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It’s simple, if a restaurant adds something to the bill I did not agree to beforehand I’ll never eat there again.
If a restaurant adds something to the bill I didn’t agree to beforehand, I’m not paying.
That would be consequent, but usually it’s not worth the trouble.
I’d rather leave with 20 quid less than wasting 30 min of my time.
Oh. It wouldn’t take me nearly 30 minutes. It would be less than 5 total minutes.
How about just leaving the correct amount of cash on the table and walking away without saying a word.
So your time must be worth 40/hour or more to make it not worth the trouble?
Not OP but my nerves are definitely worth more than 20 bucks.
It’s a risk reward analysis and not strictly a 1:1 hour pay relation. No one guarantees you any positive outcome here.
Best case I get the fee removed after a short conversation.
Worst case, I have to engage in a long drawn argument still having to pay full afterwards.
Or anything in between, such as still having to pay full, but they’ll make this clearer in their menu.
best case was a simple mistake and I just have to ask politely. This can be considered very unlikely in this case because the recipient has a dedicated section for the fee, indicating that they’re not going to make any change to the bill. So the risk reward is highly leaning towards the worst case as the expected outcome.
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Surprise surprise, People attempt illegal things all the time
My time is worth way more than 40/h when I’m out with friends trying to have a good time. I’m never going to the restaurant again and that’s it.
That’s like $80k a year. Not that much.
Literal poverty washes in SF
I have never eaten at a restaurant that did not disclose a mandatory gratuity ahead of time, but I suppose it could happen.
That’s wonderful for you, but it does happen.
Went out to a pizza place the other night. Thought it was a brewery (one of my favorite local brews, actually), and had been there before and enjoyed flights from them…only to find out the place was a joint between the brewmaster and the restaurateur. Brewmaster took his share, his recipes, and dipped a couple days prior.
Anyways while the food was pretty good, I mostly went for the beer and that’s a big part of why I won’t go back (they only had a couple cans from the brewery left and nothing on tap, only some other regional breweries).
But the other part is that my wife put a tip down on the slip for our party of four (us and two kids) and asked me to doublecheck her math. I thought it seemed high and it turned out they already put a tip on the bill. For a party of four. Never saw that before.
Yea they better have this charge displayed very well on the menu
The service charge is not a tip or gratuity, and is an added fee controlled by the restaurant that helps subsidize the staff wages so that management doesn’t have to while still seeming to have reasonable prices on the menu. Also, management takes a cut as it subsidizes their wages too.
Edit: I get why this upsets some people, but the downvote button is not a disagree button. I merely restated the restaurant’s explanation in plain language. I’m not agreeing with it…
If you charge me for service, I’m not paying extra for service.
Call it what it is - a junk fee so they can make their prices look lower than they are. I wouldn’t go to this restaurant a second time.
The cost of food in American restaurants includes service charger. It just not itemized. Waiters do have salaries, so it comes from somewhere.
That’s my point. This restaurant is try to bait and switch their customers by giving a misleading food price and adding a service charge. It is like a cell phone company adding garbage fees.
As for my initial comment - if you add a percentage for service, that ends my obligation to tip.
Ah! I see. You were talking exclusively about not coming back into US restaurant, not restaurant in general anywhere in the world. It was not clear for me.
Hey, look at our cheap food!
Oh, btw, we didn’t tell you, but it’s actually 18% more expensive than the prices on the menu.
Also, it’s $10 extra for the plates and silverware.
And we also charge you for eating in as well, that’s another $10.
And if you don’t tip on top of that, we get really angry.
Please leave a 5 star review!
And we also charge you for eating in as well, that’s another $10.
Some areas actually have different pricing for eating in vs taking out, as it’s treated differently by the tax laws. Some areas also tax differently based on if it’s cold or hot/cooked food, so a toasted sandwich costs a bit more than an untoasted one. Very small differences, though.
Yeah, my post was a bit of hyperbole, but I’ve been to a fancy restaurant a while ago, where they did make you pay for cutlery and also for the table separately.
But they didn’t have a take-away option.
I was talking about service charge, not tips.
The problem is, this is still decietful. If this is an issue then the correct move would be to make every item on the menu 18% more expensive as a base. Because now, they still get to say “oh well our prices are still low come eat here and get “X item” for “Y price” but that’s not true anymore because of the service charge. It’s just a way to keep menu items lower in price but increase the price at the end.
