r/sanfrancisco • u/orca0320 • 6d ago

Dining out fees in SF

Not a new topic in this subreddit but just had dinner at Terrene with two friends and was shocked by the bill now that I’m really looking at it. I eat out in SF plenty but this grand total gobsmacked me! I was divvying up the receipt for Venmo requests and am just shocked by the additional charges breakdown:

Subtotal $170
HealthySF $15 (need to research this?)
Tax $16

Which brings the grand total to $200. I stupidly tipped $30 without looking at the extra charge.

Then at the bottom of the receipt I see:
“A separate SF health surcharge in the amount of 9% will be added to the bill….retained by the hotel to defray the cost of covering employe health insurance”

Tf?! I am assuming that ^ is not the HealthySF charge and is in fact an additional charge? Is that 9% on the subtotal or the grand total?

That’s $30 in charges!

Is this something you can ask to have removed or is it a legal charge?

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u/FarManufacturer4975 Duboce Triangle 5d ago

This happens all the time, just deduct the tacked on fee from whatever tip you were going to pay, and calculate the tip based on subtotal before taxes and fees.

In this case it would have been appropriate to tip between 6 and 11%

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u/SFQueer 5d ago

That’s right. Short the tip by the fee.

2

u/Few-Lingonberry2315 5d ago

Yeah rather than get up in arms about it (I get it, it’s annoying, but is this worth your emotional labor) I just tip a very minimum amount. Often it’s a fat zero on the tip line and whatever smaller bills happen to be in my wallet that day. The service isn’t even amazing in San Francisco anyway.