To think restaurants shouldn't be allowed to add service charges?

[Precipice]

Prices are listed on the menu. Maybe the menu has a tiny tiny print somewhere about service charges being added (or maybe it even doesn't!). When it comes to the bill, there it is.

You're already paying for the service in the cost, just as you're paying for someone to prepare whatever you're ordering if it's being prepared, and for the fact that you're there in a restaurant at all.

AIBU to think that if restaurants want to charge you 10 percent more for everything, they should raise their actual prices by 10 percent openly?

@Precipice none of those businesses you quote have an even vaguely similar business models. Because very few businesses treat their staff as badly as hospitality businesses do while simultaneously expecting stellar levels of customer service.

have you tried it yourself? Because it’s a spectacularly hard way to earn a pittance while being treated like serfs by entitled customers like you

I always tip, but recently on a visit to Cafe Andaluz; which is casual tapas I noticed they now add 10% service, I did ask for it to be removed as service was very slow and I'm not being forced to tip.

This reads like entitled bollocks. I did all that and more when I worked in McDonalds where we were famously not allowed tips. I did that and more when I worked in food at Alton Towers where we were not allowed tips. And I did that working silver service where I did get a tip (and the managers counted themselves in when they divvied up the tips). Never, ever did I feel like I was entitled to those tips, that's such a childish world view, they're a bonus not a right.
If you are in the UK you are paid at least a minimum wage which covers everything you do in your job, just like everyone in a non-tipping job. If you don't like the list of duties that you are paid minimum wage for, there are plenty of non-tipping jobs out there where that minimum wage will be the entirety of your earnings.

why would you "always tip" ? With crap service, crap food, dirty place - you always tip??

@DevantMaJardin your medal is in the post. Along with your “never did me any harm” certificate. I hope you enjoy getting to the bottom first.

No.

I have never seen a restaurant menu that doesn’t state the cost of drinks!

Getting paid minimum wage to sit behind a counter at Boots, scanning items is a completely different job to the one you mentioned above. Most people wouldn't work front of house if they didn't receive tips, they'd rather get a minimum wage job elsewhere where it's less stress and work.

I realise that it isn't a race to the bottom and that NMW is too low for anybody to really live on; but I think it's sad that you feel the need to justify your own (rightful) deserving of more money by putting down other low-paid people's jobs.

Have you never read any of the many threads on MN where people who work in retail recount horrifying treatment - negging, abuse and aggressive threats among others - that they experience day in, day out?

I'm also curious as to why you choose what you perceive to be an easy job by way of comparison with what you have to do, and not, say, the likes of carers, who have to give intimate care to patients and deal with unpleasant bodily waste - many of whom also suffer from dementia which can make them abusive, violent and often downright dangerous? Is it a regular occurrence in your restaurant that customers scream in your face and try to smear poo over you? Carers not only don't get tips or service charges on top of their low wages, they often don't even get reimbursed for their considerable travel costs to get between jobs in their working day.

It’s not the concept of tipping that I object to, it’s the way the service charge is added on automatically. Sometimes I’ve not noticed because I don’t scrutinise the bill so I leave a tip as well.

As for the ‘it has to be that way to make hospitality work’, how does it work in a small cafe where they don’t get tips on the scale of a restaurant. If it works there then why not in a restaurant?

Why should they get a tip for just doing the job they are paid to do? 🤷🏻‍♀️ I work every bit as hard for roughly the same wage and I don't get a tip! What's so special about waiting staff?

I prefer when it's already added on, if you don't want to pay it, remove it, no big deal

I have never seen a restaurant menu that doesn’t state the cost of drinks!

I've seen quite a few with 'minimalist' menus that don't mention the drinks. At any rate, if they have a standard bar, they likely have far more options than they could include in the menu. But even if they didn't, most people find that they need a drink with their meal - and then, even if they can see the prices, they find that anything they choose is high-priced.

People needing/wanting to direct their budget at the meal itself used to ask for water - which was fine until the expensive ruse of bottled mineral water came in, which a lot would bring by default if you asked for water - hence the law about free tap water. Even now, you still have to remember to specify tap water, to avoid the possibility of being charged for bottled stuff.

As well as this, it's very common practice for waiting staff to bring the menus and then ask "Can I get you drinks whilst you're deciding?" - before anybody has had any time to look at the drinks prices.

I definitely would prefer to tip for exceptional service than either feel compelled to pay a service charge or opt out. I don't like being put in the position of opting out or not.

