Dining out is often expensive as you are paying for the luxury of having a meal being made for you on top of the additional expenses such as tipping that often comes up as well for non fast food restaurants. As well, even ordering food from deliveries can be expensive where many businesses actually increase the prices to make up for vendor fees all while not factoring in tips either. So how about just ordering for the food item to pick up?
You would think that would avoid any extra fees. But looking at this bill posted online apparently restaurants are actually charging people money to pock up their meals. It looked like it was from a restaurant called Olympia Pizza and the order appeared to be digital. But as you can see, there is a “surcharge” of one dollar for the customer to pick up the order.
I’m trying to think how that fee is even justifies. That could be its way to pay for whatever solution they use to process the order digitally kind of like how many merchants sneak in a credit card transaction fee. Or, it can be the extra cost of packaging everything up nicely for them to pick up. But either way, I think this is an example of a fee that a business should probably find other ways to make up for as the optics don’t seem very good. Especially considering the customer has to make the trip and all.
I do wonder if restaurants are simply going to price themselves out eventually with these kinds of fees. I have heard some people in the industry say if you can’t afford it then don’t order from them since there are plenty that would. Only time will tell.