LETTER: Profit margin too thin not to charge more

To the editor:

This is in response to the recent letter to the editor “Restaurants nickel and dime their guests.” First, I’d like to thank Richard Sarnwick for patronizing our local restaurants. Shopping and dining locally helps keep our businesses and economy strong.

Owning and running a restaurant is one of the most challenging businesses even during normal times, but especially now. We are very lucky and grateful our restaurants have survived over the past two years. First, they were forced to close. Then they dealt with slower customer traffic. Then their cost of doing business increased due to higher prices for their supplies and labor, and now it is a major challenge for them to find workers. I have the utmost respect for restaurant owners, operators and their staff.

As far as the added fee for customers utilizing a credit card, it is most definitely not to “nickel and dime” their customers, but simply to try to recoup what the credit card companies charge them every time someone uses a credit card. The average profit margin for a restaurant is between 3-5%. They can’t afford to lose anything from a sale. Depending on what credit card service a business uses, the processing fees charged to the business can be as high as 4% plus an additional 10 cents per transaction.

It doesn’t take a mathematician to realize those fees eat into an already razor thin profit margin. Raising prices across the board for all customers is something our businesses are trying very hard not to do right now, but many will need to do this just to stay in business. Businesses have to make a profit, or they won’t exist. It’s as simple as that.

What’s not so simple is running a business in this challenging environment and tight labor market. Kudos to all our businesses for all their hard work and dedication to our communities. Without them, there is no community.

Nancy Smith, Shawano Country Chamber of Commerce executive director, Shawano