A Brooklyn pizzeria is raising its prices to meet ObamaCare requirements

A Brooklyn, New York, pizzeria called Franny's has announced it is raising prices to be able to afford the spending requirements of ObamaCare. Now, the menu reads, "a 3 percent surcharge will be added to all checks to cover the Affordable Care Act for all Franny's employees."

"We've always been criticized for prices," explains Franny's executive chef John Adler, "so we said, 'Hold on, before we start putting $22, $23 pizzas on the menu, let's be transparent about what that money is going towards.'" Because the pizzeria's owners run two other restaurants, they meet the 50-employee baseline requirement of the ACA — and with it, "upwards of a quarter million dollars" in added costs, Adler says.

"This is a cost that we cannot absorb without going out of business," said owner Francine Stephens, though she also notes that some of the new costs the surcharge will cover stem from expected minimum wage hikes in New York State, which Franny's is pre-emptively scaling wages to accommodate. Bonnie Kristian

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Update 12:01 p.m.: In a statement given to Grub Street, Franny's owner Francine Stephens cleared the air: