{"id":285919,"date":"2026-05-27T09:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/285919\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T09:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:31:08","slug":"why-miami-diners-are-seeing-more-credit-card-fees-on-checks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/285919\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Miami diners are seeing more credit card fees on checks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u201cRestaurant<\/p>\n

\u201cRestaurant margins are extremely low,\u201d explains Giovanni Astudillo, owner of Certo Italian Restaurant in West Miami near Coral Gables. \u201cWhen it comes to the end of the month, it\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

PHOTO BY AL DIAZ<\/p>\n

adiaz@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n

Restaurant bills don\u2019t look the way they used to.<\/p>\n

Not so long ago, you\u2019d glance at the bill and see the cost of your meal and a blank line to leave a tip. Restaurants in some touristy neighborhoods like Miami Beach might slap on a tip of their own for large parties or try and sneak an automatic tip past you, but in general, there weren\u2019t too many deviations.<\/p>\n

Now, tips are often factored in before you can decide what to pay. Mysterious service charges appear that are never adequately explained. And as the use of cash dwindles, restaurants are more often charging diners a fee for paying with a credit card.<\/p>\n

Often the credit card fee is so small it\u2019s barely noticeable \u2014 around 3 percent is the usual charge, which means for a $20.98 bill, you pay a whopping 74 cents. But even though the restaurant is not passing on the full cost of the credit card service charges, customers are noticing.<\/p>\n

And some are getting frustrated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been hit with those add-on credit card fees for a while,\u201d says Patrick Whiteside of West Miami, who noticed a charge recently at Semilla Eatery and Bar in Miami Beach, a favorite spot of his. \u201cI\u2019m seeing it more and more. It went from being an occasional charge to seeing it all the time. It\u2019s unfortunate, but it\u2019s the new normal. I feel like I\u2019m getting nickel and dimed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marta Mejia of Brickell admits she finds herself irate when she spots a credit card fee on her bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cI react if they are charging me without telling me,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to know: What is this charge? What are they doing? I don\u2019t like to be forced to pay without the knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

West Kendall resident Vinicio Ruiz-Gomes says he has noticed the trend spreading to other businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense when we have become a cashless society,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a plague right now. My mechanic won\u2019t take credit cards without a surcharge. My barber, the same thing. What I\u2019m going to start doing is carrying checks around with me and see whether they\u2019ll accept them or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mechanic and the barber might take checks; most restaurants won\u2019t. Customers can always use a debit card to avoid the fee if they don\u2019t carry cash, but many of us are so used to earning points or air miles via credit card use, we\u2019re reluctant to do so.<\/p>\n

\"Many Many restaurants in Miami are adding a 3 percent credit card processing fee to the bill without warning customers ahead of time. Starting July 1, they will be required to notify guests on the menu or at the register. The problem for restaurants \"Giovanni Giovanni Astudillo, owner of the family owned Certo Italian Restaurant, looks over at Pizza Chef Juan Caballero on Thursday, May 14, 2026, in Coral Gables, Florida. PHOTO BY AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n

What\u2019s often lost on diners is that credit card fees have risen for restaurant owners, too, at a time when the costs of food, labor, rent and insurance have skyrocketed. Having customers pay part of the cost, small as it may seem, can help keep a mom-and-pop spot afloat.<\/p>\n

The National Restaurant Association reports that a typical restaurant operates on a 3 to 5 percent profit margin, and after food and labor, credit card transactions are the third-largest operating expense. And though in 2025, restaurants were the country\u2019s second-largest private employer, nine out of 10 are small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.<\/p>\n

Giovanni Astudillo, owner of Certo Italian Restaurant in West Miami, is such an owner. He has spent more than 30 years in the restaurant industry and opened Certo in 2022.<\/p>\n

Certo, which specializes in pizza, pastas and classic entrees like osso buco, has dedicated fans, diners who might stop by for lunch or dinner more than once a week. It has a popular wine list, even offering half-bottles, something you don\u2019t find on many Miami menus. It has an event room available for milestones or business meetings.<\/p>\n

And yet, despite the support from the neighborhood and beyond, despite positive online reviews, Certo has struggled on occasion, and rising credit card transaction fees haven\u2019t helped the bottom line.<\/p>\n

\u201cRestaurant margins are extremely low,\u201d Astudillo explains. \u201cWhen it comes to the end of the month, it\u2019s hard. We deal with prices going up, equipment breaking down. We\u2019re very popular, but at one point we were about to close. You might look at our reviews and think, \u2018The owner must have a Lamborghini or be traveling through Italy!\u2019 But no \u2014 I\u2019m working trying to make the numbers stabilize. This is the situation we find ourselves in.\u201d<\/p>\n

