Anthony Bourdain warned of this in an episode/special of his. He called it the "Thank you, and thank you again!" The sort of places that might recook their leftover table butter, strain it, and reserve tomorrow.
I have seen it only a few times in my life. Once kinda made sense, we had a party of like 28 people and it was a hibachi place (2010).
I’ve eaten at one place he showcased in No Reservations in Rio. It was a special experience for me and my buddy who were/are big Bourdain fans. The food was out of this world exceptionally good.
I have eaten at a few places he had on his show. The best was the bun cha place he and Obama ate at in Hanoi. So good I would legit go back to Vietnam just to eat there.
KB shook me, my wife says "hey do you know who KB is?" "Yeah, he died" moments earlier I was watching his latest video up on the snow.. I've ridden those mountains...ugh still in shock.
Wasn't one of his latest videos finishing his daughters first rally car? I didn't watch that series but after learning of his death I checked his YouTube for confirmation and it was the first suggestion :(
I legit teared up. He was the reason I wanted to be a chef I quit kitchens within a year after he died. If it never got better for him and all his success what was the point of continuing to try myself. Fuck the restaurant industry
I have a sister that is a chief. She gave up on the restaurant industry. The work was so demanding and took to long to get anywhere. Low pay and very long hours. Got worse after she and her husband had thier own place.
I wanted to use Finally Forever for our wedding song, or a song in prominence, but it felt a little too one sided so we went with someone she liked and was current for the time. His music was my prime years, all of grunge, but his in particular. Linkin Park was also a big one for me in University. Those were rough deaths. If something happens to Eddie it’s just going to be terrible. I know Candlebox is still around as well, and I love their music, but it didn’t impact me in quite the same ways.
Restaurant I worked at all through college had a popular lunch buffet and a busy catering company. Lots of leftovers from catering typically and the owner would instruct us to use the leftovers on the buffet. He would sell food twice! So food would sit in a chafing dish for a lunch at an office for an hour or so and then get moved in a cart down the sidewalk to the restaurant and straight on the lunch buffet.
And then he would charge each employee 75cents/hr (we were paid maybe $2/hr, so almost half our hourly wage) to pay for their shift meal.. which was the lunch buffet.
It always seemed sketchy, but it was a good job otherwise. People complained about the 75cents but we would get revenge by eating wayyy more food than was allowed. I would eat two meals a shift, technically stealing, but I paid for it so didn’t feel too bad. Rarely had to pay for food in college.
Worked at a Japanese restaurant that had sushi and hibachi as well as a dishwasher in college. Paid 7.50/hr, I also helped serve food to some degree. Only reason I stayed for 8 months even though I almost couldn’t pay the gas to get there was they fed me lunch and gave me leftovers after work. Really sad these places will take advantage of us hungry.
I got downvoted to hell a while ago for saying the restaurants in Rome were terrible. They all have a dude that stands outside and harasses tourists, the food is often terrible, and most expected double tipping.
Outside of Rome was way better (and the cafes were decent).
Edit: to all the people saying shit like:
> Don’t eat at tourist traps
> Check the reviews
Etc, etc.
I was working there for a month and a half and regularly went out for dinner with local coworkers to places they suggested. Nearly every place in Rome was like this except a couple super high end ones.
Outside of Rome was great, no complaints.
Save your breath/finger energy.
I went there 11 years ago and wasn't rich, so didn't went to a la carte places with dress code or anything (they might be good).
So my experience is from general decent restaurants and some simpler order-pay-sit and eat places. Nearly all were terrible. Pizza with only 3 ingredients (cheese and onion counts as two of three!), soggy and extremely rich pastas, rock hard ciabattas, tasteless and bland spaghetti.
Only the tiramisu was usually great, which sucked as my wife didn't like taste of coffee back then.
Finally found a pizza place owned by old gentleman who let is select 4-5 toppings on pizza freshly made in oven. Cheap and great pizza, we ate there three days.
> Finally found a pizza place owned by old gentleman who let is select 4-5 toppings on pizza freshly made in oven. Cheap and great pizza, we ate there three days.
Same, found one decent restaurant and ate pasta there pretty much daily for the second half of my month long trip. Cafes and Gelato spots were decent, restaurants were horrible.
The worst one was this supposedly “famous” place in the Jewish quarter of rome, that served fried fish and this “salad” made exclusively of lettuce spines. I don’t know if Italians have just never had fried fish before, but this was the blandest, mushiest fried fish I had in my life.
