Thank you for visiting the Eater Complaints Department, your unedited platform for voicing poor dining experiences, gross restaurant trends, underhanded service issues and the like. Have grievances? Operators are standing by.
From: [an eater]
Date: Friday, February 1, 2008
To: eater complaints dept.
Subject: $1.25 service charge added to restaurant bill
______
I saw your link to the Michael B blurb regarding the $1.25 fee restaurants are adding to the final check. I suspect the GGRA is behind this and asking all restaurants to add this to their menu.*
For instance: TWO restaurant now has it at the bottom of their bill. They already offer insurance to their employees** and are not contributing to the ordinance because they do not have to. So my question is where does this money go that they are collecting? This is fraud.
--Concerned Citizen
*The GGRA denies this and says they only provide technical advice (i.e. how taxes work with service charges) and options for dealing with the health care crisis. According to the GGRA, restaurants are on their own in the decision.
**From what we've found thus far, this would appear to be somewhat valid: TWO does indeed have a service charge and already offers insurance, though we should add that the extent is unknown, so feel free to chime in.