Is 4% too much to ask? And if it's not why do only patrons pay?

I spent last weekend up in San Francisco, something I do very rarely. It was a gastronomic delight, as we visited four different restaurants and had four different wonderful meals over the course of the weekend.

At one of them, Palomino on the Embarcadero, I noticed this note on the menu:

Now, at first glance, this didn't bother me at all. After all 4% of a $40 lunch bill is $1.60. I would gladly pay $1.60 so that restaurant workers can have health care benefits. If I can afford to eat at this restaurant, I can afford this surcharge.

But as always there is more to the story.

I've always been most aware of health care for restaurant workers as a political issue because of one blogger: Shuna Fish Lydon from Eggbeater.

As early as 2006 she was blogging passionately about this issue, at her own blog and for KQED.

And her perspective on this surcharge is a little more nuanced than mine. She asks why it is the patron alone who bears this cost? Why does this one cost get passed through, and shouldn't it be managed as one more cost of doing business like any other? Why this gets tacked on as a surcharge, when rising rent or food costs are not? 

Of course counter-arguments are that many businesses tacked on surcharges when gas prices were so high, one assumes because they were potentially temporary surcharges. But this one is permanent and legislated.

There are more, obviously peeved, diners sounding off about it at Eater SF.

I'm not sure I see the difference between calling out the surcharge (allowing angry diners to take their business elsewhere) or raising your prices (where again, diners can take their business elsewhere if prices get too high.)

Are we just angry to be reminded about the ridiculous state of our health care system? If so, then I agree with at least one commenter who said the notice about the surcharge is good if it starts conversations about health care.

I saw the notice. I didn't mind it. I thought it was kind of cool that San Francisco was trying to do something instead of just talk about it.

That was my gut reaction, as an occasional diner in SF.

What's yours?