Petty! Econ! Grievances!

What It Covers

Waylon Wong, Darien Woods, and Steven Besaha examine three restaurant payment frustrations — slow card checkout, tax-exclusive menu pricing, and airport loyalty program exclusions — explaining the economic logic driving each practice.

Key Questions Answered

• •Tableside payment devices: Handheld card readers from companies like Toast eliminate the four-step traditional checkout process. Over 170,000 U.S. locations had adopted them as of March, with servers reporting nearly half the time needed per table and easier bill splitting.
• •Menu pricing collective action problem: Restaurants omit tax from prices partly because any single restaurant displaying all-in prices appears more expensive than competitors showing pre-tax figures. All restaurants would need to change simultaneously, making unilateral action a competitive disadvantage.
• •U.S. tax complexity barrier: Unlike single-rate systems such as New Zealand's nationwide sales tax, U.S. restaurants navigate overlapping federal, state, county, and city tax rates. For printed menus especially, calculating and displaying accurate all-in prices across jurisdictions is operationally difficult.
• •Airport franchise loyalty gaps: Fast food loyalty programs frequently exclude airport locations because large concession operators run their own point-of-sale systems incompatible with individual chain loyalty tech. Participation in rewards programs is typically left to franchisee discretion, not mandated by the parent brand.