To decide myself how much tip to give rather than have 12.5% or 15% already added on to the bill, in England

[Jossse]

I enjoy going out for food and drinks with friends and family. I have over the past 6 months or so, noticed that some establishments have started to add on 12.5% and 15% to the bill total. This is happening even when buying at the bar or and or ordering on an app.
I’ve always added on 10% for good service and more if exceptional, and rounded up most of the time.
We are all aware that food and drink prices are now much higher and also there is a national minimum wage.
I want to choose how much tip I leave for my server/waiting staff rather than have 12.5% and 15% added on to my bill. When I have questioned this, the manager has needed to come along and speak and authorise this, making the whole experience awkward.
Back in the day (pre Covid/2000) before this was happening, I was a waitress and earned good tips. I put in effort to ensure my customers enjoyed their experience. Sadly a lot of waiting staff today do not seem to understand about customer service, I’m guessing because they already are earning the tip from the bill.
One company said the extra 2.5% was so that the waiting staff didn’t have to pay the card payment charge!
So, AIBU to want to add my own service tip or should the establishment add it in for me when presenting the bill.

Also feel the same when they add a charity donation. I donate lots to charity but I want to be able to chose who I donate to and not feel mean when I ask them to take it off. I wouldn’t mind if they asked if they could add it to the bill but they don’t

Yeah this has been the case for years. I am pissed off that bog standard pub rounds now come with ‘tip your server’ if you’re paying by card.

I do not tip in percentages you’ll get £5-10 depending on how your service was.
We recently went out for dinner and the waiter who served us was doing around 5 other tables at the same time, if everyone gave him £5 he’d have made an extra £25 on top of his minimum wage for an hours work. Sorry but I don’t think bringing food and drinks to a table warrants anymore than that!

Absolutely hate the TikTok mentality that if you can’t afford to tip 20% then you can’t afford to eat out 🙄 it seems to be slowly seeping over from America because I see a lot of British waiting staff with the same mindset.

I prefer it. It’s so much more convenient. I rarely have a suitable amount of cash on me and I don’t like having to type an amount into the card reader while the member of staff is waiting.

Also, the rate restaurants and pubs are going out of business, I think it’s a case of pay for it or lose it.

I hate the whole tipping thing. A restaurant should pay its staff an appropriate wage. The cost of the dish should be a business calculation based on profit/margins (so account for building rent, covers per year, staff costs, electricity, food cost etc...).

I went for a Christmas meal with work colleagues. It was a nice pub, advertised as £29 for a 2 course meal. Only when we were there did we see the notice that groups over 6 would have to pay a 15% service charge, so an extra £4.35 per person. So why not just charge £35 for a 2 course meal? We would have still gone but then not felt disgruntled at the extra charge.

Either restaurants don't realise how disgruntled having to pay a service charge makes its customers feel, or they don't care.

Well yes but I would never tip lower than 12.5. that's the minimum and less means you weren't satisfied with the service

Rubbish? The US has tips because the minimum wage is incredibly low (much lower than here - some states have no minimum at all), and the tip is a part of the wage such that you can be taxed as if you got it even when you didn't.

In the UK, staff are paid. Tipping is not required, its an extra for exceptional service (more like a bonus). Restaurants & the hospitality trade push it because its a way to pass more cost onto the customer without having to increase headline prices on menus etc.

I recently ate in a pizza express. The waitress did fuck all - we were seated near the serving hatch and our pizzas were hastily handed over. She was covering 5 tables and we got no attention

No, im not going to add an extra tenner on for someone doing the absolute bare minimum of the job.

Just ask for it to be taken off and give what you want. No big deal

They could always just put their prices up to cover their costs, though - rather than socially expect/shame people into paying extra.

That's much safer for them, too, as they know for sure that they're getting the required amount in for each dish/drink - instead of stating an artificially low price and hoping that customers will pay them extra on top.

Notice that solicitors, accountants and most other professionals aren't shy in stating their exact required costs in exchange for their services - they never give you a lower price than they expect/need ro earn and just hope that you'll see your way clear to giving generously into the tip jar.

I have started to think using a % to work out tips is daft. Serving one course of expensive food and one expensive bottle of booze takes less effort than three courses of moderately priced food and a midrange bottle of wine which might end up cost the same or even less.

I’ve started basing my tips on effort and ‘service’, not servile but expertise and professionalism.

As an aside, would it be possible for us to drop the Americanism, 'Good choice' when I order ? I can tell if it's genuine of if you're just saying it because it's part of the script.

I resent paying the service charge as I think service has definitely gone downhill (ex-waitress here), but then again I cba to faff around with working out tips and always just pay what's added just for the sake of simplicity. We don't eat out very often, one reason I prefer takeaways and street food is that you can get decent food without all that faff.

There's nothing new about service charges.

