Minnesota cafe add minimum wage surcharge

[Quantum Windbag]

All the crybabies complaining about the surcharge must not care that without it, some of the employees might lose their jobs or get their hours reduced.

Liberals are so ironical, ain't they.

I have no issue with them raising their prices if they need to, but I do have an issue with them charging in this manner. They are a bunch of pussy whiners and would not get my business. I'm so sick of companies who could give a rats ass about their employees. Those minimum wage employees work their asses off and are rarely appreciated.

I am sure they will be so disappointed that they lost such a self righteous asshole as a customer.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

add the total of 35 cents to the price of the 10 items ordered on the average check for a table of 3....

3.5 cents higher per average item ordered...would not have even been noticed....

the restaurant CLEARLY CHOSE this route to express his political position...surely he can stand the heat, from what he created?

Yup, business owner being a complete dickhead. Hope the restaurant goes belly up.

If you read the link you will see that they are actually getting more business than usual. I guess everyone isn't a self righteous asshole, which gives me hope for the future.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

This makes me

Everyone wants to pay people more...until they personally have to SEE that it is they who are paying for it.

If the cafe HIDES the increase...that's A-OK...but do it out in the open and they are outraged.

Hysterical.

Again, no one is outraged. Everyone that I saw interviewed was okay with the charge, even the guy who didn't know it was there. My only complaint is that the charge should be listed BEFORE you order. If it's in the price on the menu, then you know what you will be paying, but when it's added later, it increases your bill unexpectedly.

Lots of people in this thread are outraged, and my link actually included people who went on the record with their outrage. You should stop pretending that the video you saw is the whole story.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Did anyone really expect the cost of the higher minimum wage would not be passed on to the customer?
The only thing here is the restaurant just made it a surcharge as opposed to just incorporating it into the cost.

And I cannot find anything which says he is upfront about that cost. Again, I have no problem with it as long as people know about it BEFORE they order. I do think he is being a jerk though. I hate all these a la carte things. The airlines charge extra for bags, food, etc. All to make it look like your ticket is cheaper when it's not.

He probably isn't upfront about the taxes either, do you have a fucking point, or do you just think people are required to advertise things that the government forces on them?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

When minimum wage was first started, it provided for a family of 3 to live above poverty. If it had kept up with inflation, it would be over $16 an hour by now.

Don't think a minimum wage job was about someone trying to support a family.

Again, that's what the minimum wage was set at when it started. You don't like it fine, but the truth is that minimum wage has the lowest spending power since it started and whereas once upon a time, in a minimum wage job, you could get your own apartment, buy a car, and go to college part time, today you can't even support yourself on a minimum wage job. It's ridiculous. Virtual slavery for our lowest paid workers today with no chance of ever improving their lot.

Have you noticed that the cities with the highest minimum wage are the ones where no one can live on minimum wage?

I know plenty of people who make minimum wage, pay their rent, and feed themselves, and have a bit of money left over for entertainment, all without ever getting any extra support from the government.

In other words, just because New York hates poor people and tries to price them out of the city, that does not mean that minimum wage is worthless everywhere.

 

[Care4all]

If a worker has been working for ten years for just minimum wage, then it's his own damn fault. Now where is that shaker of salt?

There are some people who are not capable of doing better than minimum wage. One of my first jobs was as a dishwasher in the early 60's. There was a clean up man that couldn't even handle being a dishwasher in a busy restaurant, let alone fry cook. Yet he was married and just had a baby son. Yet, as a janitor, he could raise a family. Today, it would be impossible. He would need help such as food stamps etc.

In 1963 the minimum wage was 25 cents an hour. The janitor was not raising a family on 25 cents an hour, even in 1963.

No it was 500 percent higher than 25 cents in1963 katz.....

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Again, that's what the minimum wage was set at when it started. You don't like it fine, but the truth is that minimum wage has the lowest spending power since it started and whereas once upon a time, in a minimum wage job, you could get your own apartment, buy a car, and go to college part time, today you can't even support yourself on a minimum wage job. It's ridiculous. Virtual slavery for our lowest paid workers today with no chance of ever improving their lot.

in a minimum wage job, you could get your own apartment, buy a car, and go to college part time

And vacation 20 times a year,own a small boat,invest in the stock market,own 2 vacation homes....

