Legal Obligations Relating to High Turnover of Customers in the Hamburger Restaurant

Question

Dealing with customers

Your burger restaurant is very, very busy and you have a high turnover of customers in the restaurant. Things are going very well.

Your “Aussie Burger” with its special sauce is the most popular one on the menu.  One Sunday when you were not in, and the restaurant is very busy, Carol decides that the restaurant could make more money by removing the advertised price from the board of the “Aussie Burger” and raising the price.

She justifies this to her co-workers by declaring that, “After all, it is a Sunday and we have to pay penalty rates.” So she increases the price of the “Aussie Burger” to $15.00 when its normal price is $12.00.  When customers complain upon receiving their bills, Carol tells them that the higher price is a “Sunday surcharge” and insists that they pay the higher amount.

You have now also received a letter from the ACCC asking you to respond to three other matters that have been brought to their attention:

1. You have a new cook, whose name is MacKenzie. The burger that he has crafted in accordance with his recipe has been named ‘The Big MacKenzie’ and the McDonald’s Corporation has complained to the ACCC saying that that is deceptive.

2. You advertise that “a contribution from every sale goes to charity” but, in fact, there is no record of any such collection being made nor sent.

3. You advertise that all of your burger buns have been “made fresh daily in our ovens” but in fact about 30% have been previously baked and then frozen until needed.

Please discuss the legal obligations relating to the above.

Summary

This question belongs to business law and discusses about legal obligations relating to high turnover of customers in the Hamburger restaurant.

Total word count: 343