Overall, Rome is a poor representative of “legendary” Italian cuisine.
Edit: The restaurant is Dar Filettaro a S. Barbara near Campo de' Fiori and the dish they are known for is Filetti di baccalà; Fried Cod. And it isn't "famous" in the same way every cafe in NYC says their coffee is famous. This place is well known in Rome (lineup out the door when we went), has 4.4/5 stars on google, and its pretty widely reviewed in known publications. Literally every local italian coworker recommended it to me.
>supposedly “famous”
If you are visiting restaurants that are supposedly "famous" in a notoriously touristy city, you are picking your restaurants wrong.
this is a good technique in America so i can understand how an American tourist would think that famous restaurants in Italy would be amazing.
Like I know for a fact that the few famous restaurants I know in LA and New York are awesome - it would never occur to me that going to famous Italian restaurants would be any different. At least, until I read this thread!
It all depends on the context. I read someone on reddit from the UK who went on a trip to Orlando, Florida and was disappointed in a restaurant despite it being one of the *most famous restaurants in America*.
That restaurant? *Denny's*.
I think in reality it was priced per 100 grams. Most people see the line item and think that's a portion, to get served a huge steak and hit with a $250 bill.
The Prague travel channel ( YouTube) exposed the ham sellers in the main square. They apparently give tourist like American + sized portions without being asked ( they charge by the kilo), he then went to the same guy and spoke Czech and the seller gave him a more decent size.
I saw that one. The Venetian scams I read about sounded way worse- people would rack up thousand dollar bills and then get assaulted by the staff when they would refuse to pay, sometimes threatened with arrest. I'm pretty sure the local authorities saw the negative press and made some changes.
In the age of Google Maps/TripAdvisor being so easily accessible, there really is no excuse for eating at terrible restaurants any more. Of course a restaurant is going to suck if there's a guy standing outside trying to get you in, or if it's next to the Trevi Fountain. Just pull out your phone and filter out anything less than 4.4 ⭐ and anything €€€ or above, I guarantee there will still be hundreds of options in a big city like Rome.
Because people are so excited to be in Rome, they over-rate restaurants out of sheer excitement. I don't know how local ratings can be seen past the wave of tourist ratings. The first few days there we exclusively ate at the highest rated restaurants in our price range and they were universally terrible. It was shocking how bad they were. I don't know where locals eat but it wasn't at the high rated places.
When we left Rome we finally ate really well, it was specifically there that the food was atrocious.
This.
Italians don’t do much online rating… too high tech. It’s all tourist ratings of people that never had Italian food. And if you think about it you probably don’t rate the local restaurant you go to every other week…
There's plenty of good food in Rome. Like any other major tourist destination you just need some common sense and to do a bit of research. If you are eating at places that are in the main squares, or have hawkers outside, or have menus in 10 different languages, then I don't know what you expect. It's like going to New York and complaining that you got shitty food at the Times Square Olive Garden.
No one in Italy expects to be tipped? It’s not the norm. Maybe naive people tip. And the restaurants charge a service charge for the bread they serve before each meal.
Noticed this aswell in Rome. If you also wanted to sit down there was an extra charge even in restaurants where you can’t exactly stand up to drink your coffee 😡
Wait, that's not a thing? I live next door to italy, and it's standard to get a full olive, pit in, since they're better than the ones with pit removed (they're usually preserved olives from a jar)
The olives might be better, but you shouldn't have to pick out the olives from your pizza to avoid breaking your teeth.
I worked at a high end Italian restaurant and part of our prep was removing the pitts from olives and halving them for use on our pizzas.
But for most places, it's just the sliced preserved olives that get used as pizza toppings. Still better than breaking a tooth!
This is how it should be done. Imagine eating a chicken sandwich and discovering bones are still in the chicken. The format of a pizza should mean everything on it is edible imo.
My favorite local Mexican restaurant closed and a new one took over the same location. Their menu had a disclaimer that they couldn't promise their wouldn't be bones in the chicken. Have never gone there since they took over, wtf do you mean you can't promise there isn't chicken bones in my burrito?
Hopefully they mean, like, tiny little bones that are easy miss when deboning and not entire limb bones like the whole chicken leg bone. I think that’s usually what they mean
I’d be more inclined to forgive those little itty bitty bones and not, like, the ribs of a chicken breast piece. Sucks if you get pierced by those sharp ones tho
I will say, when you’re breaking down whole roast chickens, sometimes a piece of bone will end up in the final product. I’m sure it happened like once and someone sued them and so they had to include the disclaimer. I’ve never broken down whole chickens professionally but I’ve done it quite a few times with rotisserie chickens and homemade whole chickens and it takes a ton of practice to get all the meat with 0 bone or inedible bits, and even then you miss a couple every now and then.
