I have been part of the Colorado restaurant scene since 2010. It’s an incredibly rewarding industry. I love serving my fellow Coloradans and visitors to our vibrant and beautiful state. 

My company — beast + bottle group, which I run with my husband and my brother — manages two restaurants in Denver. We take great pride in sourcing ingredients from Colorado farmers and ranchers and supporting local economies. We are truly a farm-to-table operation always ready to offer up a memorable experience, whether it’s a burger and beer after work or a destination for a special occasion.

Working in restaurants doesn’t come without challenges, though. Unlike many quality establishments, we were lucky enough to be able to reopen all our locations following their initial closure in the pandemic. We closed our restaurants twice and, for a time, patio dining was our only option. But with Colorado’s unpredictable weather, that wasn’t a long-term solution. 

Today, sales are still not quite back to pre-pandemic levels but they’re slowly getting there. However, as we emerge from the pandemic fog, we’re faced with new challenges. From labor to food to restaurant supplies, costs are way up across the board. One cost that keeps going up — credit card companies’ outrageous processing fees. 

The two biggest credit card companies, Visa and MasterCard, maintain a tight grip on credit card processing. Since there’s essentially no competition, these companies can charge whatever they want. In the past year alone, U.S. businesses easily paid more than $160 billion in processing fees. Those fees are often passed on to customers and can cost the average family about $1,000 a year.

On top of the average 2.24% charge on every swipe, there are added fees for credit cards with points, for swiping a second time to add a tip, and even a “card not present” charge for using a QR code or manually entering a card number — a practice common during the pandemic to protect customers and staff. 

If you want to talk about not being present, I can assure you that the credit card company executives were not present during the long shifts filling in for an employee who called in sick, the nights spent wondering how we’d make it through the pandemic, the daily struggle to afford ingredients with the supply chain issues, or the meetings to discuss how to find more workers in today’s job market. But, somehow, they still think they’re entitled to roughly 3% of everything a restaurant sells via credit card. It’s no surprise that credit card fees are among the restaurant industry’s highest costs behind only food, labor and rent.

It is disheartening to think about everything I could be doing to improve my restaurants with that money — more staffing, infrastructure and equipment, new menu items, etc. But I can’t act on those because my margins are too slim.

It is time to stop credit card companies from taking advantage of their near monopoly on payment processing. I’ve been a member of the Colorado Restaurant Association Board of Directors for eight years and on the Executive Leadership Team for six. I am also newly elected to the board of directors of the National Restaurant Association. Believe me when I say this is one of the biggest issues facing our industry.

We need Congress to act, and we’ve already reached out to our entire Colorado delegation asking them to pass the Credit Card Competition Act. The bill would require that credit cards can be run on at least two processing networks instead of just one. Put simply, the Credit Card Competition Act would introduce competition and save businesses and consumers an estimated $15 billion a year. It’s a commonsense solution to a problem that’s already put too many Colorado restaurants out of business.

On behalf of all restaurants in the Centennial State, it’s time for Congress to pass the Credit Card Competition Act.

Aileen V. Reilly is the proprietor of beast + bottle group, a member of the Colorado Restaurant Association Board of Directors and Executive Leadership Team, and a member of the National Restaurant Association Board of Directors.