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.

If you can afford a £230 meal, you can afford the 10% tip that the restaurant has informed you about upfront.

Does it bug you when the menials earn more than minimum wage?

So you paid the bill? Then it was your friends who were tight arsed and shoulda left a tip

Here in the USA, anything less than 20% tip is now considered sub standard. I miss the UK.

Honestly you just showed the calibre of your character. Like attracts like and your friends must be of the same ilk. Tightwad birds of a feather flock together.

Scrooge would put that one in the wank bank.

I hope for OP's sake they never go back there!

I don’t really agree with the percentage tipping - it doesn’t seem fair (although I always pay it and wouldn't ask for it to be removed unless service had been absolutely awful). I went out for dinner recently, service was great, dinner came to £50 so a 10% tip would have been £5. Another time the bill was £250 so £25 tip. The second waitress didn’t work 5 times harder, and the service certainly wasn’t 5 times as good in fact it was worse. Why does the second waitress deserve so much more than the other just because she works at a more expensive restaurant?

Maybe waiting staff can suss you out and leave you a nice surprise.

It is pretty standard - I'm happy with 10%, it is when it goes up to 15% I think it is a bit too much of an assumption.
I agree with you though - you should just simply have the option of adding it. It was a bit tight to leave nothing but hey ho.
The only time I've not paid a standard gratuity was 20 years ago at my wedding- they applied a 15% tip across the entire bill (including the hire of two rooms - which left me fuming).

You were unreasonable not to leave the £23, never mind the £10.

Youcome across as being a very unpleasant person.

Bit tight, no? 10% is an absolute minimum I would think. I bet you're not Scottish. Us Scots always laugh at the idea of the tight Jock. In my student days waitressing, the meanest customers always came from South of Hadrian's Wall.....🤣🤣🤣🤣

When restaurants add a 10% gratuity to the bill without asking, it is generally for large tables where waitresses do have to work harder to keep up with everyone's food and drinks orders.

But this is a table of 4.

In an average restaurant around me, a main costs £10-£12, so the total bill including drinks would be around £60 and 10% tip would be £6. Why should this waitress be given £23 on top of her wages for bringing dinner to 4 people, when a waitress in another restaurant is given £6 for the same service? Tipping based on the cost of a meal doesn't make sense.

That's a shame people feel that way because it's nothing to do with the waiting staff most of the time. I've worked minimum wage jobs and at that time I would be lucky getting out for a meal and couldn't afford a tip on top. If I had to factor in a tip I wouldn't be able to go.

I just feel it's unfair customers are getting the blame (to the point they wouldn't have any friends as PP have said!) when it's the employer not paying them enough. It's great people seem to have £23 to throw away but not everyone does.

That's shocking! I hope they are suitably ashamed of themselves!

To all those saying "I'm on minimum wage and I don't get tips, why should my waiter/ress" - if you think it's so easy try being wait staff!
It's common practice to tip for good food service, especially if the bill is £230! It's not like it's McDonald's. OP was completely in the wrong, I can't believe you didn't leave a tip at all - you should be ashamed!

How much more effort does it take to serve a £60 bottle of wine than a £6.50 glass of wine?
I have usually given a 10% tip until it was pointed out to me by my son, who was a restaurant manager at the time, that I was effectively giving more because I had chosen higher priced items rather than someone who had chosen cheaper items but the service was the same. Think steak and chips as opposed to ham, egg and chips. I now give what I think the service was worth, sometimes more than 10%, other times less.

Good grief.

'Service Charge' is so often added to bills. Almost always.

You may not like the system , but it is optional, and it isn't the staff's fault it is there.

You are mean, mean, mean.

I completely agree with the OP, that tipping should not be an expectation.

If a restaurant needs to pay its service staff a salary (I assume they're not all volunteers) then the cost of that should be taken into account when drawing up the prices for the items on the menu.

You never see "optional charge for heating and lighting", "optional charge for table mats and napkins", or optional charge towards the costs of running the dishwasher, or the oven etc. So why single out the cost of providing table service?

Well thats the point isn’t it? They aren’t displaying an exact price for everything. They’re displaying a price and putting a percentage on top for actually serving you the thing you’re paying for.

Tips should always be optional otherwise they stop being tips and become part of the charge. Tips are supposed to be in recognition of service that surpasses basic expectations, not something that is automatically assumed a customer will want to pay.

Its greedy for restaurants to automatically add the tip because it isn’t unheard of for them to take tips and then split them (sometimes unfairly) and even if they do share tips in a way they think is fair, it’s not their choice to make when it comes to something they acknowledge is discretionary.

How do you know that the OP isn’t on minimum wage herself on her feet all day eg in a supermarket?

Despite almost always tipping, I dislike the trend of adding the service charge, it's just presumptive.

And I can't help but think of the poor HCA's that not only serve meals, clear up afterwards but also run round continually emptying bed pans and answering buzzers on almost any hospital ward, also earning minimum wage, would be equally deserving of a tip. Only they would not be allowed to accept one.

As I say I almost always tip, but did ask for a service charge to be removed recently in a restaurant where you were required to order on an app, paying at the time of ordering with the service charge included. At this point other than being shown to a table, I had received absolutely no service what so ever. I tipped appropriately at the end of the meal when I had had actually had some (but not a lot of) service.

Or they could just do the job they're paid to do instead instead of doing whatever you are suggesting because I don't subsidise their wages.

Because she spent £230 on 4 meals, doubt anyone on minimum wage can do that.

YANBU. The whole tipping debate really pisses me off. It is not up to customers to subsidize wages.

'Scrooge would put that one in the wank bank' made me laugh

I would have asked who gets the gratuity, and depending on the answer given the waitress a tip in cash.

I doubt it was her fault the cocktails didn't come quickly. I'm always surprised how long cocktails take, but then at home I just dump alcohol in a glass and drink it, rather than hand carving prices of orange peel and artfully arranging ice.

Me too!