Responding to customer feedback, a Pacific Northwest restaurant chain quickly rolled back its newly-minted living wage surcharge.

Restaurants Unlimited, Inc., a Seattle-based restaurant group with more than a dozen Oregon locations, removed a one percent living wage surcharge it had instituted less than two weeks earlier. The company, which runs restaurants in 10 states, owns Stanford's, Newport Seafood Grill, Henry's Tavern and a number of other restaurants across Portland.

"We truly appreciate all of the feedback from our loyal guests regarding the one percent living wage surcharge policy," Jim Eschweiler, CEO at Restaurants Unlimited Inc, said in a press release. "After further consideration we have decided to discontinue this policy."

The policy was originally put in place to "support employees and their earnings while addressing rising labor costs," according to the press release.

Restaurants Unlimited isn't the first national chain to experiment with new wage policies before reverting back to its original business model. Joe's Crab Shack, a national seafood chain with one metro area location, experimented with ditching tipping at some of its restaurants, but rolled back the policy after customers said they didn't like losing the incentivising control of tipping, and didn't trust management to fairly distribute the funds.

-- Samantha Bakall

sbakall@oregonian.com

Follow @sambakall