Atlanta Restaurant Defends Extra 4% Charge to Cover Employees’ Health Insurance

An Atlanta restaurant has come under fire for tacking on a fee to guests’ bills to pay for employees’ health insurance, with the establishment’s owners defending the decision as “transparent.”

JenChan’s Pizza and Chinese, a family-owned business, has been taking hits on social media after a photo went viral of a customer’s bill showing an extra four percent charge of $2.02. 

In the now-deleted Reddit post, the guest’s complaint garnered 2,000 comments and nearly 9,000 reactions, Fox Business reported.

Users began sending hate to the owners, married couple Jen and Emily Chan, with someone even going so far as to comment on a Facebook family photo with their child: “I’ve never seen a family that needs to be beaten up more, make that health care come in handy.”

After catching heat for the unusual service charge, the owners gracefully responded with an explanation, claiming that “everything seemed fine” when the disgruntled customer dined at the restaurant before leaving to make the Reddit post.

The Chans pointed out that their menus clearly state that the additional charge is optional and that it was implemented to combat rising insurance premiums that they say make for a “hostile climate for small business owners.”

“We post it on the menu itself and the receipt to avoid this,” the restaurant owners wrote. “It has been on the menu for about a year now; we were inspired by another couple of restaurants here that do the same.”

According to the Chans, their healthcare premiums jumped from $408 per employee to $650 in February 2023.

They went on to explain that while Jeff Bezos and other huge business owners “fold” the cost of employees’ benefits into their products, they are “just trying to keep our doors open and our employees’ health insurance covered, and we are doing it as transparently and honestly as we can.”

“We could either raise the cost of the entire menu by way more than four percent to make up for it, we could just give folks less fried rice and charge the same, or we could be transparent in hopes that this brings attention to what small business owners face,” the couple stated.

A notice is printed on all of the menus, alerting customers to the extra charge:

On your receipt you will notice 4% health insurance we implemented after our premiums more than tripled last year. Thank you for being a part of our efforts to ensure our staff can seek care for whatever mental or physical ailments they may face. We have appreciated all the positive feedback from you, thank you! Please know that we will be more than happy to remove this for you without hesitation.

In an interview with Fox 5 Atlanta, Emily Chan further explained why they do not just fold the health insurance into “the price of their fried rice.”

“We don’t want to do that,” she said. “We want to raise awareness. We want people to see that there’s a crisis.”

JenChan’s opened just six months before the coronavirus pandemic began, which undoubtedly impacted the business’s profits.

Jen and Emily claim that they still have yet to make an “actual profit” from the restaurant and pointed to multiple other mom-and-pop shops in Atlanta that failed to survive.

“If we didn’t do something, we would have [had] to cancel the insurance or close our doors,” they said in their Facebook statement. “So, we do it because we are driven by passion and sentimentality and a desire to bring folks together around a table … It is in our bones. Hospitality is why we wake up in the morning.”

The restaurant also said they refunded the angry customer’s entire bill over the $2.02 charge in hopes that they would delete their viral complaint. 

“Power companies, gas companies, phone companies, ticket companies … they all have a zillion charges tacked on that they aren’t so transparent about,” the Chans wrote. “We have one [charge] … and we are very clear about it. Why blast the small business?”

“We really are just trying to do our best,” they added.