Sounds like it does much the same thing as tipping then, right? But then the receipt says you should pay the service charge and a tip on top 🤔
I’m not American so maybe someone can explain this to me, haha…
I’m an American, and I can’t explain this to you. If I saw this on a receipt, I would write down on it that I’m tipping $0 because of the service fee and to consider the fee my tip.
If you live in a place where this is becoming the norm, that’s exactly what you do.
A far more above board and less vibes-based way to pay.
Except you’re wrong. It is a tip because the tip is the service charge. The tip specifically is “we pay them less than minimum wage and your tip covered the rest of their service cost”. A tip AND a service charge, especially a service charge not levied because there were X+ people at the table, is double dipping on the tip. Both fees are for the same thing. Either increase prices or increase the tip(or pay your workers fairly and don’t expect me to subsidized the rest with these secret fees). Make them upfront and honest. This isn’t. This is a perfect invitation to say “you already charged me for the service, so no tip is needed, because that’s what it is for”.
The tip specifically is "we pay them less than minimum wage
Not everywhere. Some areas don’t allow wages that are lower than minimum wage for tipped jobs. The area I live in in California is around $17-18/hr minimum wage regardless of if the job is tipped or not.
Except you’re wrong. Service charges are not considered tips under FLSA rules within the US. Many states and local jurisdictions have special rules for tipped wages, how they’re taxed and those taxes are collected, and service charges are not included in that definition.
https://www.dov.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-employees-flsa
Nice reading comprehension. The TIP is a service charge. You got that backwards buddy. So a service charge and a tip is service charge x2. Or you’re admitting that a tip is only for “above and beyond thanks”, in which case it’s not mandatory and this is again a scam.
A tip is money paid directly to the worker providing the service. The restaurant can’t keep any part of it. They are not taxed on it, either as sales tax or income tax. That money is only counted as income to the worker.
This service fee was subject to sales tax. It will also be subject to income tax by the restaurant. The restaurant gets to keep as much of it as they want.
“Mandatory gratuities” are tips that the restaurant obligates the customer pay to the waitstaff. Where these are charged, you are not allowed to stiff the waitstaff. The restaurant cannot keep any part of that gratuity.
Tips/gratuities and service fees are not the same thing at all.
I’m not talking the law, I’m talking what the tip actually is in practice. It’s the service charge. You’re paying for the server to serve you. The tip isn’t for the food. It for the server serving. Just because you’ve been conned and guilted into accepting this as normal doesn’t make it right. And just because it’s taxed doesn’t mean it’s still not extra income to the resturaunt. Would it be ok if I mugged you but paid taxes on the money and gave it a cutesy name?
If they charged a mandatory gratuity, I would agree with you. An 18% mandatory gratuity is an 18% tip to the waitstaff; you are not expected to pay an additional tip on top of that.
A tip is money directly to the waitstaff. The restaurant can’t touch it. The restaurant is not charged sales tax nor income tax on money collected as tips. When they collect a gratuity, it goes directly to the staff.
This “service fee” was taxed. It did not go directly to the waitstaff; it was recorded as sales revenue, and thus income to the restaurant. The restaurant is being taxed on it before any of it gets to the staff. They would only do that if they are keeping a part of it, which they could not do if it was considered a “tip” or “gratuity”.
Charging a “service fee” is a legal way for the restaurant to steal tips from employees, while making you think they are paying it to their staff.
Most likely, they pay minimum tipped wage plus $1/hr. They are making $3.13/hr plus tips instead of $2.13/hr plus tips. That extra $1 is the higher “base wage” they are talking about.
About $0.75 of that $17.22 service fee goes toward increasing the “base wage”, with the rest counted as income to the restaurant.
This is not the perfect opportunity to say “you already charged me for the service”. This is the perfect opportunity to name and shame this scumbag restaurant for its shitty business practices, and never eat their again.
that helps subsidize the staff wages
Allegedly
But If that’s the reality, I feel no need to add a tip.
They probably pay $1/hr over minimum tipped wages. About $0.75 of that $17.22 fee goes to paying that increased wage, and the rest is pocketed.
If they wanted to subsidize worker wages, they would include a mandatory gratuity rather than a service fee. Gratuities are passed directly to workers.
This is truly scummy behavior.
subsidize the staff wages so that management doesn’t have to
Yeah that’s a pretty shit reason to levy this fee unsuspectingly.
In Australia this would be illegal drip pricing. JUST INCLUDE EVERYTHING IN THE PRICE OF THE FOOD! Is it so hard?
Absolutely wild you also don’t add tax in the price in the US.
Is it too much to ask to just be told the price upfront on the menu?
The downvote button is a lazy disagree button, but people is also dumb.
