Today, I went to a restaurant. When I got the check, it surprised me that they already tacked on a 5% service charge. Now this isn’t the automatic tip restaurants often place on large parties, since 5% clearly isn’t cutting it for a tip. So I wondered:
Are you supposed to tip the regular 15-20% on top of the charge, or is it OK to lower your tip amount?
What is the point of this charge? And would you like more places to use service charges?
I’ve never come across this. An obligatory service charge for large parties is reasonable, and it’s always disclosed somewhere beforehand. But this seems more like a deceitful way to misrepresent their true pricing. I wouldn’t trust a restaurant that does this to pass the 5% to the server as part of the tip. Unless the charge was prominently displayed somewhere on the menu, I’d tell them to remove it from the bill, then use cash to separately tip the server the appropriate amount.
I’ve come across it in England, but here 5% is an acceptable tip, and they’d usually be pooled anyway, so I assumed it is a replacement.
Adding a poorly-disclosed surcharge is becoming a nationwide fad in the restaurant industry. In an effort to collect more money from patrons without making it look like they’ve increased their prices, restaurants are adding charges to the final bill and blaming them on healthcare costs, minimum wage increases, local taxes, and government regulations. The money does not go to the servers.
California now has a new fee that many restaurants are automatically adding to the bill: The Restore California Renewable Restaurant fee. This is a fee that is automatically added to your bill, but if you notice it you can complain and demand to have it taken off. It is supposed to go into a fund to help save the planet – or at least the California part of the planet.
Seriously, Filbert, 5% is not a reasonable tip in the UK, even if some people do it (or not at all).
10% is standard, restaurants will sometimes tack this on as a service charge (or push it to 12.5%), in which case I wouldn’t tip as well.
I have seen “service charge” only in situations in which tipping is either not the local custom or is discouraged by that particular restaurant.
If it means the end of tipping culture, I’m all for it.
Having worked as a waitress for several years, in more than one place, my experience is that 5% is about average. Not at a higher end place, granted, but for a somewhere like a gastropub or casual restaurant, that is what people actually pay. Some people do go higher, but many more tip nothing, round up to the nearest £5, or just leave a few coins or a fiver.
I don’t think it was me being crap either, we pooled tips everywhere I’ve worked.
It’s the same dodge as nightly resort fees at hotels. They collect more money while making their price appear to be lower.
In the case of hotels, the justification given is that the resort fee gets you a package of amenities you may or may not actually use.
In the case of restaurants, it appears they are trying to piggyback off of publicity about increases in labor costs.
It’s not going to staff directly.
The longer I live in Asia the happier I am. They include service charges in the bill and pay the wait staff enough money.
I’ve heard of restaurants charging a table charge, basically a rental charge for the use of that table. It was very rare and I didn’t think it went too well, but some tried that pricing model. The concept was to have each component of the service/food in it’s own category. (table usage/food/service-tip) and to try to stop cheap ordering where a party would tie up the table ordering the lowest priced items which would not justify the table space.
In St Martin, the Dutch side of the island (Sint Maarten) generally adds a 10 - 15% service charge to restaurant checks. They are very straight forward about this. I usually leave additional cash, and it is typical for the waitperson to attempt to return the money and require convincing that you understand the setup, but feel they deserve more.
It is common in Italy where there is sometimes a “cuperto” charge, a cover charge for the table that includes the bread. (Well, it used to be fairly standard traditionally, but maybe things have modernized a bit.)
In my experience, it seems that less than 25% of the Brits I have hung out with over here in Krakow leave any tip at all, although most of them gladly see the light and change their ways when I gently (and with no judgement) explain to them just how little a Polish server or bartender makes per hour.
Of course, since food & drink in Krakow is so unbelievably, incredibly cheap compared to prices in the UK, some leave what might be considered a small tip in London (if they are one of those Londoners who leave anything at all) and end up giving the equivalent of 5 or 6 hours pay, which of course is usually greatly, sincerely appreciated.
There’s a place near me that instituted a 2% surcharge to “tip the kitchen staff so they can earn a living wage”. I now avoid that restaurant.
If your kitchen staff isn’t making a reasonable wage, pay them more and raise your prices accordingly. Don’t sneak in a 2% surcharge on top of your advertised prices, as if it’s my fault your staff are poor and it’s my responsibility to pay them. If your kitchen staff doesn’t make a reasonable wage, that’s on you, not me.
I’m a person who hates tipping culture, but who constantly tips at 20% or more, but when I see mandatory service surcharges on my bill I am likely to get petty and deduct that amount from what I was going to tip.
Are you actually obligated to pay this service charge? That seems particularly shitty to advertise prices in the menu, and then tack on an additional charge for murky reasons, and be expected to tip on top of it all. If they’re having problems with minimum wages or their rent, they need to raise prices, not try and recoup it via sketchy additions to the bill.
I mean, if they just rolled the tip into the “service charge” and didn’t leave it up to the customer’s discretion, I’d be all for it. Or if it was explicitly some sort of back of the house tip mechanism- the 5% goes to the cooks, busboys and dishwashers, for example.
But as it is, it sounds very ambiguous, like it may just go into the till or manager’s pocket.
Some restaurants in Europe will have a cover charge for each person at a table, but I’ve only ever seen it be a small fixed amount, and it usually “covers” something like breadsticks, water, or some kind of a welcome snack. I’ve also seen minimum spend requirements, but that’s always been at places providing entertainment.
I believe that some nightclubs do have table charges, but that’s because the table is considered an exclusive extra. The ordinary people can stand around or go on the dance floor and can buy their drinks at the bar, while the high rollers get a place to sit and table service. However, I don’t go clubbing, so this is second-hand information based on stories about footballers’ excessive spending.
God, people are tight. I wouldn’t dream of not tipping 10% (more in the US, obviously).
I can report that as of just two months ago, this practice is still going strong in Venice, (usually only running about 2 Euros or so, so it is not going to break the bank. but it still seems petty somehow) but for some reason, they don’t roll that way in Parma or Bologna, maybe because they are less “touristy” cities than Venice so obviously is.
Just did a little searching and it’s spelled “coperto” and is barred in Rome, though seems to be common elsewhere. I have been to Italy several times but this memory from 1991 seems to stick more than my most recent trip in 2016.
I am on vacation in the UK, I have seen the service charge, which is usually around 10% to 12.5%. I’ll pay it if it goes to the staff. I don’t tip at pubs where you order at the the bar.
I would not pay a service charge in the USA unless it’s the stupid delivery fee common among pizza places in the USA. Just raise the damn price, I don’t expect to pay the same for a pizza that I did in 1996. I tip the pizza delivery person because that’s what expected in the USA