that business or not."

Well, that was quick:

"The reality is this is a huge hit..."

You two can fight that out amongst yourselves, 'K?

"...my competitors are all closing."

Show your work or no credit.