I run a cafe and some of my workers are making $62-an-hour on public holidays. So don’t complain to me about the surcharge on your order

A small business owner has defended public holiday surcharges on customers, arguing they are necessary to cover the insanely high pay of his staff who are ‘earning CEO wages’.

Ahmed Wassel is the boss of Drip Bar – a juice, smoothie and crepe café – that operates in Carlton and South Morang in Melbourne. 

He said staff are legally required to be paid more than double on public holidays and that he would make a loss if he did not impose a surcharge. 

‘Public holiday rates are no joke … legally have to pay up to 2.5 times usual wages,’ he said on a video shared to TikTok on Tuesday following the Easter long weekend.

‘We pay our team properly and give them what they’re entitled to. That’s why there’s a surcharge. Thanks for supporting a legit small biz.’

In the video he asked his staff how much they were getting paid an hour on the public holiday. 

‘$42.18 to shuck strawberries,’ one replied.

‘I guess $62.45 … I just clocked in,’ another said.

Another said she was on the same rate and was only 18 years old.

Another worker, who was stopped while taking the bins out, said she was 16 and was getting $42.18 an hour for the day.

Mr Wassel said he was not getting any extra money himself and it was all going towards the business and his staff.

‘I’m getting 0.001 cents an hour to blend bananas and vibes,’ he said.

‘That’s why we have a surcharge, to pay our staff what they rightfully deserve.’

Mr Wassel told Yahoo he usually had about five to seven staff on a shift.

The week before Easter, wages had cost him about $7,000, but that jumped to about $12,000 for the week that included the long weekend public holidays.

He said his business applies a 15 per cent public holiday surcharge but, with the cost of electricity, rent and super all increasing alongside wages, it was still not enough to get ahead.

Social media users were divided over the surcharges being rolled out at businesses. 

‘Years ago public holidays would mean shops would close,’ one wrote.

‘Then they were allowed to open, happy to make what ever additional money they can.’

‘These days no small business can survive opening a public holiday without the surcharge, except the ones paying cash, but then a worker would rather stay home on Easter or Christmas.’

Another said that Ms Wassel could ‘just not open’ if he could not add a surcharge to afford to pay staff.

The Easter and Anzac Day long weekends saw diners slugged with about $24.6million in surcharge fees from hospitality business across the country.

Businesses levy an average surcharge of 15 per cent in order to reclaim the costs of staff over the public holidays.