One Market, the popular Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco’s Financial District, adds a 4% surcharge to bills that it tells customers it is collecting to help comply with a 2008 city law requiring businesses to provide health benefits for workers.
But in 2010, One Market only paid out $12,646 in health-care expenses and kept more than $100,000 earmarked for that purpose, according to a report the restaurant filed with the city.
Michael Dellar, president and chief executive of Lark Creek Restaurant Group, which owns One Market, says employees have access to the funds but aren’t using most of them. He says the restaurant added the surcharge, which the restaurant’s menu says covers employer mandates including the health-care law, to help pay for wages and other city-specific worker costs.
“We take care of our employees,” he says. “We want to do the right thing.”