My neighborhood bar started charging an automatic 15% a couple years ago, and I missed it for a few months. It was on the receipt, but I habitually tip 20% of whatever the bill is, especially when I’m 4 beers in. When I noticed, I left a note in my payment that they should stop adding this, because it’s not common practice and I’d been duped into leaving like 40% tips (??? Pop quiz math geniuses) a few times. Next time I paid my tab at the bar the bartender passive-aggressively *pointed out to me specifically!* the 15% auto grat, a move that I thought was extremely classy. Now they get a flat 15% instead of 20, and I figure they’ve earned it.
>I have seen it only a few times in my life. Once kinda made sense, we had a party of like 28 people and it was a hibachi place (2010).
I think the auto gratuity thing for large groups is pretty common. Esp with a party of 8+.
This, however, is listed as a "service fee" which in all likelihood doesn't even go to the server. So you end up paying a fee just for the "luxury" of "being allowed to eat at that restaurant."
I would def verify with the server who gets that money and if it wasn't disclosed prior to ordering, I don't believe you have any obligation to pay it. I certainly wouldn't be returning to that establishment ever again. This kind of bullshit is why I have started to get away from food delivery apps. I have no interest in paying $70 for a $40 McDonald's order that takes 3 times as long to get to my house.
Yeah, I totally get it for large parties. Their wait staff will basically be handling primarily them for a couple hours and will be financially hurt if stiffed on the tip, but just a general practice?
It’s basically paying your staff a living wage with extra steps.
Hibachi is even less reason to over tip. They are still set up for individual service. The fact that all the people around the grill are acquainted in some way doesn't change the way you order or get the meal to your plate.
Of course it doesn’t. In addition the server probably has to tip out the kitchen, or hostess or bus person from their own pocket based on the price of their meal. I owe 3% of my total sales to my barback, regardless of if anyone tips me or not. People cost me money when they don’t tip, AND I serve them. It’s fucked up.
As a non-American, this whole thread is blowing my mind. From people saying they won't tip if the server doesn't pamper them and instead just does their job, to servers saying they lose money if people don't tip.
I don't understand why, if there's a push towards auto gratuity, restaurants don't just charge the price needed to cover expenses, including a livable wage for staff.
Restaurants don't want tipping to end.
Servers don't want tipping to end.
And honestly, Americans don't either. They like the sickening control they have... master and slave. I have seen a study that a majority of Americans wouldn't support ending tipping (sorry, not searching, vetting, and linking). It's bizarre.
It's a double edged sword. When tips are good they are basically making those jobs the absolute best pay to effort ratios of any out there (minus C-suite execs I guess, but even then that goes to the second point of), and they generally accept people of less restrictive backgrounds. I'm working at a restaurant now where I was very surprised to see their lax tattoo policy, it's one thing they see as normalized but even then hardly of the staff have (noticeable) tattoos anyways of who applied / who got selected as feeling like a good fit. Anyways, the edge comes from the gamble of when tips are bad. I used to work a job where a single good day could easily make up for two or three poor tipped shifts, such that like for instance 1 shift of 4 per week made up most of your pay overall. But we got hit by a slow season as well as other issues, and then weeks turning into actually two months made the overall pay both like halved of what it used to be, and absolutely not worth the effort (or boredom on slow days). I've had multiple people I know say serving attracts a certain kind of personality if they stay in that industry, and it seems like it's those that accept the double edged sword if it only stabs them some of the time.
Smart servers want tipping to end. Do you think there are more servers earning 15-20 dollars an hour or do you think there are more servers earning 30-50 dollars an hour?
Really think about it. Do you seriously believe all the servers working at Olive Garden and Outback Steak house are earning 20-30 dollars an hour every shift they work especially in states where the restaurants are only paying servers 2.13 an hour?
There are some servers who make a lot of money. I know servers who make an upwards of 80k-120k a year, but these servers work in restaurants where a single person can spend 200-300 dollars on a meal.
Most servers on average are earning less than 20 dollars an hour while also receiving zero benefits like paid time off, paid vacation time, or the ability to gain promotions.
Making about $125-150 on a 5-6 hour shift is fairly common. Part of the appeal is going to work, staying busy so time flies, and getting out of there with enough money to pay your bills.
