Minnesota Cafe Ignites A War Over A Fee To Assist Paying Higher Minimum Wages

The argument on increasing minimum wage across the United States has been hot news for this year. Here on The Inquisitr, we reported numerous times on minimum wages being increased which includes non-serious articles such as “Mary Poppins” singing about quitting over $10.10 pay and Congress saying they’ll live on minimum wage for one week. However, business owners – such as Bill Gates – have made it clear that increasing the minimum wage could kill jobs. There was also a report on why it would also do nothing for the economy in the long run.

However, for a diner in Minnesota, they are doing something to help with their state’s passing of mandatory increase in minimum wage, and it is igniting a war among the restaurant and its customers. What is the reason for this war? The diner has added a minimum wage fee of 35 cents to offset the cost of increased minimum wages.

According to the initial article by CBS Minnesota, the minimum wage fee was tacked onto receipts at the Oasis Cafe, a local eatery in Stillwater, Minnesota. It would be understandable why customers are upset with this added fee. In retaliation, these customers are turning to Facebook and bombarding the Oasis Cafe with negative reviews and vows they’ll never eat there again. Ryan Stegeman, a University of Minnesota student who wrote a one-star review hidden by the administrator of the cafe’s Facebook page, had this statement about the situation:

“If you need to raise prices, so be it. But to blame it on a fair minimum wage law is petty.”

This comes off the heels of Minnesota raising their minimum wage by 75 cents last week, now making it $8. This is also the first increase for the state since 2007. Apparently, the added fee at the end of the receipt was a way for one of the owners to thumb their nose at the law change.

In another report by the Huffington Post, the backlash of the war has been reported as the Oasis Cafe’s most recent Facebook post, a photo of huevos rancheros slathered in cilantro salsa, received a lot of comments, most of them berating the restaurant’s owners refusing to pay its employees a living minimum wage unless the customers are punished.

Now we want to know what you think about this situation with the Oasis Cafe. Are they at fault for making customers pay the extra fee to help pay their staff? Better yet, should they have increased the price of food or let go of staff just so the others could be paid the new minimum wage? Let us know in the comments below.

[Image via Bing]