The bloody service charge!

[Ilovemychocolate]

Went out to eat twice yesterday…we are in Bath for a festive visit.
Both times our bill came with service charge added.
Both times I sent it back and requested they remove the service charge.
Now I know it’s Christmas, but adding the service charge, without informing the customer it’s completely their choice to pay it, is a year round practise.
I am not against tipping, but it infuriates me when it’s automatically added to my bill with the expectation I will pay it!
An I unreasonable to ask the restaurant to remove it every time?

No they don’t provide a service to a particular customer.

Don’t be ridiculous.

What? Of course the cost of the service is included in the price that the restaurant charges. How else will the customer be able to order and how will the food get from the kitchen to the table?

One answer is of course automated ordering - where the diners order using a tablet or an app - and where the food is delivered by a robot. Systems like this already exist in Japan and Spain, and many Mumsnetters will have experienced it at Lego House in Billund.

If automated systems like this become the norm, will diners still be expected to pay a service charge - who will they be tipping?

Something I've mentioned above is the appearance of a "cover charge" in addition to the mandatory service charge. In effect, what some restaurants are attempting to do is to make the price of the food seem reasonable while making the guest pay separately for the food to be prepared and cooked (the cover charge) and to be served (the service charge).

But if the service was included in the food price, which is what you are advocating for, you’d have no choice but to pay the service.

You can’t have it both ways

Fucking hell, that’s stingy. Hope your DS or DD never takes up a job stacking shelves and encounters customers like you. Eeeesh. Who on earth thinks you only pay for the food you buy at a supermarket when staff are paid NMW?!

The server is working for tips.

I think you don’t understand that.

There is a national shortage of waiting staff. If thy made no tips that shortage would be even more acute and you’re right there probably wouldn’t be a server.

If you don’t tip you are being propped up by all the people that do.

Ive not advocated for that at all.

Tbf i think I misread your post, I thought you were referring to the place making the extra service charge mandatory rather than just increase their prices.

But, yea, either way I did the opposite of advocating for that, indeed I believe I said id stop going.

Interesting hearing Brits complain that tipping is an American import and they won’t indulge in it. In NYC the minimum wage for wait staff is $16.50/hr. Surprisingly, that’s about £12.20/hr which I think is the national minimum wage in the UK? It’s possible for employers to pay under $16.50/hr but they have to make up the difference from tips or their revenue - either way, wait staff are guaranteed a minimum of $16.50/hr and you can tell which establishments pay under and which ones hand over all tips to staff. We - meaning customers - STILL tip 20%, because we know it’s a shit job, exhausting, minimum job security, not the best social security safety net, and staff are either young people paying their way through college, or looking for better work, or having to actually raise a family on these wages. If we can afford to eat out, we’re automatically better off than these workers and it’s just a cost to be taken into account when deciding whether to go out or not. Menu price + tax + tip. It’s not a human right, it’s a luxury that has to be costed like other luxuries. No need to be stingy, some jobs are shit. And yes, we also tip valet parking people, we tip building staff (in my condo building it totals around $3000 each year, and they’re all union staff already), we tip the mail man and the UPS guy and the newspaper delivery guy etc etc. The issue is the disparity between those who have and those who don’t. The UK is heading towards a similarly huge divide, hence the people in the middle complaining the loudest.

I’ve worked stacking shelves, I’ve cleaned toilets, I’ve worked as a waitress and i’ve worked as a receptionist amongst many other minimum wage jobs.

Waiting tables is by far the hardest both physically and mentally, followed by cleaning toilets. Shelf stacking and reception/office jobs are not even in the same ball park. Stop trying to think you have written a gotcha. It’s embarrassing.

Restaurants where I live in Europe have to provide good service and good food at a reasonable price or they go under very quickly. Tipping is not expected.

UK restaurants suffer from high rents, high costs of electricity and utilities and high costs of finance, all of which cut into their profit margins. In an attempt to mitigate this they have resorted to buying in pre-made food that just requires heating up (so no chefs or qualified staff are required) and to employing cheap labour to serve the customers, hoping that the customers will make up the wages by tipping - and if the customers don't oblige, they will attempt to add items such as mandatory service charges. The result is a downward spiral - the cost of visiting a restaurant increases while at the same time, the service levels and the food quality deteriorates, all at a time when consumers are under financial pressure and are cutting back on discretionary spending.