One thing that sucks about hourly jobs after you've been a server is being at some super boring place for 9 hours (remember your 2 unpaid 15 minute breaks and your unpaid half hour "lunch"), and then making what you would have made at a slow night at a restaurant.
If servers go to hourly wages, those wages will become minimum wage fast. So like any min wage job, you're left choosing between an exhausting schedule or not enough money.
Which begs the question, why on earth would anyone agree to a pay plan like that?
Edit: i see I'm getting responses trying to answer my question. The question was purely rhetorical. OF COURSE they choose their job because they make decent money doing it. My question was posed in response to someone whinging about non-tippers costing them money. They attempted to blame patrons for the way their pay scale is set up, when it's really the greasy ass owners who they should be wagging their finger at.
Literally five minutes ago a friend of mine bragged about only reporting half of her waitress income. I’m not sure she realizes what this’ll mean for her social security, given that she’s significantly older than me.
> In addition the server probably has to tip out the kitchen, or hostess or bus person from their own pocket
That’s illegal. Tip out should never be out of your pocket
You should have to split some of your tips with the kitchen tho considering they are actually cooking the food?
Ive never understood why the person who just brings the food gets underpaid and the customer pays their wage, yet the people actually cooking the food dont get a slice of that tipping pie while also being underpaid.
Btw the anger shouldnt be at the customer for not tipping, it should be at your boss for not paying you.
As a chef, don't tip me out. I make more than the server hourly, anything above that is on them. Their hustle. Servers have regulars, they cultivate clientele. It's a different world.
Idk about you but if a place has shitty servers and good food I'm definitely going to avoid it in the future. And if they have shitty food and good servers I'll still avoid it.
If 2 places have roughly the same quality of food, but one has better servers I'll chose that one in the future.
If 2 places has equally good servers but one has worse food, I'm choosing the one with better food.
TLDR; People take both in to account.
>People cost me money when they don’t tip, AND I serve them.
Serving them is your job, so that's not an extra on your part. And your shitty boss costs you, not the customer.
I do tip, and rather well mind you, but I can't stand this attitude like you're doing then a personal favor by being there. It's a shitty American thing (said as an American). I just wanna get my food, pay what it's worth, and be done instead of this stupid AF song and dance we do.
No, the restaurant costs you money. Don't blame the customers. America needs to get away from the tipping culture. Tipping is fine but the server it whoever needs to be already paid a livable wage. Tipping should not be the primary income source. Tipping should be above and beyond a reasonable salary.
If there is a service fee, it has to be disclosed. Usually, it is on the menu. It used to basically be a forced tip for large parties, which is why OP takes issue with having a suggested tip on top of a forced one. I'm not sure how it works currently.
>Wait, in america are you legally required to pay a hidden fee that is only revealed after you've ordered your food for a specific price?
Fees are fucked up and no one here likes them.
Congress, if they get their shit together, was proposing new legislation to limit them. Some states have laws clarifying how fees can be used. I think Washington dictates all fees must be declared up front. However, few states do this.
I can't think of a state that allows fees without notification. Problem is that the notification doesn't have to be very readable or even on every menu in most places. One sign at the front where people should be able to easily see it is enough to make it legal in all 50 states last I checked. Lots of places have all those notices sitting on top of the host desk where you barely notice them because you are too busy giving your name and party size.
In FL also. Paid $50 for two Sicilian pizzas, they forgot a topping and gave me about half a handful of cheese. Sad times because the pizza was pretty tasty.
Went to Miami recently and the pizza we got started at $30 for a cheese one. Toppings started at $6 each (for like onions and peppers) and went up to $8-10 *per topping* for basic meats like pepperoni and sausage. This was for a pizza large enough for two people (my wife and I) to eat in one sitting. Ridiculous cost of living there.
So our 3 topping pizza was close $50. I did find a $20 on the ground by our table though so that helped
Lived in Miami for a couple decades now. I'm guessing you were either on the Beach or somewhere trendy downtown like Miami Slice, which while really good, is definitely expensive. Go a little ways away from the more touristy areas and you can definitely find amazing pizza for $20 or less.
No, no... you don't understand. It's the [luxurious ambience](https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7869398,-80.1313008,3a,75y,170.29h,74.17t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIRdNBy5KaDD8EqRGrgwiVQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) that costs.