He knows some restaurants in Miami don\u2019t share the credit card fees with customers and believes there\u2019s a reason for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe places that aren\u2019t doing it, they raise the prices,\u201d he says. \u201cThe economy is so unreliable now. Prices go up and down. I can\u2019t raise the price of lasagna one week because the ingredients went up, because they could go down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some diners, though, have empathy with restaurateurs despite their frustrations. Christian Hofmann, CEO and president of H.Y.H. International Cargo Services in Medley, found himself caught in the credit card fee maelstrom when a client asked if he could use a credit card to pay Hofmann\u2019s import\/export business. Hofmann said yes \u2014 and suddenly found himself responsible for thousands of dollars in credit card fees.<\/p>\n

He and the client worked it out, but the experience was eye-opening.<\/p>\n

\u201cA few years ago, nobody was charging the fees,\u201d says Hofmann, whose father founded the business 44 years ago. \u201cThe first time I saw it was in New York. Now all of a sudden, I see it in every restaurant. I totally understand it, because it\u2019s killing their bottom line. Credit card companies are making millions on processing, and mom and pop restaurants are paying the price. I understand where they\u2019re coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re experiencing tip fatigue\u2019 \"At At Don Pan in Kendall, customers are warned about the credit card fee at the register before they order. Amy Reyes <\/p>\n

While the credit card charges can add up with a big bill, Lisa Cain, associate professor at FIU\u2019s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, says customers are just tired of seeing any added fees when they get a check, like being prompted to tip for things they didn\u2019t tip for before the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a big part of the frustration here is that as consumers, we\u2019re experiencing tip fatigue,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a byproduct of the pandemic and the move toward cashless society and prompted payment systems. Stores and other places that didn\u2019t traditionally charge gratuity, once they got electronic systems, could prompt for that moral obligation to tip during the pandemic for the frontline workers. You might leave coins in the tip jar, but now you\u2019re getting prompted for a 15 or 20 percent gratuity. We\u2019re tipping on everything from modes of transportation to dry cleaners to delis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Restaurants can raise prices to offset costs, but that comes with its own issues. The answer, Cain says, lies in transparency \u2014 and in communicating clear rules to customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a restaurant, you have to provide for the customers, and you have to remain profitable. Restaurants do run on very thin margins. You can raise prices, but you can\u2019t outprice yourself from the market. I think it helps to have rules and regulations in place. Otherwise everybody\u2019s not doing the same thing, and that\u2019s where the irritation comes in on the consumer\u2019s part. In one place they charge credit card fees, in another they don\u2019t. If rules are transparent, customers know this is the new normal, and rules are easier to digest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The way restaurants alert diners to additional fees is about to change in Florida, however, because of a new state law that goes into effect July 1.<\/p>\n

While the previous statute only required restaurants to disclose an automatic gratuity, the new law says any \u201coperations charge\u201d must be disclosed, including credit card processing fees as well as delivery fees and other service charges.<\/p>\n

The new statute also requires that the operations charge notice appear in \u201can obvious and clearly readable manner\u201d on a sign by the register or on the menu printed in a font size similar to the rest of the menu. Small print won\u2019t cut it: The notice has to be, well, noticeable.<\/p>\n

It also has to clearly state the percentage or amount of the charge. This means before customers order anything, they know what they\u2019re getting into and for how much, said Samantha Padgett, vice president of government relations and general counsel of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, an industry group representing 10,000 members in Florida. Enforcement will be dictated through restaurant inspections and customer complaints.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus of the legislation is to make sure the customer is fully aware, and they are not surprised that they are paying a fee,\u201d Padgett said.<\/p>\n

\"The The credit card fee notice at Don Pan in Kendall. Creating competition<\/p>\n

Sean Kennedy, vice president of public affairs at the National Restaurant Association, says his group is pushing for a solution that could change the way credit card companies charge fees: the Credit Card Competition Act.<\/p>\n

The association reports that U.S. swipe fees have more than doubled over the past decade, making them among the highest in the world. Two companies \u2014 Visa and MasterCard \u2014 control 80 percent of the credit card processing market, thus setting prices.<\/p>\n

And those prices make a big difference to restaurants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s irrefutable is that swipe fees increased 70 percent since 2020, while the profit of the average restaurant last year was 3.8. And that\u2019s the average \u2014 42 percent of restaurants reported they were not profitable,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

One solution, he says, could lie in the passage of Credit Card Competition Act, bipartisan legislation aiming to drive down the high swipe fees by creating competition. The act, which was reintroduced to Congress earlier this year, would prohibit banks with more than $100 billion in assets from restricting the number of processing networks on which a credit card transaction can be processed.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no telling if the act will pass in its current form, though, so diners bothered by the fees may need to rely on their debit cards or grabbing cash from an ATM on the way to a dinner date \u2014 or shrugging and paying the extra cost, if they\u2019re fans of the restaurant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like Semilla, so I\u2019ll go back,\u201d says Patrick Whiteside. \u201cSplit between four people, it\u2019s not that much. I have no confidence the fee will go away, so I\u2019m going to suck it up and pay it and quietly complain to myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connie Ogle loves wine, books and the Miami Heat. Please don\u2019t make her eat a mango.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cRestaurant margins are extremely low,\u201d explains Giovanni Astudillo, owner of Certo Italian Restaurant in West Miami near Coral…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-285919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}