Also it was also 1000 BC at one time.

nope, 1968. and the rest of your response is crap too. My brother did all of those things after he graduated from high school on a minimum wage job. Granted his apartment was furnished with lawn furniture and a sleeping bag, but he bought a brand new car (well, he was making payments) and was going to college part time. All on a minimum wage job.

How do you think people are suppose to improve themselves if they can't even survive on a minimum wage job? How are they suppose to go to school? It's shameful how much spending power the minimum wage jobs have lost. Meanwhile, our income gap is greater than ever. The pie is growing but the pieces for the middle class are staying the same size and for the poor, they are shrinking. Not good for a supposedly "developed" nation. No country can long survive with a majority of it's wealth in the hands of a few.

Tell you what, if you really want to make a difference in the lives of poor people, go tell your city council to stop restricting new housing developments because that is the main cause of higher rents. After that, you can tell the they shouldn't require apartments to be large enough for a family of four when only one person is allowed to live there.

After they do that, you will see an increase in the ability of a person making minimum wage to thrive on the money they make.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I find it ironic that conservatives believe that workers should be paid little to no money for their work then bitch about all the crime in the poor areas. Hello????

If you're poor and your only two options are work honestly for $250/week before taxes or make $1,000/day dealing drugs, what would you choose?

I find it even more ironic that you still think being poor makes people criminals.

 

[JFK_USA]

add the total of 35 cents to the price of the 10 items ordered on the average check for a table of 3....

3.5 cents higher per average item ordered...would not have even been noticed....

the restaurant CLEARLY CHOSE this route to express his political position...surely he can stand the heat, from what he created?

Yup, business owner being a complete dickhead. Hope the restaurant goes belly up.

If you read the link you will see that they are actually getting more business than usual. I guess everyone isn't a self righteous asshole, which gives me hope for the future.

Or maybe people are supporting a higher wage for the workers and are willing to pay for it. Couldn't that also be the case?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

And I cannot find anything which says he is upfront about that cost. Again, I have no problem with it as long as people know about it BEFORE they order. I do think he is being a jerk though.

Of course everyone knew about the extra cost because they voted for the greedy politicians who increased the minimum wage. The people did know about it...their politicians are the ones who increased it...

and it is the mandatory minimum wage...all the other businesses, including all the other restaurants have raised their prices as we'll...this guy is smart enough to show the dumb people what their votes actually cost...the other businesses should do the same...

If you are making only making minimum wage...you should not be having a family...you should be,responsible and wait till you have a job that will actually support a family.

You've missing the point. Today minimum wage won't even support one person.

I actually know people in a single earner household that make minimum wage and manage to get by. The secret is not living in a city that forces poor people to beg for help.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I find it ironic that conservatives believe that workers should be paid little to no money for their work then bitch about all the crime in the poor areas. Hello????

If you're poor and your only two options are work honestly for $250/week before taxes or make $1,000/day dealing drugs, what would you choose?

Those are not the only two options.

For many yes it is.

If you live in a poor neighborhood, your schools don't get much tax revenue so you have poor facilities, outdated textbooks, and marginal teachers. So the school you attend becomes unaccredited. That means you can't go to college. So your options are those two above. Not everyone has great schools that they go to in this country.

That was funny.

Tell me something, oh font of all bullshit, how many inner city schools lack funding today? States routinely funnel large amounts of cash to poor schools in order to keep up with federal standards, so your argument is pure BS.

 

[JFK_USA]

I find it ironic that conservatives believe that workers should be paid little to no money for their work then bitch about all the crime in the poor areas. Hello????

If you're poor and your only two options are work honestly for $250/week before taxes or make $1,000/day dealing drugs, what would you choose?

I find it even more ironic that you still think being poor makes people criminals.

You obviously fail at reading comprehension. Poverty is one of the factors that leads to the desperation to commit crimes. That's a known fact.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Idiots take offense.

A small cafe in Stillwater has thrown itself into the big battle over Minnesota’s minimum wage increases, inundating the cafe with dozens of phone calls and online comments this week after it tacked on a 35-cent fee to meal tabs.

Oasis Cafe owner Craig Beemer said the fee is needed to offset the 75-cent wage hike that took effect Aug. 1, the first time Minnesota’s minimum wage has increased in a decade. Even with only half a dozen servers, Beemer says it will cost him $10,000 more a year to pay servers $8 an hour instead of the federal rate of $7.25 an hour. Instead of adding it on to food prices, he added the “minimum wage fee” — the only restaurant known to do so in Minnesota so far.