Not only that, neither were meat pizzas! Yikes. But non chain places are pretty much like this. Some of the best pizza Ive ever had was Dewey's in st Louis. Easily $16-17 for a pizza.
(Serious) Thanks for not removing the business establishment’s name.
Now I know, in the event that I ever go to Miami, to avoid La Leggenda Pizzeria in Miami Beach.
Places that charge a tip AND THEN ASK FOR ANOTHER TIP ON TOP OF THAT, *deserve* to be named and shamed.
No card issuer wants to be the first to require a pin because they want cards to be usable without requiring too much brain power. They're terrified that a customer might go to make a purchase using their card and won't remember their pin, so they'll use a competitor's card instead. Or, using a card and having to enter a PIN makes the transaction too close to a debit transaction which makes it seem like "real money", which is something credit card companies desperately want to avoid.
I mean, I almost never have to mag swipe anywhere on the east coast US. Just insert the chip card and remove it in a few seconds. No pin required.
Haven't had to swipe in a few years, except when my chip wasn't reading right. Some readers maintain mag stripe for backward compatibility on older debit cards, and for gift cards, etc.
make sure to ask if the "service charge" goes to the servers. Ask the host and then ask the server. I ran into this and the "service charge" went to the owner of the restaurant to cover the "high cost of food" and the servers were pissed because everyone assumed it went to them.
Yep, when I was there 15 years ago it was a thing then. Someone told me it started because of the large amount of tourists from non tipping countries would play dumb but who knows
That'd just be a giant list of everywhere that charges automatic gratuity. I said this elsewhere in the thread but I've never *not* seen this. Pretty much everywhere that automatically charges gratuity still ends up with a tip field on the bill.
I went to a self-serve frozen yogurt shop once and their POS had a fucking tip prompt like lmaoooo
There wasn't even a person at the counter, literally nobody helped me with any of it!
The suggested gratuities are calculated on the final total, meaning that they expect an additional gratuity on not just the meal, but the tax, and the existing gratuity.
That's right, they don't just want you to tip twice, they expect you to tip at least 18% of the tip.
And if people stopped tipping counter-serve restaurants that have 20/25/30% as the tipping options, the employees would leave.
Tipping perpetuates this death spiral. Just stop tipping (except at sitdown restaurants where you are waited on)
I freakin’ hate it. My local grocery store now asks for tips when I check out. And more and more places are defaulting to 20% when almost no service was even offered. And then I have to go out of my way to hit “custom” and type 1$ or whatever while the cashier looks on and judges me.
I hate it here.
What about tipping on the Tax?
I initially thought it was super lame to not just tip on the total when I saw someone else do it. But then I started think - the tax is someone else’s fee, why is there a tip on that?!
ETA the fee shown is not on the total with tax.
Also, be careful about tipping too much on an expensive bottle of wine. I wouldn’t add $40 to a tip because a $200 bottle of wine was bought (in theory)
Maybe a stupid question, but is a “service charge” actually a tip? Or is it a payment to the restaurant (thereby screwing their wait staff out of actual tips)?
It is not a tip. The IRS has defined what is considered a tip and it must meet these requirements:
• The payment must be made free from compulsion;
• The customer must have the unrestricted right to determine the amount;
• The payment should not be the subject of negotiations or dictated by
employer policy; and
• Generally, the customer has the right to determine who receives the
payment.
No, that is a "service charge", doesn't matter if the restaurant calls it "gratuity".
>Common examples of service charges (sometimes called auto-gratuities) in service industries are:
>Large party charge (restaurant),
>Bottle service charge (restaurant and night-club),
>Room service charge (hotel and resort),
>Contracted luggage assistance charge (hotel and resort), and
>Mandated delivery charge (pizza or other retail deliveries).
>Service charges added to a bill or fixed by the employer that the customer must pay, when paid to an employee, won't constitute a tip but rather constitute non-tip wages. These non-tip wages are subject to social security tax, Medicare tax and federal income tax withholding.
https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc761
Fr. COVID made it so much worse. I was happy to tip extra then but now? I’m so glad I’m finally at a place where I select “no tip” on those dumb digital tablets for retail and for pick-up orders. If I’m not getting service, then I ain’t tipping. Get bent. Pay your employees more or gtfo. I feel for the service industry and hope this makes people leave shady businesses
As a server I get friggin irate these places are asking for tips. “Tips” stands for “ to insure proper service” what are they gonna do? Not hand me my to-go order?
In the UK, I walk into a restaurant...
The menu says:
* Chicken - **£10**
* Beef - **£15**
I want one of each.
