Everyone Wants Transparency Until They See the Numbers

Transparency has become a moral position in restaurants.
Guests ask for it. Staff ask for it. Comment sections demand it.
Post the margins. Show the wages. Explain the pricing. Break it all down.
The assumption is simple: if people saw the numbers, everything would make sense.
It’s a nice idea. It just isn’t true.
Most people don’t actually want transparency.
They want reassurance.
They want to believe that prices are high for a good reason, that someone is being paid fairly, that the system—while imperfect—is at least coherent. Transparency is supposed to provide that comfort. When it doesn’t, the reaction changes quickly.
Because the numbers aren’t comforting.
They’re narrow. Tight. Often disappointing.
And they don’t resolve the tension people hope they will.
A menu price explained is still a menu price paid.
A margin revealed doesn’t feel generous just because it’s small.
Knowing that a restaurant is barely surviving doesn’t make the bill lighter.
In fact, it often makes it heavier.
There’s a moment—usually right after someone sees a cost breakdown—where sympathy briefly appears. And then it gives way to something quieter and more uncomfortable: So what am I supposed to do with this?
The truth is that transparency doesn’t transfer responsibility the way people think it does.
A guest who learns that a restaurant runs on razor-thin margins doesn’t suddenly become an investor. They don’t accept risk. They don’t absorb volatility. They still expect consistency. Still expect hospitality. Still expect the night to work.
They just now carry the knowledge that it’s fragile.
Staff react similarly.
Open books are often framed as empowering, but empowerment requires agency. Knowing the numbers without the ability to change them can feel less like inclusion and more like burden. When payroll is tight and hours are cut, understanding why doesn’t soften the impact. It just removes mystery.
And mystery, in this case, was doing some quiet emotional labor.
Owners feel it too.
Transparency promises trust, but it also removes insulation. Every decision becomes explainable, defensible, public. Every compromise is visible. There’s no room left for intuition, timing, or discretion—only justification.
At a certain point, running a restaurant begins to feel like narrating one.
What gets lost in all of this is a basic truth:
Restaurants were never meant to be understood in spreadsheets.
They exist in the space between emotion and logistics. Between pleasure and cost. Between control and chaos. The moment you reduce them entirely to numbers, you’re left with something technically accurate and spiritually incomplete.
That doesn’t mean opacity is better.
It means honesty has limits.
Transparency works best when it clarifies values, not when it itemizes survival. When it explains why a place exists, not how close it is to not existing.
Because once you’ve seen the numbers, you can’t unsee them.
And most people don’t actually want to dine inside that knowledge.
They just want the room to feel right.
The pacing to hold.
The night to make sense without being explained.
That isn’t ignorance.
It’s trust.
And trust, unlike transparency, doesn’t ask to see everything.