AIBU to request a service charge is removed before service?

[Globules]

Went to a lovely restaurant yesterday. We began by ordering at the table using the app. We expected to pay before recieving our food.

The app automatically added a 12.5% service charge to the order. There was no option to remove it.

So I went to the bar and ordered. The server put the order through the app I'd just used, therefore the total was the same. I asked her to take off the service charge. She seemed surprised, but did so.

Inside I was thinking I haven't had any service yet, how can you charge me for it now?

The server poured the 2 drinks at the bar. I carried them to our table. Another server carried our plates of food 3m from the hatch to the table.

There was no other interaction with servers at all. The servers were pleasant enough, but 20 seconds of announcing food was all it amounted to.

The food was really tasty but nothing service wise to justify the £7 service charge they asked for upfront, before you'd even experienced the service!

As I think we all agreed it's discretionary. So no, you wouldn't want to pay and any decent owner wouldn't expect you to.

..but still feel sad for the young staff they cant help being young and inexperienced..we have all been there. I work in coaching in the industry and it makes me sad to read people say it's low value. (I read that on an earlier thread not yours). It sounds like a management issue and I have had similar experiences in branded carveries.

I am seeing service charges increasingly added just for drinks, which I do not like at all. Literally go to the bar get a drink and then service is added to the amount without a word. No option to remove it from a bill as one is not produced in advance.

i dont tip unless its execeptional we pay nmw here ik hope we dont end up like america although i understand their situation si different and i always tip

No they didn't take it away.

They chose not to tip for a farcical meal.

The staff were already getting NMW so no need for your heart to bleed

Why do people need to reframe?

Tips are discretionary and workers get NMW.

only in so much as
how the bill is laid out on paper post 2023. Prev If it was not listed as service charge..the employer could (and used to) still add it and say they were giving it but not actually do it.

Because it's separately itemised you know post 2023 and the new
law
employees get 100% of it (if you choose to pay it).

The American system of tipping is morally bankrupt and exploitative. Like so many Americanisms we need to avoid it like the plague. The sneaky service charge is a slide towards the very thing we should be avoiding. It plays on customers being too embarrassed to say no. It is not only morally repugnant, hidden charges will end up putting people off eating out as costs are not clear.

Its far more important that workers have a guaranteed minimum wage rather than having to rely on the capricious nature of tips and a service charge is simply a pre ordained tip.

I now actively avoid restaurants that have service charges.

Hard agree

Because the local business was run by morons who dont know how to price things properly, so you pay for things at the price required to pay for them and the service?

But you don't refuse to pay for your starters/ main meal until you've seen that everything was OK?

Not at all. The service charge is additional. It’s added to make people leave a tip. Pre that it wasn’t on the bill at all. It hasn’t been subtracted from the food costs! The. Restaurant has never been able to add a non-itemised charge to a bill, it has always shown every charge. The law was to stop them offering tips on the cash machine or as. A service charge then not sharing it out, which happened a lot. There were some high profile cases.

Exactly my point. It is a shown and cannot be diverted elsewhere. I would rather see it itemised.

not sure of your point..

My point is that if it wasn’t itemised it wouldnt be oart of the bill so wouldn’t be go8ng to anyone. And that’s always been the case. I don’t understand your point about an itemised charge being better and stopping the restaurant taking it. It wouldn’t be there to take, would it?

My point was I prefer to
see it itemised and know that if I choose to pay it that gets split fairly across all the staff inc the KP and chef rather than bung a fiver to the one person who served it. Its transparent.

Before the bill restaurants could "say"
10% discretionary added but not actually follow through
or fiddle a little. How would you know? 10% of what total sales/net profit. There was no accountability and I begrudged it more then in hindsight.

how sad? they still would have got paid for their days' work - just not an extra payment for going above and beyond - which is what a tip is supposed to be! - because they didn't. In fact they didn't even do the bare minimum of what would be considered adequate service.

Whose 'fault' that is is debatable, but in most jobs you don't get extra pay for being incompetent busy or not well supervised/trained. People on here are quick to say that minimum wage jobs are 'proper' jobs and people doing them should be respected for the skills and hard work needed and not judged (all absolutely correct), but at the same time have this weird paternalistic attitude that nobody doing such a job should possibly be expected to have any sense of responsibility or pride/enjoyment in their work or have the skills and competence to do an adequate job without the incentive of additional pay.

I've done both minimum wage jobs with tips (hospitality) and those without (retail) and worked exactly as hard in both of them (despite being paid less than £3 an hour in my first job and I'm only in my 30s so not back in the depths of time) because I knew the pay when I agreed to take the job so once I was there I would do it to the best of my ability - a tip was just a nice bonus, not something I was entitled to.

Exactly that! We don’t get elderly people to tip staff in care homes, home help etc

Just wanted to say the chefs do get service charge and tronc too.

cash tips are great for the waiter/ess but miss the rest of the crew and card payments mean everyone gets an equal share in their wages.

When I worked in hospitality the tronc was all the cash tips pooled & then shared out between front of house & kitchen staff. A waiter/ess would be expected to share cash tips with backroom staff.

My daughter gets really cross about this she worked in a well known glasses store . Minimum wage too . She sold £1000s pounds of glasses every week . No tips . No commission . She couldnt even accept a box of chocolates that says thankyou from a customer . Plenty of people work mundane jobs for minimum wage . A service charge was for the USA where servers are paid below minimum wage hence tips make up the wage . We don’t pay a service charge to shop workers , till workers , apprentice plumbers , electricians , coffee shop workers. So I do not understand this Americanism . It belittles all the other minimum wages workers . Also many people are on minimum wages and to go out might be a luxury - to then find a service charge on top to tip the server on the same minimum wage - well you get my point .

I think you need some life experience! You've gone from stating that 'literally every restaurant adds 12.5 % to the bill" , then calling people a dick if they don't tip, (because you tip everyone) and now "often hospitality staff don't get paid at all" and you wonder why you're getting bitchy comments! Dear God!

And all this time I'd been led to believe that if you ordered food in a restaurant the price included cooking it. How stupid of me!

In many of those jobs it would be against the rules to accept any money from a client and even a gift like a box of chocs needs to be declared. With safeguarding risks you can understand why.

Wouldnt it be better for places to increase their prices by the service charge on eveything so it is built in

But you are attacking people's opinions when you call them dicks by saying it is a dick move not to pay a tip.

If it bothers you so much get your daughter to get another job or how about you go in an tip her each day!

Like others have said, their are many other minimum wage jobs where no tips are given and where more is expected of them than serving.

Alot if people work hard for minimum wage and they definitely don't get tips.