re: Restaurants charging 4% for using credit card

Log Cabin didn't charge extra. Got my order wrong though.

Are people really frequenting restaurants and bars so much that they are having to worry about 3-4% transaction fees? shite, I only go to restaurants and vars when I'm traveling.

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My parents always tip in cash
No clue how or why they would know this but said the fee gets taken out the servers tip if it’s done on a card
No one in our family has ever worked in a restaurant so not sure who told them that

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They bought the ole line that lets waiters get away without paying their fair share of taxes like the rest of us.

Yes, they lose 2%, but you are up charged for that 2% already.

Trashy. There's probably also tax fraud going on there.

B&M locations are probably paying less than 1% in total processing fees. I averaged under 1% with my business on my B&M transactions. Online was higher but our processor always charged us B&M rates on our online stuff because we would have a few hundred thousand at our location and maybe a few thousand online. Now some small places might not take the time to shop around rates and find a good processor, but that isn't the customers fault. It is pretty much lazy to show this to your customer, what you should be doing is counting is as an expense and marking it up behind the scenes.

Legally you have to show it to the customer and within the next 5 years every bar and restaurant will do this. Generally you pay between 2.5-3% when it's all said and done normally. So if you do $1 million in sales you are paying $25-30k a year plus in processing. What's going on now is the processing companies have bought and/or teamed up with point of sale register companies. They come in and tell you if you charge the 4% to your customers not only will you not pay a dime in fees anymore but they will also give you all your register equipment free and give you a signing bonus of several thousand dollars. In turn the processing companies come behind your 4% and charge 3.8% in processing fees. It will be everywhere soon bc as soon as a few dominoes in an area fall everyone will do it. It's too good of a deal to pass up especially for anyone starting a new business that can not have to pony up for new POS systems and terminals. Legally you have to post a sign advertising a Cash Discount.

Obviously it’s been a “thing” for a while. Do you expect the business to accept a 4% fee on all customers who don’t pay cash? Wouldn’t be good for business. Should they have (& may have) stated it on the menu? Yes.

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Thanks for the notice….looks like the tip gets cut by 5% when using a credit card from now on

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Yep. I cut the tip. I know it’s not the server’s fault but they can take that issue up with the owners.

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Went to a local restaurant to eat lunch. Glanced when I put my cc down. Noticed the total was in the 60’s. Didn’t pay that much attention to it. When she brought me back the cc slip to sign, when I went to leave the tip it was in the 70’s. Asked her and she showed me in small print a 4% charge for all non-cash payments. When did this become a thing? I go out to eat all the time, rarely do I look closely at the bill. Only reason I noticed it this time is the first number changed.

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This makes me think I should probably go cash only. Go to the ATM for a couple hundo when I need it. I feel like seeing cash leaving my hand may make me more frugal/respectful of dollars spent in the long run.

The CC feels like free money. A problem for another day. Not financially healthy.

It’s probably because I believe Visa up there percentage that they charge for every swipe.

I get 4% back on everything I spend on the crypto of my choice and honestly there’s one that I’m looking at in particular, it’s like a new payment rail system that’s going to replace visa and MasterCard and American Express and it pretty much doesn’t charge the business and it almost eliminates fraud completely but it’s a long ways off.