{"id":321437,"date":"2026-06-27T01:39:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T01:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/321437\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T01:39:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T01:39:40","slug":"tampa-restaurant-ownership-explains-venue-fee-after-consumer-complaints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/321437\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa restaurant ownership explains \u2018venue\u2019 fee after consumer complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) \u2014 8 On Your Side received a statement from Three Oaks Hospitality regarding the &#8220;venue&#8221; fee charged at all of their restaurants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The company said it is to &#8220;support operational costs, including facilities, equipment, and overhead.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:Additional surcharge at Tampa restaurant surprises customers, parent company says its a &#039;venue fee&#039;;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;outcm:mb_qualified_link;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/us\/articles\/additional-surcharge-tampa-restaurant-surprises-021430371.html\" class=\"promo-link__link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0Additional surcharge at Tampa restaurant surprises customers, parent company says its a &#8216;venue fee&#8217;\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">8 On Your Side started investigating after concerns were brought up by neighbors on the Nextdoor app regarding a fee that appeared in their checks at &#8220;RO.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It was not listed as a credit card fee nor was it specified on the establishment&#8217;s menu.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We have proactively disclosed our 3% venue fee on our website, reflecting compliance with regulatory standards,&#8221; Three Oaks Hospitality said.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Ro Modern Asian restaurant in Tampa (WFLA)\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/wfla_article_174\/027ef69731f9c7fbfcc8fceb0ce10fb0.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Ro Modern Asian restaurant in Tampa (WFLA)<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">We wanted to see if the charge is now noted on their menu too, but we weren&#8217;t allowed to.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We are committed to full transparency, ensuring guests are informed about all charges associated with their dining experience,&#8221; a representative for Three Oaks said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">8 On Your Side took a look at their webpage where they claim to have the notification it was there but at the bottom of the page.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Not acceptable, I shouldn&#8217;t have to look at your web page when I&#8217;m in your restaurant, and there&#8217;s a menu in front of me,&#8221; said Christina Lambert, a Hyde Park visitor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Starting July 1, Section 3 of the 2025 Florida state law SB 606, not be confused with 2026&#8217;s SB 606 on drowning prevention, goes into effect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It states &#8220;every public food service establishment which charges an operations charge, includes an automatic gratuity or service charge in the price of the meal shall include a notice on the food menu, written contract, and website or mobile application where food and beverage orders are placed.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Some residents are looking forward to seeing that law take effect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I feel like if you&#8217;re trying to be transparent about anything, which every business, especially restaurant, should be, it should be fine print everywhere,&#8221; said Karla Alvarez, who was visiting Hyde Park.\u00a0&#8220;It shouldn&#8217;t just be at the bottom of a web page.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Three Oaks Hospitality told us that they will be posting the surcharge on their menu starting July 1, when the law takes effect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wfla.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) \u2014 8 On Your Side received a statement from Three Oaks Hospitality regarding the &#8220;venue&#8221;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[133245,133248,687,135,137,136,133247,133246,567],"class_list":["post-321437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-credit-card-fee","tag-oaks-hospitality","tag-restaurants","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-three-oaks","tag-three-oaks-hospitality","tag-wfla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321437","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=321437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}