A customer reads the menu at Oro by Nixta in Minneapolis on Dec. 27, 2024. When Minnesota’s “junk fees” law goes into effect Jan. 1, Oro by Nixta will look for ways to adapt from their current service fee model that they say offers competitive salaries above minimum wage and benefits to all employees from front to back of house. (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

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The expression “sticker shock” in the restaurant and hospitality service industries has been loosely defined as the financial disconnect between what businesses believe they can charge and what consumers believe they should pay. Sometimes the shock is mitigated by the degree of receipt transparency.

Take the restaurant industry, for instance. When consumers are satisfied knowing that they were charged for the cost of a finely plated dinner, along with the kitchen-to-table service required to provide the meal, that’s one thing. When consumers learn that they also may have been enlisted to help subsidize the health care or transportation costs of employees, the calculus of the meal’s satisfaction can become more financially complicated — especially when a gratuity is baked into the final receipt without much fanfare.

Starting Jan. 1, Minnesota’s new price transparency law is in effect. Signed last May by Gov. Tim Walz, the measure is designed to eliminate hidden or unexpected fees that appear on a final receipt but aren’t clearly signaled during the ordering or consumption process. The law is quite simple: You pay for what you’ve purchased and if fees are to be added, you are advised before the purchase is made. In other words, no more resort fees tacked on top of hotel bills or extra charges from event ticket-sellers. That seems fair.

Notably, what the measure will now also explicitly require is that any restaurant adding employee health care fees to a meal must clearly state up front that such surcharges will be added to the final cost. Often these charges aren’t clear until a meal has been consumed and collection is underway. This is a practice that surged and sustained itself during and after the pandemic.

Some restaurant owners argue, with understandable merit, that the fees give them the ability to offer competitive salaries and benefits in an industry with tight profits and significant turnover rates. Now that the practice is being regulated, their conundrum is whether to raise menu prices up front or cut the benefits, in which case they wonder how they’ll be able to keep their most talented staff. Ultimately, it’s a simple matter of transparency, which is largely what prompted the law’s passage.

The same applies to tipping. Some restaurants slip in a gratuity whether a single diner is enjoying a basic burger or a table of 10 is out on the town. The new law still allows for an automatic gratuity on checks if the tip goes directly to workers and not the restaurant. That seems fair enough, especially if the automatic gratuity is clearly signaled, which is often not the case and, quite frankly, is aggravating when the consumer belatedly learns that they have tipped on top of a tip.

Minnesota is blessed to have a thriving culinary scene, which may be taken for granted by those who don’t hail from places where diverse restaurant scenes proliferate. It’s far easier to maintain a robust and vibrant restaurant landscape if workers can receive a living wage. Cities such as Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth and other towns have been able to build and sustain lasting culinary loyalties on that principle.

The law that takes effect today adds transparency as a rule of thumb. A restaurant receipt is arguably one of the windows to the financial soul of a city. Minnesota’s window just became a bit cleaner.