Broadway Diner, you must really not want me to eat at your resturant

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

There’s a diner in town called the Broadway Diner. The food is brilliant, wonderful, magnificent. It’s located in Dundalk, and four years ago, I went out to eat there with my heavily pregnant wife. She was full of baby and didn’t really want to eat much if anything, so my son and I ordered meals and she picked a little bit at what we had ordered. When we got the bill, there was a $5 “plate charge” included because she had eaten off both our plates. I was furious. In my mind, they sell food, I buy that food for the advertised price, what I do with it, who I share it with is my business, not theirs. I paid the extortion and left, vowing never to return.

Fast forward to last night. Ginger and I are watching The Food Network, and Guy Fieri is hosting his show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and sure enough, he shows up at the Broadway Diner. He takes us back into the kitchen, and the food looks fantastic. I look at my wife and say “We’re going there tomorrow night”

So. Tonight we go there for dinner, and as we are seated, I notice that the front of the menu has a sticker on it that says “We automatically add a 15% tip to all dinner checks”. WTF? I almost got up and walked out right there. I WOULD have gotten up and walked out in almost any other circumstances, but I had been jonesing all day for the seafood pasta they had made on the TV show, and I vowed to simply complain, strongly, to the manager/owner when the check came. If it’s added automatically to the bill, it’s not a tip, it’s a service charge and it’s also unfair to the waitresses to limit their tip to 15% (very few people are going to tip over when they’ve been told that the tips included).

Our waitress was named Christina, and she did a wonderful job. She was friendly and helpful, showing just the right amount of attentiveness, and the food was delicious. The seafood pasta dish has clams, mussels, scallops, lobster, calamari and shrimp, and lots of them, there was enough so that I took home a full swerving for lunch the next day. My wife had a turkey BLT wrap with tadziki sauce that she loved, number 1 son had the same and number 2 son had warm, crispy chicken fingers. When we were finished, Christina came over with the check. I was prepared to ask to speak to the owner, but she said (this was all on her, I hadn’t said a thing to her about my displeasure at the forced tip) “If you noticed on the menu it said that a 15% tip was included automatically, you should know that I didn’t include that. It’s not right, tipping should be your choice, I never include it on my checks. Have a nice day, come back soon”. I happily paid the check, left a 25% tip that Christina had absolutely earned, and then went and complained about the policy to the manager.

I don’t know if I’ll go back though. The food’s great, the service was friendly, but first the plate charge thing (which I’m told they don’t do anymore) and now the automatic “tip” inclusion? It leaves a (pun coming) bad taste in my mouth. I don’t think I want to eat at a place where they so routinely abuse their customers, no matter how good the food is. I may go back, I dunno, but this stupid policy ruined what should have been a very good dining experience (even though our waitress was smart enough to negate the policy)

2

I’m sure they have a zillion reasons for every charge…based on some other customers’ ugly habits that cost them money.

I’ve never owned a business, so my thoughts are worth what they’re worth…but it seems to me that treating customers well is what makes a business profitable. Not nickel and diming (or five and tenning).

3

I never go anywhere fancy to eat (nicest place I’ve ever eaten is Olive Garden, where I learned that fried calamari smells a lot like the bottom of an ancient trash dumpster), but don’t a lot of the more upper-scale places add an automatic gratuity to the check? I can’t think of any examples off-hand, but it seems I’ve heard of this practice before.

4

It’s common for large parties but pretty rare for regular ones. I haven’t noticed any pattern of price point or tablecloth at restaurants who do it, although possibly more do it in tourist areas.

5

In my experience, it’s normally only done for parties of 5-6 or more. Which makes sense, especially if it’s a group of coworkers where everyone throws $$ in the pot, there’s not enough for a decent tip, and one person gets tired of always being the one to fork over the extra cash for the poor server. But to put it on ALL checks? Definitely insulting, and a great way to end up screwing the servers out of the better or worse tips they deserve.

A similar situation occurs with a lot of pizza delivery places, that add a “delivery charge” to the check – but the poor driver doesn’t get any of that. Thanks to the good folks here at the Dope alerting me to that practice, when our favorite local pizza place started doing that, we asked the driver and now always tip them well over and above the delivery charge. And we get our pizza extra-fast, too, because the drivers like us. :slight_smile:

6

Is it just me or do the restaurants that iautomatically include the 15% tip seem to be the far-from-grand ones? I remember one hibachi grill where it was included and the waitress and grilling guy were terrible (I was appalled by their manners and definitely regretted taking my Japanese friends there!), the 15% was automatically included. It makes me wonder if these are the restaurants that were usually getting stiffed in tips (due to their poor service, no doubt).

