Service charge on bill

[Hollychristmasjoy]

I thought of this from the back of a thread I read on here recently and it really is a first world problem! So sorry in advance.

When splitting the bill do you also split the service charge equally or go to the faff of working out your own %.

I recently went out for a meal with friends for one of their birthdays. My friend is a chef at this restaurant and gets 40% off the total bill. It’s not a cheap place to eat but not the ritz either. For example, my main was £30.

I had a starter, main, pudding and 2 cocktails.

Birthday girl had the same as me.

Friend 1 had a main and 2 cocktails.

Friend 2 had just her main and drank tap water.

On top of the above we also got given a extra 2 cocktails each for free because it was my friends birthday.

The bill came to approx £230. The service charge was 12.5% and the amount stated was pre discount, not after (I’m not complaining about this) so approx £28 ish.

Everyone paid for what they ate and drank after the 40% was removed but we split the service charge equally.

Friend 2 only owed £10 for her meal (after discount) as that’s all she had and she had a cheaper item on the menu.

But When collecting the cash I said It was £10 + £7 for the service charge… Now I think for a split second she was about to say something but I’m unsure if I imagined it although it’s got me wondering if she thought it was unfair.

I’m wondering if what I did was right… as technically the service charge was only higher as the rest of us had more but at the same time it seems extreme to start splitting the service charge by %. It also never crossed my mind that it would be seen as unfair until my friend hesitated.

So WIBU to split it equally? And before anyone mentions it ..no I wouldn’t ever ask them to remove a service charge unless the service was terrible! and I certainly wouldn’t do it in my friends place of work.

OP: Friend isn’t struggling financially
Posters: But she might
OP: I know for a fact she isn’t
Posters: But I’m telling you she might, no way you could know
OP: But I do know, we are pretty open about finances and she is defo not struggling
Posters: But she might though, there is a cost of living crisis so you cannot possibly know.
Love a bit of MN :D

I always ask for service charge to be taken off

Yes ideally you should explain it to birthday girl and ask if she minds sending a couple of quid to the friend. Then explain to friend you realised you'd been unfair.

Yes yabu

Your friend seems to be watching what they spend.
You didn’t need to think hard to notice that charging her £7 for her brig served a main and tsp water, versus your main, pudding and cocktails was unfair

Why didn’t you just say your main was X and the service charge is Y, giving her a chance to choose how much to tip?

That's not the point of this thread though. There's probably a different thread asking people if they agree or not with service charges. If you don't agree with them you probably don't eat at the sort of place OP is talking about.
I only ask for service charge to be removed if the service has been bad, but again that's something to discuss on a different thread.

So your service charge would have been about a tenner on a bill of £75-80 ish and you actually paid £45-50 plus £7

and your friend would have had £14 reduced to £10 with her share of the charge at £1.75

It feels quite uneven to split the service change equally when you look at the actual numbers.

YABU, the service charge should also be split in terms of what you ate. You just do a percentage on your part of the bill, if she paid £10 and the service charge average is 12.5% just ask her for £12.50 or round it up to £13. You can go over the recommended amount, you can even decide not to pay it if you don't agree with tipping!

£12.50 would be 25% not 12.5%. Either way I agree you should split by percentage as a general rule (people moaning about calculators, it's not much harder than splitting - just add 10% and a bit to what you are paying) though it was made trickier in this case with the discount. If I was your friend I may have been slightly miffed but I'd not expect you to text me about it.

I always ask for service charge to be taken off

I do too - but I leave a tip.

@Crustyjuggler92 Oops, yeah, missed that! Hangover morning, brain not functioning yet 🤣

You don’t actually have to pay a service charge though do you? Some restaurants automatically add them on. You can ask them to remove it. And tip what you want- if anything.

A few months ago me and five friends went to an Indian restaurant. It was ok, nothing special the bill was approximately £300.

The service charge was 10%, meaning the waiters fee was £30. The table service was ok, but not worth £30!