18% service charge and then still ask for tips? Fuck all of this, this is a scam and refuse to pay this shit.
Based on the bottom of the receipt i would have said to the server something like “great, it says right here no need to tip”
What a lovely way to ensure that your customers will never return.
How about just raising prices since it is a cost of running the business.
Exactly, it’s a linear extra cost so just bump all the prices that much.
But if you tell the customer how much things cost they won’t buy as much.
It’s just layer upon layer of dishonesty. The only time businesses get honest is when the government forces them to.
That sounds just like tipping, but with more steps. And also the resteraunt skimming a chunk of it too I’m sure. 18% service fee so we can pay 8% higher wages.
That sounds just like tipping, but with more steps
That sounds like the exact same amount of steps as tipping.
If anything it’s less steps. You aren’t doing any math or making any judgement calls with a service charge.
LOL
This is probably a hotel or resort. $4 cookie and $6 oj are the giveaways .
$11 cannoli etc.
Why have a service fee at all then?
Just raise the prices and use the extra income to pay the employees better if that’s really your intention.
People won’t get upset about the tip on top of it if you don’t already have a “service charge” sectioned off in the receipt.
It’s so that they can deceitfully advertise prices which are lower than the real price.
I believe this is totally illegal in the EU (because they’re obligated to list prices and all charges, fully, upfront and that even includes taxes) but I guess that in the US there are States were it’s either not illegal or has never been challenge in court.
I had a service charge like that added in Rome once. It is most likely illegal, but Rome is a pretty lawless place as it is where everybody tries to scam you all the time, so I didn’t bother spending time arguing it and getting all worked up about a couple of euros during my holiday, just avoided the place thereafter. I know that’s probably what they’re counting on …
Oh yeah, I live in Portugal and here too foreign tourists are natural targets for scammy shit. It’s not too much but there are certainly bad actors who will take advantage of people who don’t speak the local language and don’t know their rights.
However I suspect it’s a lot worse when some kinds of scams are actually legal.
Oh yes, the “coperto” or cover charge. Restaurants that are worth going to will tell you upfront about whether they charge you that and how much. Tourist traps will just put a small sign somewhere on the premises that informs you of their ass-pull fee.
I went to a small café in Venice and had a cup of coffee for 4€. They charged me a fixed 14€ coperto.
Coperto is perfectly legal and the norm everywhere. It would be clearly mentioned on the menu, typically at the bottom of every page and it is around a couple bucks per person. It’s for the bread and bread sticks you get on the table, water and electricity to wash cutlery and plates you use, and to pay for serving stuff and rent. Why not included in the price of that pizza you might ask? Because I might order that pizza to take away and not use all of the above.
Some touristy places take advantage of it, doesn’t make sense for a coffee in Venice (though I’m not surprised). A couple of bucks that op was charged at a restaurant in Rome on the other hand, 100% expected everywhere in Italy.
Source, am from there.
So that shit is actually legal in Italy?
In that case I was totaly wrong on my belief on it not being legal in the EU.
I just read about coperto here, and I don’t think that was it. I’m pretty sure it said “Servizio” on the bill, and it was a percentage on top of the price of what we ordered.
In my country (in the EU) usually if a service charge is added on top of the order, it’s because that particular place doesn’t accept tips.
That would be illegal in the EU country where I live (Belgium). Here the rule is that the advertised price must always include any mandatory charges, like VAT and service charges, so that advertised price = price the consumer would have to pay.
Source: https://economie.fgov.be/nl/themas/verkoop/prijsbeleid/prijsaanduiding
Translation:
Price indication
Companies offering goods or services must indicate the price in writing in a legible, visible and unambiguous manner.
The price is the total price to be paid by the consumer, including VAT and all other taxes or services that the consumer is obliged to pay extra. These prices are stated at least in euros.
That would be illegal in the EU country where I live (Belgium).
Further evidence that America isn’t a legal country.
Look at how the tips were calculated. They were based on a bill of $95.65, the price of the meal before the service fee.
This service fee allowed them to increase the price of the meal by 18% without increasing the calculated tip by 18%.
They are stiffing their employees.
Alternative option: the service fee is the tip because there’s no way I’m paying more than what’s on that bill.
That just fucks over the waitstaff without harming the business at all.
Best option is to walk out as soon as you see notice of a service fee. It should be printed on the menu or a sign posted on entry.
Just raise the prices
They’re already selling lemonade for $6. The sky is clearly the limit.
