San Diego, CA – A confused diner recently posted a photo of their receipt while dining at Pacific Catch Fish House after noticing a bizarre ‘Living wage surcharge’ on the bottom of the bill. The order was taken on March 2nd and the total cost $39.96. However, $1.08 of this was made up by the controversial surcharge. The rest of the price was based on the ahi poke and salmon ordered.
A photo of the receipt was posted to Reddit and was captioned with the following: “What is a living wage surcharge? Do I tip less because they have these additional taxes?” Here, over 190 people responded, with many of them bashing the seafood eatery for its policy.
Despite the backlash, some users were quick to point out that this sort of policy could be removed come July 1st due to the new SB-478 bill which makes it California law to disclose fees more openly. However, this doesn’t mean that controversial surcharges will be removed either.
Responding to this, one user named Lumberrmacc claimed: “Lmao, I helped open this place as a bartender. Worst management I’ve ever seen. I quit on the spot when I overheard a conversation between a server and the GM. She had a massive seizure that day and called to say she couldn’t make her shift because she was in the ER. He told her that was a bad excuse and to get to work. Easily the worst human I’ve ever worked for. Never give these people your money, the owners of the chain are just as wretched as their GM.”
Although many locals were clearly displeased by this policy, Pacific Catch still has a positive rating on Google, with a score of 4.2/5 over 392 reviews. While a dissapointing revelation to many, it will be interesting to see whether these fees dissapear on July 1st or whether they are here to stay.