7

I can sort of understand the minimum tip deal.
First of all, I have heard lots of horror stories from people who have worked in restaurants, including myself, of people who leave nothing, or next to nothing. Some are just jerks, others are foreigners who don’t realize Americans who work in restaurants don’t earn what they do in other countries and live from tips. Even at buffets here in Las Vegas, they include the 15% tip in parties of 6 or more (depending on the hotel/casino) as they have learned the hard way that wait staff gets stiffed more often than not.

I have had many friends from Europe visit, and it just goes against their grain to leave “such a large tip” (I usually leave 20% minimum) and I always have to explain the reason why. It just seems like so much money for them…not the amount per se, but the concept.
Then I ask them, “How much would this dinner cost you at home?”
They almost always say it would cost them a lot more, and then I explain why it costs more back home (wait staff gets health insurance, full salary, paid vacations, clothing expenses, etc.)
Then I ask them, “Is the wait staff in the USA different?”
Almost all say, “Yes, they are far more friendly and attentive!”
Again - I explain why…because people here LIVE from tips.

So, I don’t know if that diner has a lot of foreign tourists, but those that do see this problem all the time.

8

Adding a service charge is very common in Asia. If you complained to management about it, they’d think you were a crackpot. People typically DO leave a little something extra if they thought the service was good. But they don’t have to.

Feelings about tipping are very cultural. Many Americans are devoted to the idea that wait staff MUST work for tips or service will be lousy - and yet, department store clerks, grocery store cashiers, health club receptionists and many others in the service industry don’t get tipped and that doesn’t bother anyone. Go figure.

Me, I don’t care one way or the other, as long as I know the local rules I’m operating under.

9

Unless I am mistaking waiters usually make under minimum wage, correct? Clerks, cashiers, receptionists etc. make minimum wage or above to begin with. I would never have expected a tip during my job as a receptionist or cashier.

10

Since it’s a sticker, and not printed on the menu I gather it was a policy change. If I owned or was managing a restaurant and had a string of competent waitstaff leave after a few weeks because “I’m not making enough in tips here” I’d want to take some sort of action.

Raising the prices might make the cheap bastards who aren’t tipping stop eating there all together.

Not saying I agree with the policy, just that I can imagine how it came to be.

11

Leaving more tables available for customers who aren’t cheap bastards.:slight_smile:

12

Sorry for the hijack, but -

I saw that episode and noticed they featured this place that had awesome-looking grilled sliced beef sandwiches…did anyone catch the name of that place or been to it? I’m sitting here salivating remembering it.

13

Here is the episode it was on, in case you want to catch it again and find out the beef sandwich place (it’s not posted in the list of places Guy’s been):

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_dv/episode/0,3151,FOOD_29156_58480,00.html

Here is the recipe for the seafood pasta:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_201335,00.html

14

No, upscale places do not add an automatic gratuity to the check.

Exceptions might include checks for large parties and certain types of private clubs.

I’m sure people are going to weigh in with lots of places that do add a gratuity, but IME eating at medium-to-higher-end places in various parts of the U.S., I’ve never seen it done.

15

A restaurant is selling more than food. (Just food would be a grocery store.)
I think the ‘plate charge’ was reasonable. Your wife was using all the other things a restaurant offers besides the food.

16

I worked for years in the food service industry. I would NEVER work at a place that added 15% to every check. I regularly averaged 20-30% tips because I was damn good at my job and I worked hard for it. Adding an automatic 15% is an insult to the servers because now they have no incentive to anything other than sling your plates at you, they’re going to get their crappy 15% no matter what, and it’s an insult to diners because it forces them to pay regardless of the level of service they received. Sure you get the occasional asshole who stiffs you or leaves a dollar, that’s part of the job, but if you do your job well you’ll more than make up for it with everybody else.

17

You’re wrong, and it cost them 4 years of my business, for 2 of those years we lived less than a mile away and never went back. It’s extortion, pure and simple.

18

Actually, the times I’ve eaten in establishments that have the 15% included on all parties (as opposed to parties of 6 or more, which I see all the time and completely understand), I tend to wonder if any of that 15% is finding its way to my personal server at all.

19

15% “service charge” == no tip

Period.

20

Weirddave, have you considered writing an actual paper letter to top management at the restaurant saying pretty much what was in your OP? I know that when I did so to my optometrist after getting a pair of scratched frames, they replaced them no charge.