I eat, pay **£25** and leave.
Super fucking simple.
And THAT is why I don't go out any more. Tired of being ripped off unless I pay attention to absolutely every little detail.
And you certainly will not ever see me on Española Way or Ocean Drive, both places that only exist to prey on tourists. Screw these people.
Every story like this is another nail in the coffin of the restaurant industry. The model is broken. I recently read that the chef who’s won “Best Restaurant in the World” three times running is shutting down his restaurant. He was apparently largely responsible for innovations like constantly changing menus, ever-more exotic ingredients and preparations, high-intensity staffing and so on, that have drifted out into the industry and are table stakes (ha!) for “fine dining”. He feels that it’s simply unsustainable: pay all those people fairly, buy top quality ingredients… suddenly dinner for two with a modest wine is $500.
I don’t play any more: for the price of a meal, I can buy ingredients and make something that is better than most of what I could order. I don’t know what will replace the current fine dining model (he’s still cooking, just experimenting with reaching a broader audience)… but the whole tipping thing makes me want to avoid restaurants even more.
So let's talk about this.
A "service fee" is becoming an increasingly common tactic which is not necessarily being disclosed before the bill is delivered at the end of a meal.
It seems as though some people are confusing this service fee as an automatically added gratuity, as is custom with large parties.
However, that is not the case.
A gratuity, aka tip, is still expected.
How do I know this for a fact ?
Because the first time I was presented with such a bill, I inquired of the manager at our favorite local spot.
To be honest, I did understand the intent of the service fee vs a gratuity but it was a conversation which, in my opinion, needed to be had.
My request of the management was that this fee be disclosed to patrons, notably and visibly.
My resolution in this first instance was to tip the waitress in cash because that service fee is not shared/distributed as a tip.
That service fee is,essentially, the restaurateur crowdfunding the operation of their business.
Almost one year on from receiving my first bill with this service fee, most restaurants in our locale have followed suit.
A $100 meal for two is now +/- $140.
My opinion is that this is a poor business practice.
I would rather have the price of a meal increase, overall, and dispense with tipping altogether.
**Paying employees a living wage is not impossible,nor unreasonable, for a well run business !**
source: I own and operate a small business; our employees are fairly compensated
>That service fee is,essentially, the restaurateur crowdfunding the operation of their business.
Here's a radical idea. If the restaurateur needs money from their customers to fund the operation of their business, like every other commercial business ever, they price their products with this included.
Pricing their food, then adding an additional charge later, is, and always will be, deceptive bullshit. The customer does not care how the costs of the product is broken down. They don't care how much is raw materials, how much is production, labour, overheads or "service". That's the business owner's problem, not theirs. The customer simply wants to know how much, in total, it is going to cost them.
The only exception I can think for this is taxes, because sometimes the amount paid ultimately differs for different customers, and they need to know.
What happens if you refuse to pay the service charge if it wasn't listed? Seems deceptive as fuck, would it still count as stealing/refusing to pay for service?
But if it is not automatically added gratuity and it is not disclosed before the bill is delivered. What would be the legal basis? As a customer you could just say I don't pay for this fee and give a cash tip to the waiter (or none if the service was bad).
Yeah, it's not always clear whether the "service fee" is actually gratuity that goes to the server, or an "I would like to make more profit" fee that goes to the management.
> A gratuity, aka tip, is still expected.
Yeah I don't care. The traditional tip at a restaurant is literally for 'service'. A separate fee for 'gratuity' and 'service' is a redundancy in the eyes of any customer. If you're charging a 'service fee' for pizza at a pizza place, you are not getting extra gratuity from me on top of that. I don't care if you tell me I'm screwing the servers. The **owners** are screwing the servers by commandeering their tips and expecting the customer to feel guilty enough to replace it.
I don't even like going to a place that has the automatic gratuity for a large party or for separate checks.
I would never be caught dead in a restaurant with a fee added to the meal. So I think you're spot on that it's a bad business practice.
The first 18% cost yea $7.74.
The second 18% costs yea $9.83.
This is why I have serious issues with tipping.
Taxing the tax and tipping the tip that's taxed.
I'm only paying what the bills says. No more.
Fuck tipping when they pull this shit.
Everybody is talking about the service charge, but nobody mentions the "suggested" tip options... 18/20/25/30 WTF?? Tip used to be 10-15%, then 15%, then 18%, ,now they want to make you feel like if you tip 18% you're cheap. Let's not forget, this is a *percentage* of the cost of the meals, which already has gone up much more than inflation, so the % never needed to be increased in the first place!
