01cost
Card fees rival utilities for monthly bleed.
On a $300K monthly bistro doing 75% credit volume, processing fees run $7,000–$8,000 a month. That's a sous chef. Surcharging recovers it on day one — same volume, same product, same staff.
Vertical Brief · 03Vertical · Food & HospitalityFor operators
Vertical · Food & Hospitality
Three points of margin. Found.
On thin restaurant margins, a 3% recovery on credit card volume isn't a line item — it's the rent, the kitchen overhaul, the manager you couldn't afford to hire. Apex makes the surcharge program fit your POS and your front-of-house, not the other way around.
~3%Of credit card sales recovered to net margin
0 bpPCI non-compliance fees, post-migration
48 hrsFrom statement to written proposal
§ 01Where operators lose money
Three reasons hospitality should have done this two years ago.
We’ve audited hundreds of statements in this vertical. The same three line-items keep showing up — and keep going unchallenged.
02cost
Guests already see open-itemized checks.
Diners read tax, gratuity, sometimes a kitchen-employee-wellness fee. A clearly-disclosed credit card processing fee sits comfortably in that vocabulary — especially when guests see they can pay by debit or cash to skip it.
03cost
Tip-on-tip math vanishes.
Most processors charge interchange on the tip. Surcharging the credit transaction (not the tip line) means you stop paying interchange on money that was never yours to begin with.
§ 02What you get
A front-of-house surcharge program.
01
POS-integrated disclosure
Surcharge appears as its own line on the printed and digital check, in compliant language, on every credit card transaction — automatic, not staff-dependent.
02
Tip-base correction
POS configured so the surcharge applies to the bill, not the tip — keeping you within network rules and out of the optics of ‘surcharging the tip.’
03
Online ordering parity
Native ordering site and third-party menu integrations show the same disclosure as the in-house check, so customers get one consistent answer.
04
Hotel folio handling
Incidentals, group masters, and split bills surface the surcharge correctly without breaking your night audit.
05
FOH script + signage
Counter cards, host-stand notices, and a 60-second script for your servers and bartenders. The first week is questions; week two is normal service.
06
Network registration done for you
Visa and Mastercard surcharge notification, Amex OptBlue eligibility check, and Discover registration handled by Apex. You don't touch the paperwork.
§ 03Composite case study
A three-location bistro group. $2.7M annual credit volume. ~$81K recovered.
Composite drawn from restaurant outcomes following surcharge go-live. Actual results depend on credit/debit mix, average check, online ordering ratio, and customer response in the first 30 days.
Annual credit volume
$2.7M
Surcharge percentage applied
3.0%
Annual recovery (est.)
$81,000
Net cost on credit
≈ 0%
§ 04Next step
See what your kitchen could keep.
The Recovery Calculator gives you a directional number in sixty seconds. A specialist follows up with a written program design in 48 hours.