Why you’ll soon be paying more to eat out

Diners can expect a meal at a restaurant or cafe to cost them more, with a range of surcharges and price hikes being added to the bill.

Margaret Nguyen, owner of Cafe O-Mai in Annerley, says she’s had to introduce a 10 per cent Sunday surcharge or not open. Picture: Richard Walker

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Diners can expect to pay more when eating out, with 85 per cent of eateries predicting they will be forced to put up their prices, while others are having to levy surcharges to stay open.

The cost increases, revealed in the latest Restaurant and Catering Benchmarking Report, come as restaurants and cafes face huge price rises in ingredients, electricity, rent, interest rates and wages in the new financial year.

Margaret Nguyen, of beloved Brisbane Vietnamese eatery Cafe O-Mai, said she was forced to join the 50 per cent of hospitality venues now charging a Sunday surcharge, introducing the fee at the beginning of this month to try to keep her hit operation sustainable.

“I was a little bit worried that I would lose customers and that’s why I was hesitant to do it, but in July everything just went up significantly,” she said.

“My mum and I did the numbers and we went, ‘We just have to do it now, we can’t delay it,’ because the bottom line wasn’t worth it to open on a Sunday, so it was either we close or we have to do this to be able to make it sustainable.”

She said most customers understood the need for the 10 per cent surcharge and were happy to pay, but she revealed it would not be enough for her to continue to operate the cafe to its current standards, and she would also be forced to introduce a small price rise across her menu next month.

“There’s no way to cut corners or even having cheaper produce because customers are smart,” she said.

“So if you’re going to have to keep the same ingredients it needs to go somewhere, so we need to increase prices and we need to do the surcharge.”

At Brisbane’s popular Howard Smith Wharves precinct, Greek taverna Greca and Japanese eatery Yoko are one of the 20 per cent of restaurants across Australia, as reported by R&CA, now charging service fees for group bookings.

Owner Jonathan Barthelmess said the 7 per cent discretionary surcharge went directly to staff as tips and was introduced to help retain employees as workers would often miss out on tips when serving large groups.

“Everyone does it and to attract good people you have to be competitive, but that’s why it’s also discretionary,” he said.

More venues are now charging credit card and eftpos surcharges to cover bank costs, as well as corkage and cakeage prices, with some venues charging about $10 a person for bring-your-own alcohol or cake.

Restaurant and Catering Association CEO Suresh Manickam said the cost of living was hitting hospitality operators hard, and surcharges and increasing menu prices would be the only way many would be able to survive.

“It’s not that these people are gouging or profiteering, they’re just bringing sales up to where the costs are ordinarily placed,” he said.

“They have been absorbing these costs and it’s time to pass them on.”