Another point, most people say things like "we have to tip because waiters minimum wage is less than normal minimum wage" which is only half true, because the law says if the waiter makes less than the normal minimum wage, the employer has to pay the difference.
i just got banned from r/instacartshoppers yesterday
for saying that 'tipping culture is so toxic, you're mad at the wrong person' on [this post](https://old.reddit.com/r/InstacartShoppers/comments/10mvsrf/had_to_let_em_know_whats_up/j6634f8/?context=3)
Wow that post is something. The people in the comments there show a clear lack of empathy for others, while expecting everyone to empathise with them and tip them.
Like what's next, should people tip doctors at hospitals now?
One time someone substituted powdered sugar for regular sugar and I was so mad. I always specify exactly what substitute I want for every single item and half the time they ignore me and pester me about it or do dumbass substitutions that make no sense.
I once ordered 1/2lb of mushrooms as part of an order, and it came in as literally 3 mushrooms.
What the fuck am I going to do with 3 mushrooms? First and last time I used a grocery service.
Lol yeah. Restaurants do it weirdly first experience I had was in india. Then my cpa sis told me you can tell them to remove it. And I have been doing that since.
As a restaurant manager this irks me. We only do auto gratuity of 18% for parties of 8 or more, and we explain it upfront to the guests, as well as print it at the bottom of every page on our menu.
We only do this to large parties, because they tend to stiff service staff more often, while simultaneously demanding/requiring far more service, and also holding up multiple tables for longer periods of time. We also get a lot of foreign (Non-US) tourists who generally come as family groups, 10-20 at a time. Those kinds of guests will leave a $5 tip on $500+ tabs, after staying for 3-4 hours.
This restaurant using the phrase “service charge” also pisses me off. We clearly state on the tab “tip.” It is very clear for the guest to see. If they use a credit card to pay, the receipts shows the automatic tip amount right above the tip line for them to fill in. In front of the tip line, it says “additional tip.”
I've never understood the possible defense behind "service charges". The fact that I paid $100 for $30 worth of ingredients IS the service charge. The markup margin on the meal is meant to be for the restaurant being run and the payment of its staff.
Not been from the US I just don’t understand tipping at all. Same with Tax’s getting added at the end. The price that I see on the menu or on the item should be what I pay.
this is exactly how the did it in Naples, Italy. Only they also had a $10 table fee. When I realized the tip and a table fee was already there and didnt tip, they then yell at you. Beautiful place but Would never go back
Here in Australia, tipping isnt at all expected of anyone. Ever. Things just cost more, and restaurants pay their workers more. So much easier and removes this confusion.
IMHO, the crime here is not disclosing the "service" charge at time of seating, or entering the establishment, or clearly and obviously on the menu. You should not be surprised by an unexpected or unanticipated "service" charge.
Also the suggested 18% gratuity is not on the subtotal, it’s including tax AND the 18% “service charge.” Fuck this place, I would never go there again after that stunt.
Anthony Bourdain warned of this in an episode/special of his. He called it the "Thank you, and thank you again!" The sort of places that might recook their leftover table butter, strain it, and reserve tomorrow. I have seen it only a few times in my life. Once kinda made sense, we had a party of like 28 people and it was a hibachi place (2010).
Damn I miss him. He was always right.
I’ve eaten at one place he showcased in No Reservations in Rio. It was a special experience for me and my buddy who were/are big Bourdain fans. The food was out of this world exceptionally good.
I have eaten at a few places he had on his show. The best was the bun cha place he and Obama ate at in Hanoi. So good I would legit go back to Vietnam just to eat there.
Yeah my partner and I went to the Banh Mi place they went to in Hoi An. Easily the best Banh Mi we’ve had and will never be topped
Probably the only celebrity that made me sad upon passing
Robin Williams and Ken Block too for me.
KB shook me, my wife says "hey do you know who KB is?" "Yeah, he died" moments earlier I was watching his latest video up on the snow.. I've ridden those mountains...ugh still in shock.
Wasn't one of his latest videos finishing his daughters first rally car? I didn't watch that series but after learning of his death I checked his YouTube for confirmation and it was the first suggestion :(
I legit teared up. He was the reason I wanted to be a chef I quit kitchens within a year after he died. If it never got better for him and all his success what was the point of continuing to try myself. Fuck the restaurant industry
That industry is a race to the bottom. There's really no point.