If the service charge is so they can pay the employees better, I guess they don’t need a tip on top of that unless they went above and beyond their basic duties. Like what a tip should be for
It’s to make you mad at their employees
It’s failing. I’m just mad at the employer.
Basically, they just raised their prices by 18% and blamed it on the greedy, useless employees. I don’t know why businesses bother selflessly “creating jobs” if they are so much trouble. Shouldn’t those be the first things to cut to make their business more efficient under capitalism? Stop doing charity work and run the business yourself.
Probably better than expecting customers to tip voluntarily
Oh wait, they do that too
I hope their customers are exclusively people who support the the below minimum wage for servers law.
Basically, they just raised their prices by 18% and blamed it on the greedy, useless employees.
No, it’s worse than that.
Look at how the tips are calculated. They use the base bill of 95.60, not the bill after the service charge has been applied.
If they rolled an 18% increase into their prices, the calculated tip would also rise 18%. But it didn’t.
So in addition to effectively raising their prices and blaming their employees for it, they are also stiffing their employees by low-balling their tip calculations.
Possibly illegal, depending on your local laws.
If it is legal, contact your congressman (local, state, national) because it sure as hell needs to be illegal.
Very unlikely. There’s a statement at the bottom that explains what the fee is. There’s a QR code at the top for more information, which OP cut off.
I doubt they went through the effort of updating their POS system, providing links to info on the receipt, and chose not to post a sign or put a note on the menu. Everywhere I have been with a service fee like this posts it, which would negate any legal issue.
Caveat emptor.
It’s illegal if the fact that a service fee would be added wasn’t shared before ordering (on the menu / by the waiter /…)
Possibly. Local laws vary heavily, and could limit hidden fees like these. If the franchise is in one of these places, but the parent chain is not, it could easily be implemented despite being illegal. It’s a similar case if the local operator didn’t have the required notices in the required way, since it would be done separately. Not necessarily out of malice, but a ton of places simply do not run a tight ship. The receipt is absolutely not the place these notices are required; that’s just a convenience.
It’s also possible that the POS has a bunch of options that can easily be set by management without involving lawyers. A required tip (often for large groups, but not always) is an easy use case for this. So are the various messages, including the tipping scale, or adding a promotional QR code (e.g. scan the code to fill out a survey and get $5 off your next visit)
In any event, I stand behind my advice- check if it’s illegal, and push to make it illegal.
So you carefully included every possible level of US government, but still forgot about the entire rest of the world.
First, many places have a local, state, and national government. Particularly the ones that use dollars and expect an additional tip, as shown on the receipt.
Stop trying to be offended at everything.
My country, which has dollars and expects tips, doesn’t. And this read like it was addressing unexpected fees at restaurants in general.
Stop pretending Americans don’t do this constantly. Everyone who’s not American is very familiar with it, and honestly it’s understandable with how big and self-contained that country is. I might not even have commented if it wasn’t for the remarkable thoroughness short of that detail.
I presume you’re in Canada. Aside from calling them provinces, and possibly having a different name for your legislative representatives, are you saying you DON’T have a local, state, and national government where my advice would be relevant?
No, you’re advice was great. I just found the phrasing weird enough to point out. Sorry if it came across as angry.
The rest of the world doesn’t exist, it’s just a scam made up by the passport cartel to fleece you of your money every few years.
Can confirm, I’m just standing in a blank white space. It’s weird I get wifi.
Do a search for the Tianamen Square massacre. You’ll at least know if you’re Chinese white space or non Chinese white space
Oh no, it’s turning black. Chairman forgive me!
Let’s see… dollar sign? Well that cuts out a lot of the world. Written in English, so that leaves about 3 countries. Australia doesn’t have a tipping culture the same way we do in North America so that leaves either Canada or the US, in which case you can replace state with province and cover your bases.
Percentages on the tip are lower than US tip amounts. So I would guess not US, though this would obviously happen in the states.
Do other countries itemize tax separately? I thought the US was alone on that.
Also, 9.5% is in line with sales tax in a few US states, as is calling it tax instead of VAT (or similar)
Good catch, I didn’t even notice the percentages. I did look at the date but of course the meal was purchased on the one day this month where that’s not helpful lol
Don’t forget New Zealand. They do tip down under, but it sounds like they don’t recommend tips the same way.
Yeah, sure, the jist applies everywhere. OP could have saved words just saying “representitives”. That’s the part that was interesting, and now people are big butthurt I pointed it out.
I mentioned all 3 because people (at least around me) tend to forget the first 2, despite those being much easier to make these types of changes.