It’s set off a firestorm of debate on Facebook and in the east metro community, with one customer calling the cafe Wednesday to demand a refund and others taking to Facebook to encourage people to boycott the roadside cafe.

“We’re shocked at what’s going on,” manager Colin Orcutt said of the public response. “We’re all appalled at the response for just protecting his employees. We’re just doing what we have to do.”

It’s not the only restaurant responding to the wage hike.

Blue Plate Co., which owns eight restaurants in the Twin Cities and has about 650 workers, says the wage increase and rising expenses because of the health care law will cost the company $1.25 million, prompting it to increase prices and add a fee to servers when a credit card is used to pay a tip.

“We believe that the industry is overreacting,” Wade Luneburg of the MN State Council of UNITE HERE Unions told the Star Tribune this week. “Putting [minimum wage] fees on tickets and passing the cost on to consumers directly is strange at best, and creates an ‘us against them’ mentality while ordering dinner.”

At the Stillwater cafe, which sits at the edge of the downtown and near its historic caves, customers filed in Wednesday for the cafe’s signature burgers or breakfast meals. Despite online boycott threats, business has actually increased so far this week, Orcutt said.

Stillwater cafe faces heat for adding 'minimum wage fee' to tab | Star Tribune

Fuck 'em, they're owned by right wing assholes who probably cheat on their taxes and charge 1,000% of their cost for soda and coffee. Let the owners serve the customers, clear the tables and put up with the complalnts.

BTW, I spent a week one night working at Applebees when they had a Tip a Cop evening (all tips when to police activities leagues). Servers have a very hard job and all we needed to do was keep up with them.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Yup, business owner being a complete dickhead. Hope the restaurant goes belly up.

If you read the link you will see that they are actually getting more business than usual. I guess everyone isn't a self righteous asshole, which gives me hope for the future.

Or maybe people are supporting a higher wage for the workers and are willing to pay for it. Couldn't that also be the case?

Excuse me, of font of all idiocy, but the entire fucking state is paying its workers more. Why would anyone think that one business is more deserving of extra business for complying with the law than any other?

The fucking truth is that you are a sad, pathetic, excuse for a human being. If you weren't you wouldn't think of such stupid explanations of why a restaurant was getting more business than its competitors for adding a minimum wage surcharge.

Want to try another pathetic explanation for something you do not grasp?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I find it ironic that conservatives believe that workers should be paid little to no money for their work then bitch about all the crime in the poor areas. Hello????

If you're poor and your only two options are work honestly for $250/week before taxes or make $1,000/day dealing drugs, what would you choose?

I find it even more ironic that you still think being poor makes people criminals.

You obviously fail at reading comprehension. Poverty is one of the factors that leads to the desperation to commit crimes. That's a known fact.

Which is why the crime rate went down during the recession.

Wait...


Maybe your well known facts are wrong.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Idiots take offense.

A small cafe in Stillwater has thrown itself into the big battle over Minnesota’s minimum wage increases, inundating the cafe with dozens of phone calls and online comments this week after it tacked on a 35-cent fee to meal tabs.

Oasis Cafe owner Craig Beemer said the fee is needed to offset the 75-cent wage hike that took effect Aug. 1, the first time Minnesota’s minimum wage has increased in a decade. Even with only half a dozen servers, Beemer says it will cost him $10,000 more a year to pay servers $8 an hour instead of the federal rate of $7.25 an hour. Instead of adding it on to food prices, he added the “minimum wage fee” — the only restaurant known to do so in Minnesota so far.

It’s set off a firestorm of debate on Facebook and in the east metro community, with one customer calling the cafe Wednesday to demand a refund and others taking to Facebook to encourage people to boycott the roadside cafe.

“We’re shocked at what’s going on,” manager Colin Orcutt said of the public response. “We’re all appalled at the response for just protecting his employees. We’re just doing what we have to do.”

It’s not the only restaurant responding to the wage hike.

Blue Plate Co., which owns eight restaurants in the Twin Cities and has about 650 workers, says the wage increase and rising expenses because of the health care law will cost the company $1.25 million, prompting it to increase prices and add a fee to servers when a credit card is used to pay a tip.

