It was my birthday on Friday and yesterday DH took me out to lunch at a local restaurant I like to celebrate. We don't eat out a lot so it was a nice treat. The bill came to just about £44. Dh paid cash and gave the waitress 3 x £20's so £60. She took it off and we got ready to leave while waiting for her to come back with our change. However she never came back and we had to flag down another waiter who went to check and then out waitress came over, my husband then asked about his change and she said "oh so do you want your change?" My husband said yes of course and so she went off to get it and brought the £16 ish back to us dumped it on the table and walked off. We had been planning to leave her a £5 tip but due to how presumptuous she was Dh didn't leave anything.
Isn't it a bit rude to expect to keep all the change in this instance? I have heard that tipping expectations are increasing so that where 10% was once seen as a good tip it is now seen as bare minimum and I saw that some places are adding in other charges like a "branding charge" ( I don't know what that is) which is in addition to any tips or service charges.
Perhaps they thought we were being a bit stingy in our ordering as we only ordered one soft drink each and then a starter and a main but we didn't sit for ages hogging a table we were in and out within an hour.
We did go to a noodle place last year where they added a 15% service charge even though service was actually very limited, it wasn't bad as such but it was very basic. I understand that hospitality struggles but I'd prefer if tipping either wasn't a thing at all and places just charged enough to cover their costs and a fair wage for their staff and then I could see before booking if I could afford to eat there or not. Either that or keep tipping to the 10% it has always been.