10% gratuity added to bill

[Byz]

AIBU to be annoyed by a 10% gratuity charge being automatically added to my bill at a restaurant?

Seafood restaurant in the North East, a little town, not a city.

For four of us our bill came to about £230 and a £23 tip was automatically added to the bill. It did state at the bottom of the menu an optional charge would be added but they didn't ask me before actually adding it.
When the waitress brought the bill over she reminded us about the gratuity and said she would remove it if we prefer but I think I should have been asked if I wanted it adding in the first place. It was quite embarrassing to ask for it to be removed. She was polite about it but did seem a bit surprised.

Food was good, service was good and I would have left £10 but it soured the evening a bit so I left nothing. I don't think tips should be expected in this country.

They aren’t underpaid though? Some waiting jobs pay more than other jobs that require a lot more labour and stress.

Don’t know what jobs you are taking about but minimum wage is underpaid work anywhere, even more in the current economic climate, & the job is labour intensive & stressful.
I’m an ex-service staff employee with over 10yrs experience so know this for a fact 😂

Wow OP how entitled can you get?
The original post was bad enough, but then your replies to other comments just prove how entitled your whole persona is.
Cocktails take time and waiting 15 minutes for 4 cocktails, which are normally done individually, isn't much time at all.
10% tip is standard and has been the whole time I've been alive.
This is definitely a you issue.

Yes, so as I said, not guaranteed and relying on people's goodwill.

And to a big degree the effort you are willing to put in to earn them. Goodwill increases with good times had ime.

How do you know they won't if the culture of being expected to tip is so ingrained that most people allow for it anyway?

Reading threads complaining about rising prices in restaurants and extrapolation. My family also runs a food retail business and we see the effects that prices have on spending habits and the things that people buy

Some of the higher end restaurants pay more than min wage, either way I still don’t see why a server on minimum wage is more deserving of tips than someone else on min wage in a different job?
There are people out there on min wage doing jobs that the majority of people couldn’t cope with but they wouldn’t ever get tips because it’s not part of social norms.
Tips in the UK are unnecessary and no one should be shamed for refusing to pay extra, episodically as a lot of the time it doesn’t even go to the staff.

Hmmm, I worked in care for nmw and also hospitality, whole some days are definitely on par with care for the step count and being rushed off your feet, but no where near anything like the level of responsibility or training needed (which is still mostly, woefully inadequate), or the potential backlash if things go wrong, or the level of abuse you're expected to put up with, and even knowing someone is ill and can't help what they're doing doesn't make it hurt any less when you get belted.
I went back to hospitality because although the bar isn't exactly high, it is better than care work for stress and physical pressure.

My husband has worked in both as well, working in care was absolutely gruelling and mentally it broke him so he had to leave. He still says it was one of the hardest jobs he has ever done and the wage he was on was appalling.

Wow so waitresses look down on how much they’re giving as a tip now too! Be grateful you get anything at all! Disgraceful.

But how do you think other minimum wage employees make ends meet with no tips??

as a generalisation, waiting staff will be serving you for longer than a the person in a petrol station or M&S. they will interact with you, anticipating your needs for around 90 minutes if our dir a meal. Paying for your fuel at a petrol station will take approximately 90seconds

But the petrol station worker is still likely on minimum wage, so if the main argument in favour of tipping is that workers are low-paid, why should they be penalised for serving lots of people and not just a few? Using the same justifications, so that they too go home with the same boosted NMW income as a waitress, every customer should still give them 20-50p.

Plus petrol station workers have a much more dangerous working environment, as they are often subject to hold-ups, have to deal with frequent drive-offs and moreover, the reason petrol stations are usually open 24/7 is because it's cheaper to pay somebody to be there than the hugely increased insurance premiums they would face if such a risky place were unattended overnight.

Wow so waitresses look down on how much they’re giving as a tip now too! Be grateful you get anything at all! Disgraceful.

Yes, I wondered about that too. Obviously, PP can't speak for all waiting staff, but it does rather suggest that, contrary to all the assertions that servers are hard-up, they can't do too badly if they can afford to turn their noses up at a tenner.

I object to service charge being added as it’s literally the job of the restaurant to serve food and bring it so costs should be covered by price of meal and the wages of servers should not be paid by customers adding tips.

I object to it as also I don’t know where it goes. Some businesses are reputable and split it between all staff including kitchen staff who have an equally important role in whether you get a good service. Others pocket it themselves and no staff see it.

the servers would have been better off if you all left some cash as I read it as you were going to leave £10 so others would have left their own tip.