Yes, and that's only 2.5%

I hate tipping so much. Why are only some service workers worthy of extra money?! Taxi drivers get a tip but bus drivers don’t?! Waitress gets a tip but McDonald’s server doesn’t? It makes no sense.
also, went out for a meal recently with added 12.5% service charge and our waiter told us he didn’t get that so if we wanted to tip him specifically we’d have to add more!! so what is it for?!

You’re being utterly ridiculous and haven’t actually explained why wait staff deserve to be paid more than these other jobs. And it’s only certain wait staff. A barista who is on their feet for 10 hours a day, making coffees, toasting sandwiches, clearing tables and cleaning the customer toilets is not getting 12.5% of orders on top of their NMW wages, are they? But somehow the waiter who takes your order at Zizzi and carries plates back and forth is getting paid extra? It makes zero sense. Your point on labour shortage is valid, but this means restaurants need to increase prices full stop. Not introduce a sneaky ‘cover charge’ or increase the service charge % (we went from 10% to 12.5% and now 15-20% is increasingly common). Just have an all-in price on the menu like at Starbucks.

I was going to say the same. The minimum wage in the UK is decent. Hospitality establishments are taking the mick. Especially when they ask for a tip AND a service charge. I also think the tip should go to the person who served you.

But I also think it's really patronising, I am not the Queen, and I'm certainly not giving tips to hairdressers and the like.

I also don't see why retail staff who apparently need protecting so much from the horrors of Sunday working, don't deserve a tip.

The other week I bought a beauty advent calendar online and the shopping basket had the option to tip. I thought that was cheeky too. I didn't add a tip.

You cannot be talking about the UK. Any server who is only "working for tips" is going to quit within the first week as they won't be able to exist - and in any case, they are supposed to be earning at least the UK minimum wage before tips. In most UK restaurants, the servers do not get to keep their individual tips - instead the money goes into a pool (or Tronc) and is shared between all of the staff including the kitchen staff.

One case for not tipping (or at least, for not agreeing to a mandatory service charge of up to 20%) is to force employers to pay a reasonable, livable wage to their staff. If there's a national shortage of waiting staff, perhaps restaurant owners need to think why this might be - could it be down to poor wages and crappy working conditions? If a business cannot survive except by cutting the quality of the inputs - in this case the raw ingredients, the kitchen staff and the front of house staff - then does it deserve to survive?

"If you don’t tip you are being propped up by all the people that do."

Nope - those who tip are propping up the employers, they're not propping up those who don't tip.

There is a reasonable, living wage. It's called the national minimum wage.

I'm old enough to remember the times before a national minimum wage, in fact I was earning myself as a student in the mid 90s on £2.50 an hour in a dickensian packing factory. £2.50 put through an inflation calculator for today woudl be £5.19 per hour, well below the actual minimum wage of £12.21, less than half of that in fact. So given that restaurant staff get at least minimum wage, any tip should be truly discretionary.

No the tips top up the wage.

It’s not hard to understand

Have you put average rents and student debt through your inflation calculator?

Have you ever seen the profit and loss accounts of most restaurants?

Dear lord!

two wrongs don't make a right

Its not the customers responsibility to pay wages directly to the staff.

There is a reasonable, living wage. It's called the national minimum wage.

Minimum wage is widely accepted as not being a living wage. The living wage is higher than MW. Whether the LW is actually a LW is another debate.

I get the feeling on here that there’s a lack of understand about what waiting tables means.
How anyone can compare it to stacking shelves is beyond me.

There’s a also a real lack of understand about how hard it is to make a profit in a restaurant right now. Food costs and energy prices are through the roof.

perhaps though with the minimum wage being increased again shortly restaurants may well just increase their prices and get rid of service charge. Which ever way you look at it service charge is just part of the cost of eating out whether that is separated or included within the food price. Currently it’s separated but either way it needs to be paid

They’re not paying directly to the staff, in fact that’s illegal.

All tips are paid to the restaurant and declared by law and tax is deducted before distribution. Exactly as wages are and paid by the employer

I hate a service charge being added too. I always send it back and ask that it is removed. If I want to leave a tip, I will but generally don't if they try to add it on.