I don’t believe in this 10% service charge theory. Surely it’s down to the customers what they want to pay.

If I went for a family meal and the bill came to £60 , I’d normally pay with card and the tip the waitress £2.50 or £3.

What does annoy me a bit though when I go out with fiends, like a group of 6 of us we all lay the bill equally.
But I always drive there as I don’t live in my hometown anymore. So I still pay the same as my friends, even though some of them drink loads of alcohol whilst I have a coke.
But I don’t say anything as I don’t want to seem awkward or tight !

You are over complicating it. Service charge is like a tax and should be calculated on the final value not the pre discounted value.

Everyone got the discount and free cocktails not just the friend. So you remove the discount and remove the freebies from the equation as it’s moot.

the friend was ripped off. If you split the total bill 4 ways that includes the service charge, I don’t get why you would split the bill per person and then split a % charge by 4 rather than by same method you already us done like.

if everyone paid 12.5% on their bill it still equals 12.5% in total

Over a fiver 😂

Re reading your OP the bill should have been £200+ between four and she ended up paying £17 I’d be made up that the night out was a bargain. She probably was going to say something then realised she had nothing to complain about.

Absolutely, this would just ruin an evening out for me.

But the restaurant set the service charge on the pre-discounted value. Friends would be subsidising discount card holder otherwise.

I agree with this. In terms of the number of times you were served, you and birthday girl were served 2 extra courses. The 3 others including this friend were all served the same number of times.

Which one of your friends works at the restaurant? If you tell us it’s this woman, I’d understand more her frustration as she’s helped you to get such a large discount.

Scepticalwotsits it never is calculated like that though or in this instance so the friend only paid about 25% service charge instead of 40% like some pps have said

I think people who are saying she owes a quid service charge need the actual maths (sorry if already done)

Friend owed £10 after 40% discount so meal was about £16.50, service charge would be £2.05, therefore meal would be £18.50. And she got the cocktails, too. She still got a slight discount on what was actually owed, unless she only went for the discount, and had a nice night. She could think of it as subbing a few quid for the birthday girl.

Yes it would have been nice if you split the service charge, and I would offer her money if she could be struggling but she likely isn't, still got a night out for less than £20 and you're a kind friend for worrying over it and thinking about changing in future.

I understand it is tricky and in most case for the ease of it the service charge is split equally , even the whole bill in most cases, regardless who ate/drank what. Sometimes we don't charge for alcohol those who didn't drink. Service charge almost always split equally. But if it were 10 pounds for her meal and 7 service charge , for fairness, I would tell her to pay say 2 and split the rest roughly between the others

I think YABU, but there's not much you can do about it now. If I had been you, I'd have asked her to chip in £2 or £3 for the service charge, then split the rest between those who spent more. No need to get too bogged down in accurate amounts (unless you really want to, it's easy if you've already worked out the amounts for each person anyway)

Some people are being a bit dramatic, it's hardly likely to affect your friendship. But I might offer to pay for a coffee/cake/drink for her next time I'm out, as I do think it was unfair to expect her to pay for a service charge that nearly doubled her bill.

Or better still don't eat there if you see the menu and know they add a service charge.

It is irrelevant whether she’s “skint”, or whether she is blissfully loaded.
That night, for whatever reason, she wasn’t spending much. Your maths led her to almost double her cost. Most of us think that’s unreasonable. Isn’t that simply what you wanted to find out?
As an aside, though, a single main meal and tap water to me would suggest a friend who for whatever reason was leaning towards frugality that month. I would be very, very aware of it and very, very careful not to add to her cost. Her peripheral finances would be irrelevant (ie none of my business) to that specific situation. Maybe she’s just taken out a loan to buy a super-yacht and the funds aren’t available until Monday - whatever the reason for her drinking tap water, she was drinking tap water and so was trying not to spend!
You surely have your AIBU answer by now?