Hear that everyone? People from New York and Chicago haven't heard of small business, good food, or getting food from farms nearby. But on to the main point.

Hear that everyone? People from New York and Chicago haven't heard of small business, good food, or getting food from farms nearby. But on to the main point. It seems obvious Bay Area restaurant prices need to come up to keep pace with everything else costing more. But if you're going to charge more, you make it part of the price. You don't tack on an "extra" charge of any kind; that's madness, and sends the wrong message psychologically to the customer. The same people complaining about a service charge will gladly pay a higher base price exactly equal to that charge. It makes them feel "upscale." Paying a service charge makes them feel penalized. Or something. Anyway it sounds like the type of thing that has reasoning or an explanation attached to it. You want to be in a business where people pay more, and either the reason/explanation is obvious, or even better, there is no explanation and they just pay more anyway. Like Apple. But either way, you don't want to be in the business of explaining/justifying a charge, ever. It's tough to make money? Your workers can't survive? The food sucks? Charge more. Pay the workers more. Make better food. Nothing about "the economics of a small business" prevent this. You may still fail. The macroeconomics of the Bay Area are difficult. But you'll fail for sure if you under-charge, under-pay, and under-produce in complete disregard of those economic conditions. In a tough market it's always the mediocre who fail first. But if you survive, and enough other restaurants fail, eventually the few that survive will be able to... you guessed it, charge even more, pay their workers even more, and make even better food.