I don’t tip the shop workers who go above and beyond or are just doing their minimum wage jobs. Tipping has gone too far

So am i from the northeast and very curious as well

Please don't let one comment generalise your thinking on waiting staff as a whole 🙈 there's a few on this thread as well as others on similar topics that don't feel like this and take being tipped as it's intended - a bonus not to be expected. We'd get roasted alive if anyone was caught behaving that way at work, expecting a tip and being judgemental or arsey if it's not forthcoming, and I've told waiting staff under me similar, you don't expect it, you treat everyone the same regardless.
It's really quite disheartening when you feel like that to have people assume you're 'only' going above and beyond (if you do) to get a tip, or that you'll do something disgusting to their food or treat them unfavourably if they don't tip, or to be told that you "Needn't expect a tip!!" If something has gone wrong (spoiler - I wasn't!).
I often feel like the people fighting so hard for tipping and dishing out insults to those who don't, either don't realise or don't care about the knock on effect that they're having towards waiting staff who aren't just wanting tips.

I've often said on threads like this that I'd happily forgo tips to be treated with civility and respect by customers - and don't get me started on the ones who think it's ok to touch you up, swear at you, call you thick and stupid and then 'pay' for that with a big tip! I would in all honesty rather have a good review where I'm mentioned (because then I know I've done it right) or a genuine thank you than a tip because they mean more, even though yes, my wage is a low one and tips do go a way to helping with that.

Mammyloveswine im in the north east and im curious too which one it is and iv'e never been to a restaurant where tip is already added but did hear about one but think they scrapped it

I've definitely been to places in Newcastle itself where the service charge is added to the bill. Haven't eaten out much in Northumberland, though.

10 quid on a 230 quid meal?? I actually can't get past that. Not only are you BU but miserable and stingy as well

Wow. Just wow. You were OK to pay 50+ a head for your meal but wouldn't pay a little over a fiver a head for a tip? But the service and meal were good? Fair enough if you didn't want the service charge auto added but you left no tip at all, which is really unreasonable.

Thanks very much for your insights on this, Maverickess - I didn't really think that the previous poster was speaking on behalf of all waiting staff (or, more accurately, theoretical waiting staff).

Most of what has been written on this thread from the customer perspective does seem to me to only be confirming the narrative of the (possibly patronisingly) generous tipper, which - consciously or not - underlines the original purpose of tipping, which was designed to put serving staff in their place.

That's really interesting what you say about customers' suspicious motives when you treat them well and attentively - that a waiter/ess can only possibly be kind and give good service because they want your money, rather than they might just be a friendly, conscientious, hard-working person, like anybody in any job might (or might not) be; as well as the sleazeballs who assume they can treat you however they like as they are 'paying you off' for it (reminds me of a certain prince).

Until pretty recently, (earlier this year), I was a waitress too. I never had issues with feeling 'bought' when someone left a tip*. What a weird argument for not tipping. "Oh we wouldn't want you to feel lesser than us, so we'll hang on to our cash ta".

*That may have been because we never accepted tips because a service charge was automatically added. We got a better wage as a result and it was split between kitchen and front of house staff. Nobody ever refused to pay it. Occasionally people would refuse to pay for their meal at all usually after they'd hoofed it into them. But we never had a happy enough to pay their bull customer refuse the service charge. I'm hugely in favour of adding a service charge to the bill and as a diner I'd be so embarrassed if someone I was with wouldn't pay it

Yanbu. Expected tipping is a bullshit Americanism that has no place in UK where we have a minimum wage. I'm even more sceptical when it's paid by card, how much of that extra percentage do you think the staff are seeing, I'd wager very little. If the service industry wants to pay their staff higher wages, then do it properly like every other employer and price accordingly.

If you can afford to spend £230 on four people (a lot!) you can afford to give a decent tip. Don’t be so tight!

I never had issues with feeling 'bought' when someone left a tip. What a weird argument for not tipping. "Oh we wouldn't want you to feel lesser than us, so we'll hang on to our cash ta".*

That's great for you, but Maverickess's experiences as a waitress clearly did reflect that mindset.

It's subconscious, but it is essentially all about having the upper hand over somebody when you offer them a tip and they accept it. I presume this is why tipping is not a thing in Japan - and why Japanese waiting staff would generally be offended and insulted if somebody offered them a tip, because of the imbalance in status that it implies towards somebody doing a skilled job very well.

Do you remember when you were little and your Grandparents may well have sometimes put a big grin on your face by slipping you some money for sweeties or an ice cream? Did you ever slip your Nan a fiver and say "There you are for being a good girl!" - even when you were a teenager and maybe had a Saturday job?

Again, I don't see the amount of money that's paid as really relevant, but the manner of arbitrary reward as opposed to settling an agreed transaction for goods and/or services supplied. People in positions of power never work on the basis of hoping for tips - they agree the amount beforehand and make absolutely sure that they get it, without relying on whether somebody is in a good mood/feeling generous/thinks they had a lovely smile when they provided it/pities them their low income or whatever.

semi-bold-fail.

You'd have left a tenner!?! You absolute cheapskate! Consider the staff fgs.