Is this restaurant taking the mick, or are we just naive?

[IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads]

DH had a £100 voucher for a local restaurant.

We went tonight and ate/drank £76 on food and drink.

They initially refused to give us change (fine, I wasn't expecting cash change), or a smaller voucher for what we hadn't spent/ annotation on the original voucher for what we had left.

They did finally give us cash change as a goodwill gesture since we were unaware (doesn't say anything on their website or on the voucher).

Is this normal? They've been paid £100 for the voucher, they were essentially planning on picketing £24 that they'd been paid.

Or should be have forced ourselves to have had another bottle of wine ?🤣

I've never had a restaurant voucher before, but a local bookshop just writes on their vouchers how much you have left to spend if you don't spend it all at once.

[GoldAsGreen]

You could have asked for another bottle of wine and taken it home with you?

In my eyes, the voucher is the gift. It's for you to enjoy food and drink up to the value of the voucher and if you don't spend the lot then the restaurant keeps the difference.

[jellyminelli]

"No tip?"

Haha yeah, cause @ReleasetheCrackHen is just leaving 25% every fucking where she goes 😂😂...not

[GoldAsGreen]

When I have vouchers for restaurants I normally do a quick glance at the prices and approximate what we're likely to spend. Then if there's a noticeable shortfall I'd go for a more expensive wine, or champagne.

That said, I've never underspent on a voucher in my life

[JenniferBarkley]

@GoldAsGreen

You could have asked for another bottle of wine and taken it home with you?

In my eyes, the voucher is the gift. It's for you to enjoy food and drink up to the value of the voucher and if you don't spend the lot then the restaurant keeps the difference.

In my eyes, a £100 voucher is a gift to enjoy £100 worth of food and drink in the restaurant. If I didn't use it all in one visit I'd expect to be able to use the rest on a return visit.

If someone gave you a £20 Costa voucher you'd expect to be able to use it for a coffee on a few different days right?

[jellyminelli]

"In my eyes, the voucher is the gift. It's for you to enjoy food and drink up to the value of the voucher and if you don't spend the lot then the restaurant keeps the difference."

What a load of old shite. My kids got greggs vouchers for Xmas. The breakfast deal is £2.70 for a bacon butty and a drink. Should they just say, ah you keep the rest of the tenner greggs, I've had my fill. I'll put out of my pocket money next time

Bizarre 😅

[ReeseWitherfork]

@jellyminelli

"No tip?"

Haha yeah, cause @ReleasetheCrackHen is just leaving 25% every fucking where she goes 😂😂...not

It would have been 32%… just to make that situation even more ludicrous 😂

[jellyminelli]

🤣🤣

[OfDragonsDeep]

It’s really shortsighted of them. If they’d given you the voucher back and good service you would probably go back and spend more.

[MichelleScarn]

@Usernamen

Well, it’s more that there’s absolutely no need to tip in the UK the way you need to tip in the US. Restaurant staff are paid at least NMW.
You wouldn’t tip checkout staff at Tesco, or the barista who serves you in Starbucks, so I don’t see why you should tip a waiter in a restaurant.

Or anyone really, what is it about food/drink industry that reasons they're entitled to extra money for doing their job!
I have seen threads here that mention police being called in the states if serving staff aren't happy with the tip!

[planthelpadvice]

A gift voucher is the same as being in credit with the restaurant. It's exactly the same as putting money behind the bar. They have £100 of 'your' money (or the money of whoever bought the voucher). Yes, the money is committed to that particular restaurant, but essentially it's like a bank account/jam jar with them. They can't keep the balance just because you didn't spend it in one go.

[sunshineandshowers40]

In your situation I would not have expected to get any change but you weren't unreasonable to want/ expect a gift card.

[Bournetilly]

I wouldn’t of expected cash but they should of offered a smaller voucher/ credit for the remaining amount.

[AfraidToRun]

to get cash is ridiculous imo. It should have been another voucher.

[Bholli]

@ReleasetheCrackHen

I don’t leave cash tips. It’s keep the change as the tip for vouchers or round up the bill when paying. I pay via Apple Pay. That’s why I asked. The restaurant might have been hinting to OP that customers usually tell them keep the change as a tip.

A 32% tip?!

[Theoldgreygoose]

I've never heard of any place giving change on a voucher. Normally they would just deduct the amount and you could spend the balance left at some other time.

[honeynutcornfllakes]

I would expect a new voucher to be handed back containing the amount of change that was due.

So cheeky that they wanted to write off the change therefore basically get free money for no product or service.

I would leave a cash tip in the event of using a voucher to pay, not asked for an amount to be deducted from the gift card for the tip.

[MrsMikeDrop]

@Usernamen

Well, it’s more that there’s absolutely no need to tip in the UK the way you need to tip in the US. Restaurant staff are paid at least NMW.
You wouldn’t tip checkout staff at Tesco, or the barista who serves you in Starbucks, so I don’t see why you should tip a waiter in a restaurant.

Exactly. The thing that bothered me in the US is paying for service when sometimes it was non existent. I prefer it being part of the bill personally, it's just makes it more confusing and a hassle

[Livinginanotherworld]

On a £76 bill the tip would have been around £15 for a start, so hardly much left, if you’d had a coffee each you could have called it quits.

[Usernamen]

If the bill was £76 it was £76. No need to tip. If the restaurant wants more they can add a service charge. There is absolutely no expectation/culture of tipping (outside of service charge) in the UK.

[IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads]

@BarbaraofSeville

I'd have expected to have to spend the whole voucher and any refund would have been a bonus, although obviously this should be clear in the T&Cs.

What would £100 typically cover in this restaurant? We normally have 2 courses and only one or two cheaper drinks and it's still typically £50-60, so if you're the type to have 3 courses and a bottle of wine, plus coffees and water, I can see how you'd go over the £100 in a lot of places anyway.

The giver of the voucher (DM) was clear that she expected DH and I to use it alone ie: not with the DC.

We had starters, main course, puddings, not the cheapest wine, a bottle of fizzy water and DH had a coffee. It was getting hard to spend much more!

We asked if we could take home another bottle of wine with the rest of the voucher, but they said not, as they are not licensed for off premises consumption. Fair enough.

[ReleasetheCrackHen]

@Usernamen

If the bill was £76 it was £76. No need to tip. If the restaurant wants more they can add a service charge. There is absolutely no expectation/culture of tipping (outside of service charge) in the UK.

There is in London and other major cities.

[ReleasetheCrackHen]

@Bholli

A 32% tip?!

No, I was thinking more along lines of having a couple coffees for about £8 and then leaving the rest £16 as a tip.

[Viviennemary]

I wouldnt expect a cash refund. Or even a raincheck. Tipping is getting out of hand. Imsick of it.

[Usernamen]

@ReleasetheCrackHen

There is in London and other major cities.

I live in London. No there isn’t a tipping culture at all. Most restaurants add service charge. Maybe tourists add more on top, but I’ve never seen a local do that, and I eat out with friends/family/colleagues/clients an awful lot.

[Nanaof1]

@ReleasetheCrackHen

I don’t leave cash tips. It’s keep the change as the tip for vouchers or round up the bill when paying. I pay via Apple Pay. That’s why I asked. The restaurant might have been hinting to OP that customers usually tell them keep the change as a tip.

That would have been a heck of a tip, especially in the UK where tipping is not as "mandatory". It would have been over a 30% tip, which is high even in the US.

Here in the states, if I use a gift card and there is still a balance at the end, the gift card is returned to me with the amount taken off. So, a gift card would have had $24.00 left on it.