Agree or disagree: at this restaurant, you pay a separate energy surcharge
A meat restaurant in Zoetermeer has been charging customers an energy surcharge of €2.50 per person since 15 September. The owner says this is necessary ‘to survive’ and says the reactions in the restaurant were mostly understanding when he announced the measure. There are other opinions too.
The impact of all the price increases is, of course, enormous for many people. For consumers and entrepreneurs, who are seeing everything become shockingly more expensive. There are countless heartbreaking stories, and many are struggling to keep their heads above water. By adding the energy surcharge to every cover, this hospitality entrepreneur says he is striving for transparency, but not everyone agrees.
Partially passed on
Owner Dirk Braam of restaurant Achteraf in Zoetermeer tells hospitality trade magazine Misset Horeca that he did not want to introduce another 3 percent price increase on the menu, as he had previously done after purchasing prices rose by 40 percent. To keep dining out affordable, he only partially passed those purchasing costs on in the menu prices.
The elasticity is gone
The energy-cost problem, however, is a category apart: Braam says that the meat restaurant’s energy bill has risen from €950 per month to €4,300 per month. ‘We are a grill restaurant, so meat certainly plays a leading role here,’ Braam says in Misset Horeca. Margins are now low, there is no room left, and according to him, the surcharge to cover the explosively rising energy costs is the only way for the business to survive. He hopes the measure will only have to be temporary. The restaurant’s website states that it will be discontinued immediately once energy prices return to normal. The surcharge does not apply to children.
Controversial measure
On Facebook, reactions to Misset Horeca’s article about the surcharge vary, and, as so often on the platform, commenters also get rather angry with each other. One says it is profiteering, “as if the average customer doesn’t have high energy costs”, while another calls the ‘average customer’ people who continued to be paid properly during the coronavirus crisis. Yet another would have no problem with it and appreciates the openness about the surcharge, while someone else says that if you go out for dinner with four people and get a tenner added on top for the energy surcharge, they would not do it. This gentleman was also responsible for the rather amusing comment “and your glass of wine is barely wet”, referring to sparingly poured glasses.
What do you think? If a price increase had simply been introduced quietly by adjusting the prices on the menu, would that have been better?
Source: Misset Horeca
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