I worked in a Central London restaurant in the 1980s which used a service charge as the main pay mechanism for front of house staff. Waiting staff and bar staff were paid a very small hourly rate as a basic wage for turning up (this was pre minimum wage). This was topped up significantly by the service charge which was shared equally between the staff who had worked that particular shift. This meant of course that the size of your take home pay packet depended on getting a good share of busy weekend shifts. Also if someone phoned in sick at the last minute and you'd all been run ragged covering their absence, the payoff would be a larger share of that service charge.

Cash tips were also split evenly amongst that shift's staff at the end of the night.

I used my basic wage plus service charge to live on and save up for travelling. The cash tips kept me in booze and fags (I was very young).

These days I would never object to a service charge, even though I presume staff are paid minimum wage. If there isn't a charge I try to pay a decent tip. Restaurant staff work hard for low pay and it's not their fault that the other overheads of running a restaurant keep pushing up the cost of eating out.

Central london was an outlier compared to the rest of the country though. Its where all the foreign tourists go

And no minimum wasge in the80s

Thing is most nmw employees work very hard for their wages and dont get tips so why should waiting staff be treated better than any other nmw employees

It is a scam for the tipper as if it's on the card it gets taxed before the waiter/waitress see any of it (if they do).

I hate being told how much to tip and if it's more than 10% I ask them to take it off. I'll leave however much I want - or don't want to tip.

No it isn’t. In the UK 10 per cent is standard. I hate this minimum level crap. I will decide how much to tip thanks especially in the UK where there is a minimum wage.

I don’t tip at all, this isn’t America they are on national minumum wage. Why should I tip for someone just doing their job? Do you tip the bus driver everytime you use the bus? Didn’t think so.

There is no "standard". They can add whatever they like. We don't have to pay any of it.

We had a meal out recently, it cost around £280, the service was not exceptional, but was OK. I would have tipped about £20, when the bill came the was a discretionary 12.5% added, DH had the credit card in his hand really quickly, I said to ask them to delete the discretionary tip, and we would tip separately, but he was too embarrassed. When I pointed out to him that someone in the same restaurant only spending half what we did, would only tip half for the same level of service, I think it suddenly twigged.

One of the benefits of buying via an app at the table is that you aren't usually pestered for a service charge to be added, same in pub restaurant chains where you order in person at a till at the bar. They're the kind of places we prefer to go when we just want a meal rather than an evening out, i.e. when travelling etc. We actively avoid the "chains" that don't have app ordering as most chains have crap food/crap service and it is a bit embarrassing asking for the service charge to be removed at somewhere like a Pizza Hut or Bella Italia, as the ones we've been to still havn't offered app ordering for some reason (I know lots do!).

If we're out for a "date night" or a special/romantic meal, then we choose a "proper" restaurant, not an identikit chain, and then happy to pay the suggested service charge if the service/meal has been good, which it usually is in the smaller/private independent restaurants we'd chose for such a meal.

I despise service charges and do not start me on charity donations at the till. I give to specific charities for reasons that are mine.

We tip in cash for very good service, DH is an incredibly generous tipper but when he was a student he worked in a pizzeria in America for a few months. I also worked as a waitress at school and we remember those low wage times.

I don’t believe in tipping at all. We have minimum wage in the UK and unless you apply tipping to all minimum wage workers it’s completely illogical. So I just don’t eat out now if I can help it. What with dogs everywhere now too, and shit food, feeling ripped off, it’s just not pleasurable any more.

I didn't think it had been 10 for around 20 years?

Oh well, I guess I must be unnecessarily generous to the tune of a couple of quid every few months. I can live with that.

In my local pub if we have a meal I always leave an extra cash tip for the server as it's a nice thing to do. And I want to support the staff working in my local business.

I get that some people really don't like the whole concept of tipping, and that's up to them. But I'm not one of them.

More importantly I think is to give your custom to private/local/independent restaurants rather than the identikit chains owned by hedge funds. That way there's more chance of keeping open the unique/special ones that usually have better quality service and food and who are more likely to value their staff rather than have a high churn revolving door of (usually) uni students just earning a bit of cash with no interest at all in the customers nor service.

Rather than customers spending less/going out less, I think the main reason for independents going out of business is people lazily choosing the identikit chains rather than finding better quality private/independent restaurants. I know we've been guilty of it - i.e. just googling for the local "pizza hut" or "bella italia" rather than seeking out an independent Italian in the town we're in whilst travelling, but I try not to do that these days, even using Trip Advisor gets you a better choice if independents with ratings too.

Personally, I think the standards in the identikit chains has plumeted since covid, whereas independents seem to be keeping the quality. But no surprise really since the hedge fund millionaires are only interested in profit and are quick to sell on or close down their businesses if they aren't getting the percentages they want.

Dd has a summer job as a kitchen porter and tips are split between all staff. She receives a separate salary slip for tips and tax is paid on this amount too.