“We believe that the industry is overreacting,” Wade Luneburg of the MN State Council of UNITE HERE Unions told the Star Tribune this week. “Putting [minimum wage] fees on tickets and passing the cost on to consumers directly is strange at best, and creates an ‘us against them’ mentality while ordering dinner.”

At the Stillwater cafe, which sits at the edge of the downtown and near its historic caves, customers filed in Wednesday for the cafe’s signature burgers or breakfast meals. Despite online boycott threats, business has actually increased so far this week, Orcutt said.

Stillwater cafe faces heat for adding 'minimum wage fee' to tab | Star Tribune

Fuck 'em, they're owned by right wing assholes who probably cheat on their taxes and charge 1,000% of their cost for soda and coffee. Let the owners serve the customers, clear the tables and put up with the complalnts.

BTW, I spent a week one night working at Applebees when they had a Tip a Cop evening (all tips when to police activities leagues). Servers have a very hard job and all we needed to do was keep up with them.

Thanks for making my point.

Idiots take offense.

 

[Againsheila]

Of course everyone knew about the extra cost because they voted for the greedy politicians who increased the minimum wage. The people did know about it...their politicians are the ones who increased it...

and it is the mandatory minimum wage...all the other businesses, including all the other restaurants have raised their prices as we'll...this guy is smart enough to show the dumb people what their votes actually cost...the other businesses should do the same...

If you are making only making minimum wage...you should not be having a family...you should be,responsible and wait till you have a job that will actually support a family.

You've missing the point. Today minimum wage won't even support one person.

It will if you don't live above your means. You will be screwed if your car breaks down, or your washing machine or stove or something, but it is possible to raise a family on minimum wage.

I don't know where you live, but around here, to rent an apartment is $1,000 a month MINIMUM. That's just the apartment, that's not utilities, transportation, food, etc. and it's a one bedroom. More for a 2 bedroom. So no, you can't possibly raise a family on minimum wage, you can't even support yourself.

 

[Againsheila]

Those are not the only two options.

For many yes it is.

If you live in a poor neighborhood, your schools don't get much tax revenue so you have poor facilities, outdated textbooks, and marginal teachers. So the school you attend becomes unaccredited. That means you can't go to college. So your options are those two above. Not everyone has great schools that they go to in this country.

McDonalds now offers college scholarships, so get a job for them, and let them pay for your education, that not educated well enough to go to college is bullshit. There are plenty of places to get a high school diploma at night, or on the weekends just in rural areas, I know I see a lot of them advertised in metropolitan areas.

There is the armed forces, and I personally went to the Job Corps back in the 80's and they paid for my college, it got me off a minimum wage job. There are a lot of choices out there, you just can't lay around on your ass and wait for them to bite it, it doesn't work that way.

McDonald's offers 51 scholarships a year. 50, $1,000 scholarships and 1 $5,000 scholarship. This is for all their workers. Exactly what college can you go to for $1,000 a year? Our local community college charges over $300 for ONE class, and that's not including books.

 

[Againsheila]

You've missing the point. Today minimum wage won't even support one person.

It was never supposed to support anyone...if you are a teenager in high school living at home...that is what the minimum wage was supposed to be for...but of course, that is the individual who it hurts the most, by wrecking the chances that teenagers can find those all important first jobs, why...because why pay a lazy teenager 8 dollars an hour when you can get the unemployed family man who knows how to work...unemployed because the democrats have driven out the businesses in the cities and states where they have power.

Why isn't anyone pointing out that one of the liberal paradises...Sweden...? Doesn't have a minimum wage...

Not true. When it was started, it was intended to support a family of 3.

Minimum Wage Was Once Enough To Keep a Family of 3 Out of Poverty - CityLab

 

[Againsheila]

By having to pay his employees more, he's no longer able to pay them as much as he was. Now he has to offset the added expenditure by charging customers more to make up for the hit he's taking thanks to the passed legislature. This is what happens when you increase minimum wage. Expenses rise to make up for it.

Whether you are a liberal or a conservative, imagine what will happen if the minimum wage of all food service employees rose to $15 per hour. Just imagine the ramifications, please.

Okay, does anybody understand the above bolded sentence?

In SeaTac the minimum wage was raised to $15.00 an hour. So far the only consequence is a few servers are upset they aren't getting tips anymore.