Going to Plantation Walk, the hot new food-and-shopping paradise? Be prepared for surcharges – South Florida Sun Sentinel

After eating her shrimp salad at the new Tacocraft Taqueria and Tequila Bar at Plantation Walk in April, Ashley Munson scanned her tables $61 lunch check. There it was, right at the bottom: a 61-cent fee called the Plantation Walk Surcharge.

Munson and her three girlfriends flagged a server. I just asked the waitress what it was, and she was like, Its for the entertainment in the center, I think? Munson recalls. So I joked to the table, Uh, thats kind of stupid. Tacocraft is the only place here. And the waitress laughed and said, Yes, lots of people have been saying the same thing. "

Lately customers at Tacocraft, the first and so far, only restaurant to open inside the $350 million food-shopping playground, have been up in arms over Plantation Walks newest upcharge. Taking their grievances to Facebook last week, eaters expressed their irritation about the fee, a 1 percent tax that every tenant in the center, including retailers, adds to each shoppers bill of sale.

A Tacocraft receipt on May 12 shows Plantation Walk's 1 percent surcharge, which is designed to help fund future entertainment programming at the shopping-and-dining complex. Plantation Walk has yet to stage a single event. (Susan Stocker / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

The extra charge may seem negligible: a $135 tab has a $1.35 fee, for example. But diners, the city of Plantation and even Plantation Walk tenants all agree on one thing: The fee is causing too much confusion.

In the almost 79,000-member Lets Eat, South Florida Facebook group run by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Tacocraft diners expressed feeling ambushed by the surcharge, which they say appears, without warning, at the bottom of the check.

The server said it was just recently added and couldnt explain if its a percentage of your bill or a flat fee!! wrote a Tacocraft customer, adding, Wont go to this location again.

Others wondered why it shouldnt be the restaurants responsibility, instead of the customers, to foot the fee.

Its all part of overhead and should be considered in the restaurants overall pricing, another user wrote. And others preached blissful ignorance. Honestly, one commenter wrote, I prefer you just charge me a little extra without telling me its a fee for this or a fee for that.

Plantation Walks developer, Encore Capital Management, says its so-called Marketing and Entertainment Fee will fund free concerts, car shows and other future entertainment at the center. (Plantation Walk has yet to stage an event.) Encore builds this fee into the lease agreement that all Plantation Walk tenants sign, from restaurants to nail salons to gyms.

Construction continues at the $350 million food-and-shopping playground known as Plantation Walk. (Susan Stocker / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

The 1% fee will be used to bring amazing concerts, live shows, events, holiday entertainment and more, a Plantation Walk spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to the Sun Sentinel. The details of the MEF are clearly outlined in every tenant lease, and our tenants have all been on board as they understand increased on-site entertainment options mean increased business for them.

Still, its how Plantation Walk is explaining the fee to the public not why theyre charging it thats the bigger issue, says Plantation council member Nick Sortal. City Hall had no idea that Plantation Walk would charge the tax when the council approved the developers contract, he says.

I dont have a problem with the fee. I have a problem with the way the restaurants are communicating it, Sortal says. If they put little flyers up listing upcoming events, and a line underneath saying the surcharge supports these endeavors, people would get it. Instead, residents feel ambushed, and that part isnt right.

Tacocraft founder Marc Falsetto, for his part, says the 1 percent tax is clearly marked on cards in the restaurant talking about the fee.

I feel and hear where the customers are coming from, but we have no control over it, he says. And Ive been trying to explain it [in the Lets Eat group]. All our managers are well-versed, despite what people are saying, and we encourage them to ask a manager if they have questions, not the servers.

Lately, customers have been up in arms over the newest surcharge from the developer of the new Plantation Walk, a $350 million food-and-shopping complex. (Susan Stocker / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Customers like Munson say they spotted no such cards at Tacocraft.

I didnt see any signs, says Munson, a Plantation resident and freelance event producer. When Plantation Walk is fully built and entertaining, it wont be an issue. But look out the window, theres nothing there now. It just left a sour taste.

Because Tacocraft is the first major tenant to land at the under-construction Plantation Walk, its become a target of scorn from upset customers.

[RELATED: Welcome to Florida: Expect the unexpected on your restaurant bills.]

In Plantation Walks statement, the spokesperson conceded that customers arent getting the message. At Tacocraft, some of those details were not clearly communicated to the customer, the statement reads. Customers should be clearly notified ahead of time of the 1% entertainment fee. Moving forward, there will be plenty of signage throughout the property and inside the various establishments notifying customers and explaining the reason for the fee.

But heres the rub: Unexpected restaurant fees and the indigestion that comes with it are nothing new in South Florida, as anyone whos dined on the beach or during the pandemic can attest. When it opened, The Village at Gulfstream Park, another shopping-and-dining destination in Hallandale Beach, began charging a half-percent District Improvement Fee on customer checks.

A similar Marketing and Entertainment Fee is in play at the Promenade at Sunset Walk in Kissimmee, another mega-shopping complex built by Plantation Walks developers.

Marc Brown, president of 23 Restaurant Services group, says his burgers-and-cars-themed Fords Garage will open at Plantation Walk this fall. But at the Fords Garage in Sunset Walk, customers dont appear to mind the fee. With it, theyve been able to bring in marquee music acts such as The Wailers, he says.

The fees drive a tremendous amount of traffic for us compared to if we didnt have free entertainment in the plaza, Brown says. People see all these great options, and they return. Its not a one-time benefit to us.

Any customers who balk at the fee have options, Brown adds. If someone came up to me and said they had a problem with it, we would probably eat the fee.

To expect every server to explain the fees to customers is asking too much, he says. From a consumer standpoint, I dont feel like its a hidden fee.

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Going to Plantation Walk, the hot new food-and-shopping paradise? Be prepared for surcharges - South Florida Sun Sentinel