I do like to tip when service has been exceptional . It shows appreciation when someone has served above and beyond.

Then you either ask for the drinks menu if the prices aren’t shown or say you need another few minutes to decide, or ask them to bring some tap water to start.

@BitOutOfPractice "by entitled customers like you"

How charming! Please do explain what about thinking they should only have to pay the charges listed upfront before ordering makes a customer entitled. While you're at it, please also add why a waiter bringing over a more expensive bottle of wine or dish deserves more than a waiter bringing over a cheaper bottle of wine or dish (percentage rate additional charge).

Given that an added service charge of 10 percent in effect raises all prices by 10 percent, explain why the system of an added service charge is superior and justified over a system of raising all prices outright and having the customers pay according to the price list.

@BitOutOfPractice I challenge you to come and work my job for a week. You will then be very happy to go back to you easy hospitality role and perhaps feel a little less entitled yourself!

Or not even 'should have to pay'. That they should only be billed for what charges were listed, not inflated charges.

I don't see a difference between the restaurant charging me

BILL
dish: 15.00
service fee: 1.50

and
BILL
dish: 16.50

in a scenario where the menu said that the dish was 15.00. Neither should be happening.

YANBU I always ask them to take it off.

I'm in hospitality and I believe that tips should not be expected, but are a nice bonus when you receive them and I don't like the practice of adding a service charge automatically, I would be put off working somewhere that did that, where I work now doesn't and won't because they believe the same.

I give good service, to the best of my ability and the circumstances at the time, to every guest, not the one spending the most or who I think might tip - I'm there to serve everyone, regardless and if they decide to tip then I'm grateful but if they don't then there's no issues.

There's also something a bit grubby about this attitude of getting nmw means no one will give good service and service is better when the staff have to rely on tips "They don't pander enough if you pay them a decent wage you know!" It's insulting and derogatory, like someone who works in a restaurant couldn't possibly have pride in their job.
Although some countries do have the staff relying on tips to make up their wages, it's interesting that waiting on or bar work is more highly regarded in general and respected rather than looked down on and seen as carrying a plate or tray of drinks to a table.

To do the job well is far more than that, ever been somewhere that's a bit busy but not majorly so and everything is going tits up? People waiting ages for stuff? Food wrong/cold? That's because it's not being run properly and I can promise you, it's harder than it looks and far more than carrying a plate to a table, and it requires input deeper than carrying stuff to tables from all staff for it to work well and smoothly, and even more to pull it back when something starts to go wrong.
We are so demeaning towards service staff in this country, but by God the whining and carrying on when it doesn't go right would indicate that actually, it's important to get it right.

I agree that many other jobs that pay poorly don't get tipped, I've worked in care where you're not allowed to receive tips or gifts (except small tokens sometimes) and the work can be far harder. And they work 24/7 and 365, so with care excepted I would say a difference between other low paid jobs and hospitality is that hospitality works harder at the times when others are traditionally relaxing or there's a limited service available from many places - evenings and weekends, bank holidays, Sundays, Christmas, Easter etc. So that's a difference between some of the jobs listed that don't get tips and hospitality.

And you're playing with fire as an employer if you aren't declaring tips and the staff aren't paying tax on them - businesses can and do get caught and into trouble for it.

Agree with you OP. Super annoying, just build it into the price or tell me upfront. I think it's a bit dishonest

I always without fail knock it off and then tip as I see fit. Often it's more but sometimes much less it's optional

Shouldn't be added, it should be discretionary but it's common practice in London. I have discreetly asked that it be removed if service was poor.

'If you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to eat out.'

I wonder whether restaurants would rather we ate out and paid for our meal but didn't pay the service charge, or decided not to eat out at all.

Just adjust your published prices, pay your staff fairly and stop being the only industry who feel that you do such a uniquely difficult and special job that you deserve an entirely different pricing structure to anyone else.

I hope that hospitality staff who agree with this are happy to pay a surprise extra 10% to their builder, plumber, electrician etc when the bill arrives. An extra 10% when nan's care home bill comes in. An extra 10% for their flights when they arrive at the airport. Every other industry manages to price service into the published price.

However, I fear it is here to stay as more and more restaurants will adopt it to attract staff. Places not doing so will increasingly find it difficult to recruit. We seem to be following the US with this despite the fact that they have no NMW, maternity pay, ssp, protected annual holiday entitlement etc which I think helps to justify it over there.

There needs to be a modern consumer act to end many of the rip-off and hidden charges there are. This is one but by no means the worst.