You can only do that if paying cash. And if you do, what will effectively happen is that the money you intend to leave as tip will go toward the fee instead.
People like to act as if wait staff are completely innocent, but when I was younger I had a policy that if a female waitress started touching me close to the closing out of the deal she got no tip.
I personally find that behavior gross.
This is true whether I'm a developer, a ski instructor or a waiter.
No, as we all know the service staff has no power over the restaurant policy.
They are, however, the communication agent between customer and restaurant, so they should be informing the customer about these surprise charges up front. If they don't, they are indeed complicit.
Logically pay the bill then leave a negative review and never eat there again.
Is that actually a crime? My understanding is that you can leave your contact info, walk out. I’m not aware of any cases where police have gotten involved in a payment dispute. I used to work in a law enforcement adjacent field, and when the topic came up, the cops said it’s a civil dispute, not a crime.
Edit - after searching online, there are a few cases of diners being arrested, though it seems the charges are always dropped. Also those cases involved posted notices of the fee before the diners ordered.
They have violated the contract, added new fees after the fact. They have violated the contract, refusing to accept the agreed upon payment.
Instead of relying on your fictional understanding of how the law works in every state of the union the more logical thing would be to either vote with your wallet or work to pass local laws against such fees or hell why not both.
You're completely right, the case will get thrown out. If you remember, in your scenario it is the restaurant suing the customer for not paying the 20% fraudulent fee, it's not the customer suing the restaurant.
Trying to add a fee after the price has been agreed and the food consumed is plain fraud. That's why they won't take you to court. If you dispute it while in the restaurant, they will let it go. Because they know the justice system will side with the customer.
Imagine for example if Ticket Master would charge extra fees after a concert, preventing you to leave if you do not pay. Not even they would do such a thing.
>Try this at retail
I do this all the time in retail, paying part in cash and part by card. No problem at all, cashiers often ask if I have any cash I'd like to use towards the bill first.
1. The human is the master 2. The machine is the slave
There is always a way to change an order in a POS system. If there is no button to do that, that is not a concern for the customer.
You ought to inform management that you disagree with the fee and won't be eating there again now that you know about it. You of course can no longer claim not to know about the fee after this point.
Deleting the fee case by case would be shitty policy because it adds constant friction. Deleting it wholly and raising prices is the right thing but as mentioned in the article there is a strong incentive to keep the fee structure to avoid losing our to places that do so.
The correct thing therefore is to get with city government and forbid the practice because now everyone is incentized to do the right thing.
Your suggestion to throw individual temper tantrums all over town is manifestly ineffective compared to my suggestion to pay the piddling fee then fix the underlying problem.
I've managed restaurants and worked professionally with implementing POS systems. Any restaurant owner who tries to force customers pay an extra, hidden fee, after the food has been ordered and consumed knows that what they are doing is fraudulent. Maybe they don't know it is illicit.
Every POS system has a way to delete fees and parts of an order. Business would be impossible without this, since waiters make mistakes and have to correct them. And if the system doesn't have that function it is a problem for the restaurant, not for the client.
Many people share the same misconception that you have, that somehow the machine or POS system decides what the customer has to do. The purpose of a POS system is to make life easier for your staff - if that is implemented in a way that makes life harder for the customer it means you have failed badly. The human is the master and the machine is the servant. Therefore you as a customer politely but sternly refuse illicit fees when they try to force them on you.
Your talk about "going to city government" shows that you don't understand that these kind of fees already are illegal on state and federal levels. Recently the Federal Trade Commission in the United States has committed explicitly [1, 2] towards cracking down hard on these hidden fees, that they call "junk fees" in the hospitality industry. Let me quote for you:
"Unavoidable charges imposed on captive consumers: Consumers may be forced to pay junk fees because they have no way to avoid or opt out of them. They might be dealing with a company with a monopoly or exclusive rights that can extract fees because there is no competing option. Or consumers might get hit with fees after they have already sunk costs into a product or service, and they can’t easily walk away."
This is from the White House [3]:
"Surprise fees that consumers learn about after purchase. Surprise fees that consumers do not expect – and which may not be mandatory – similarly make it hard to comparison shop and can burden household finances."
Are they throwing temper tantrums? Are the state attorneys who are successfully prosecuting large hotel chains for junk fees throwing temper tantrums? Is the EU throwing temper tantrums about this?
Back in the real world there are countries where it is customary for restaurants to add a service fee - usually 10% - on the final bill. This is clearly stated on the menu, and usually the waiter will ask you for permission to add this fee before bringing you the bill. This system is used instead of tips. If the customer don't want to pay the fee they have the right to refuse it and all restaurants accept such a refusal. Imagine if the waiter said "Sorry, our machine doesn't allow us to remove the fee, so you have to pay. You pay now!". Most would laugh, you would pay.
[1] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/prepare-for-renewe... [2] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/10/... [3] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/blog/2022/10/26/the...
You say "most would laugh" and I feel like perhaps you haven't made much of a study of the human species. Most people are wimps and afraid to look like an asshole over a few bucks. This policy is pervasive enough to bitch about because it's damn near trivial to bully people into compliance if it would make them feel or look like an asshole and the cost is small and more importantly if they feel like it's normal and a social faux pas to complain. An authority figure even one as trivial as a waiter or manager telling them that this is normal and customary is sufficient to inspire conformance especially with a room full of people who are paying and leaving and not making a scene.
For myself I would have read the signage and made an informed decision not to eat there on principle but had I sat down and eaten I would in fact pay a modest fee because it's not worth my time to tilt at windmills.
Can you imagine sitting at a table spending your afternoon fighting the battle of the sandwich fee with a "manager" himself paid a pittance and counting yourself the victor?
Winning looks like walking away and knowing they are slowly alienating their customers and they will be dead next year.
No. If they refuse to charge your card the agreed amount then they are refusing to take your money and that's no longer your problem.
They might well claim otherwise, and you might well end up in a scene, but please don't accept their fraudulent framing, or spread the idea that they are somehow in the right with that framing.
If it's prosecution you fear, then consider that they can prosecute you for anything at any time. Why not a 100% fee? A 200% fee? Ten times the agreed amount? At what point will you refuse to pay?
Photo of the menu, what i was charged and telling everybody to do the same.