Looks at a picture of a receipt that is almost certainly from the US:
What about the rest of the world?!
It looks exactly like a receipt that could be here, too. As has been repeatedly pointed out to me, there’s only 2 to 4 countries this could apply to, but you’ll excuse me for expecting the same thing as always was happening.
Increase the price of everything and pay a life supporting amount of money per hour of work. No tipping, no more service charge.
This service charge is literally the same but blaming the employees.
This is at least more honest.
Not if you made decisions based on the price on the menu. It’s designed so menu prices look low.
If I can’t afford without the service charge, I can’t afford it with the service charge. Either way I’m lying to myself to justify it. Either the meal is worth it or it isn’t.
Completely fuck this shit.
$16.25 for a kids size pasta dish?
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I feel like I have seen multiple receipts from this same place, likely posted by the same person, because I remember noting $16 Kids Shells on some other thread months ago.
Seems odd. They should really stop going.
The $5.00 glass of lemonade is ridiculous. Water and a small scoop of powdered flavoring/sweetener costs them about a quarter.
I actually support phasing tips out for service fees, less dodgy and less influenced by cognitive biases from customers toward certain genders or ethnicities of staff.
There’s no need for a service fee, just increase the prices of everything by 18% or whatever. It’s more honest that way instead of listing one price and then springing a hidden fee on people at checkout. Part of why this particular example is so dodgy is they seem to be fishing for a service fee and a tip, which just seems like double dipping on hidden fees.
You could go hog wild and include tax in the prices too. Then the price of an item could be the price of an item instead of the start of a maths quiz.
Wild to me that theres a whole country out there that has so much influence over my life (an entire ocean away) and they don’t know how much their meal will be before the cheque comes. Incredible.
But we need every price to end in .99! /S
It’s important to require disclosure of the service fee. In my experience usually listed at the bottom of the menu. I know at least in some instances there are crowdsourced master lists of restaurants with hidden fees, and enforcement of disclosure requirements seems to have stepped up.
Roll it into the prices then. Any mandatory fee is a cost of doing business, don’t make it look like your food costs less than it really does. Only taxes should be separate.
It’s a USA thing. Other places often have rules that say the price advertised (on menu, website, in store) is the price the customer pays, all fees and taxes included.
Yeah in Australia restaurants are allowed to have a service fee only if it’s applied on select days (e.g. weekends and public holidays, but not every single day of the week) and they clearly display the conditions of the service fee “at least as prominently as the most prominent price on the menu”. Otherwise, they have to roll in any fees into the main advertised price.
Yeah, but phasing out should probably be some form of cross tapering, not a decently sized service charge and the same size “suggested tip” on top.
Straight up fees like that should not be legal, if they even are in that location.
They should instead just add 18% to every menu item since it applies to everything anyways.
As it is right now advertising their cannoli for $11.00 is a straight up lie since it’s really $12.98. They simply don’t because they want to hide the actual cost and make their menu appear to be cheaper so you cant walk out until after you’ve ordered and eaten.
Also if got a bill with an 18% service charge I would definitely not tip, since tips are supposed to adjust for the low wages anyways.
Are restaurants just poorly managed, or is there another reason why they can’t pay their employees a living wage when their markup is like 400-1000%?
Add to the fact all the food in the restaurant is much higher in caloric intake, sodium and sugar than any meal you could prepare at home. You get to have some wonderful heart disease with a side of stress. Hardly worth going out to restaurants anymore.
That’s the whole point of going to a restaurant. So you can convince yourself that the food is somewhat healthy, without seeing all the salt, sugar and fat they put in it.
That’s the whole point of going to a restaurant. >So you can convince yourself that the food is somewhat healthy, without seeing all the salt, sugar and fat they put in it.
I thought the point of going to a reastaurant was eating tasty food. No one’s lying to themselves about reastaurant food being healthy.
It’s also eating food in a social atmosphere without having to shop, prepare or cleanup.
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It does seem tipping is American culture? Never heard this accross SEA and China. Who in the world would put suggested tip in the bill?
In 2019, I went to Shanghai to attend my cousin’s wedding and one thing he told me before going is that I should not tip under any circumstance. It’s regarded as an insult to the service provider because you insinuate that they are unable to pay their employees well enough.
The UK has been infected with service charges but it’s extremely common to either a) have it removed from the bill, as there is no obligation to pay it, or b) forego the tip because of it.
It very much is and suggested tips seems to be common from what i heard
It is so engrained into society that suggested tip amounts on the receipt are welcomed, because then you don’t need to do the math
