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!

We can disagree about tipping but do not presume to tell me what my daughter relies on or what she gets paid.

No, this is not the US, tips are not part of their salary.

Their wage is their salary.

Do you tip all other MW workers?

Just because she relies on it, doesn’t mean people have to pay it.

Service charge in the UK is optional. TBH, attitudes such as yours makes me less likely to tip; it suggests you think she should be tipped regardless of service level. That’s not what is is for.

What a time to be alive eh, paying robots, whatever next...

He gets paid at least nmw if she is in uk. Tips are a bonus, not something to rely on

Well i could go and tell my employer I 'rely' on a million pounds a month to fund an extravagant lifestyle but they'd probably tell me to get stuffed!

Totally agree!

You said she gets paid minimum wage. If she needs more reliable income, she needs to up her hours or look for better paid work.

Nobody tips me for doing my job no matter how much effort I put into it, so I resent tipping and service charge in principle. I've noticed service charge being added to the bill more these days, not that I can justify the expense of eating out much any more but maybe that's why I scrutinise the bill more than I used to. I think it's pretty PA of establishments to put punters on the back foot and make them ask for service charge to be removed like they're some kind of tight arse or they're implying that the service was shit, when it was just that, service, for which the servers are already paid out of the published price of the food and drinks.

Plenty of minimum wage jobs where people work hard and dont get tips. Do you tip people in the supermarket?

If the service charge wasn’t optional then it wasn’t a “tip”, in the way you are treating it.

You also had to pay for the food before you had received any.

Of course it should be described correctly and prominently.

I always take service charges off and do not tip. In my opinion, they chose that job, so if your happy with the wages then that’s fine but don’t expect tips to top it up. If you need to earn more, get a better paid job, better yourself with education, and get paid more. There are so many jobs that only offer minimum wage and tips are not offered. I would not tip a Tesco cashier- yet they have provided me a service, when would I tip someone who has bought my dinner over that I am paying for.

An increasing number of workers are on minimum, or just slightly above minimum wage. If you buy a product then all costs should be built in. I've taken off the service before being served, removed it when we had service with a snarl too. We decide to pay and often will not pay more than an advertised price. As for charity giving, I always donate direct to the charity, never through a broker service.

What? I don’t presume. I used your own words. You literally said that they rely on tips for their income. But they don’t. She is paid minimum wage, or more. She is not replying on tips for income because we have a minimum wage in this country. And many other people work for minimum wage.

I literally used your own words. What on earth are you on about with the fake outrage and offence at me for “presuming what she relies upon.”

Do you tip anyone else in low paid jobs? If you seem to think your daughter relies on tip money then you clearly think minimum wage isn’t enough. I guarantee that you interact and use services provided by minimum wage workers every week, so don’t tip them?

Most people in minimum wage jobs work hard for their money.
Carers spring to mind.
I think that’s a much harder job than working in hospitality but they seem to manage without relying on ‘service charges’.
No one in the uk should be relying on tips.
I always tip if the service is good and I have been served. Ordering at a bar, trying my own drinks, getting my cutlery and having my food put in front of me does not constitute’service’ imho.

Things are going to get tighter financially for people.
Places with enforced service charges will suffer as people will not want to be forced to pay 12.5% extra.
Tips in the uk should be optional. I hate the enforced service charges and always ask for them to be removed.
what next? Tesco putting 12.5% service charge on your shopping if you use a checkout??

We have a good minimum wage in this country, tips should be optional for good service. We don't tip other minimum wage workers like MacDonalds staff, cleaners, supermarket workers. So why is different for waiters/waitresses/bar staff?

I'll always tip when I've had good service but really object to it when I've ordered at a bar and so all they have done is bring my plates to the table.

This absolutely. If you do this like the wage dint take the job. It's not my job to top up someone's wage. I take service charges off and don't tip. I work hard in my job and no one tips me. It irks me restaurants putting them on as imo they are trying to embaress people to not ask for them to be removed. I was embarrassed at the start now I just ask for a bill minus service charge

A lot of people work hard for minimum wage, and most of them do not get tips.

I think that the only circumstances in which it is acceptable not to tip a waiter/waitress are if they have been actively rude. Service may sometimes be not the best, not because of the server but because the restaurant is inadequately staffed (not the fault of the staff who are there).

As I said, we can disagree about tipping. I’m not attacking your opinion, and find it bizarre that there are so many vitriolic responses to my opinion. I have a different opinion to some, and that is fine. We’re talking about tipping, not whether or not racism is ok.

In answer to questions about who else I tip, yes I do tip the bin men etc. I sold a house recently and even “tipped” an estate agent to whom I had absolutely no legal obligation to pay a penny. We had ditched our first agent because they lied and were shit, then got a new agent who was wonderful and got us a good offer on the house. We had agreed with him that in the event any of the prospective buyers introduced by the first agent ended up buying our house, the second agent would not be entitled to any fee. In the end one of the earlier viewers became proceedable and offered a much higher price than the other offer, and the other offerors had at that point also just lost their buyer so couldn’t proceed. We ended up with a better sale price because of the efforts of the second agent, and as a result I paid him a percentage of the fee he would have had, had we sold to his buyers. I could have not done that, but I believe in treating people with respect for their work.

Ive never paid a service charge so definitely wouldnt pay upfront! Yanbu

Good for you, but it’s not a ‘dick move’ if other people don’t conform to this imaginary moral standard you’ve adopted

No, they don't. I go to two local independent restaurants. One has a service charge, but you don't pay until the end, and the other one doesn't have a service charge at all. I certainly wouldn't be happy to pay a service charge until I had been served.

Unfortunately hospitality workers often don’t get paid at all. My daughter has worked in restaurants where the staff had to chase the employer every week for their wages, sometimes got paid and sometimes didn’t, and then the employer put the company into administration, set up a new co to buy the assets of the first co, carried on running the restaurant and all the employees were left hundreds or in some cases thousands of pounds out of pocket. This has happened more than once and is not unusual. It’s not about service staff demanding an unreasonable income, it’s about the inherent insecurity of zero hours contracts in an industry where staff are routinely treated like shit. And commonly these employees are young people who don’t have the life experience to know what to do.

I’m finding MN an increasingly bitchy, mean-spirited forum.

My

@Elektra1great, you tip bin men and your estate agent.

What about every other minimum wage employee that pours you a glass of wine at the pub, prices up your Tesco shop, serves you at the gift shop or even takes your blood (many new phlebotomist jobs now are virtually minimum wage)?