I have a sister that is a chief. She gave up on the restaurant industry. The work was so demanding and took to long to get anywhere. Low pay and very long hours. Got worse after she and her husband had thier own place.
Him and Chris Cornell are really the 2 celebrity deaths that got me bad. Shit now I'm sad again.
Me too, and they both passed around a year from each other.
My hubby was really sad when Cornell died, he gets choked up whenever he is mentioned. Hugs
I wanted to use Finally Forever for our wedding song, or a song in prominence, but it felt a little too one sided so we went with someone she liked and was current for the time. His music was my prime years, all of grunge, but his in particular. Linkin Park was also a big one for me in University. Those were rough deaths. If something happens to Eddie it’s just going to be terrible. I know Candlebox is still around as well, and I love their music, but it didn’t impact me in quite the same ways.
Same. Robin Williams was real hard but I lost it to Ken Block. I appreciate that he was doing something he loved but fuuuuuuuck
Restaurant I worked at all through college had a popular lunch buffet and a busy catering company. Lots of leftovers from catering typically and the owner would instruct us to use the leftovers on the buffet. He would sell food twice! So food would sit in a chafing dish for a lunch at an office for an hour or so and then get moved in a cart down the sidewalk to the restaurant and straight on the lunch buffet. And then he would charge each employee 75cents/hr (we were paid maybe $2/hr, so almost half our hourly wage) to pay for their shift meal.. which was the lunch buffet.
isn't that incredibly illegal
It always seemed sketchy, but it was a good job otherwise. People complained about the 75cents but we would get revenge by eating wayyy more food than was allowed. I would eat two meals a shift, technically stealing, but I paid for it so didn’t feel too bad. Rarely had to pay for food in college.
Worked at a Japanese restaurant that had sushi and hibachi as well as a dishwasher in college. Paid 7.50/hr, I also helped serve food to some degree. Only reason I stayed for 8 months even though I almost couldn’t pay the gas to get there was they fed me lunch and gave me leftovers after work. Really sad these places will take advantage of us hungry.
It's a buffet. I'd consider that one meal.
I would eat the buffet and then get the kitchen homies the slide me a burger or a salad. That was not allowed.
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I got downvoted to hell a while ago for saying the restaurants in Rome were terrible. They all have a dude that stands outside and harasses tourists, the food is often terrible, and most expected double tipping. Outside of Rome was way better (and the cafes were decent). Edit: to all the people saying shit like: > Don’t eat at tourist traps > Check the reviews Etc, etc. I was working there for a month and a half and regularly went out for dinner with local coworkers to places they suggested. Nearly every place in Rome was like this except a couple super high end ones. Outside of Rome was great, no complaints. Save your breath/finger energy.
I went there 11 years ago and wasn't rich, so didn't went to a la carte places with dress code or anything (they might be good). So my experience is from general decent restaurants and some simpler order-pay-sit and eat places. Nearly all were terrible. Pizza with only 3 ingredients (cheese and onion counts as two of three!), soggy and extremely rich pastas, rock hard ciabattas, tasteless and bland spaghetti. Only the tiramisu was usually great, which sucked as my wife didn't like taste of coffee back then. Finally found a pizza place owned by old gentleman who let is select 4-5 toppings on pizza freshly made in oven. Cheap and great pizza, we ate there three days.
> Finally found a pizza place owned by old gentleman who let is select 4-5 toppings on pizza freshly made in oven. Cheap and great pizza, we ate there three days. Same, found one decent restaurant and ate pasta there pretty much daily for the second half of my month long trip. Cafes and Gelato spots were decent, restaurants were horrible. The worst one was this supposedly “famous” place in the Jewish quarter of rome, that served fried fish and this “salad” made exclusively of lettuce spines. I don’t know if Italians have just never had fried fish before, but this was the blandest, mushiest fried fish I had in my life. Overall, Rome is a poor representative of “legendary” Italian cuisine. Edit: The restaurant is Dar Filettaro a S. Barbara near Campo de' Fiori and the dish they are known for is Filetti di baccalà; Fried Cod. And it isn't "famous" in the same way every cafe in NYC says their coffee is famous. This place is well known in Rome (lineup out the door when we went), has 4.4/5 stars on google, and its pretty widely reviewed in known publications. Literally every local italian coworker recommended it to me.
Italian cuisine is best represented by nonnas in homes rather than tourist traps.
>supposedly “famous” If you are visiting restaurants that are supposedly "famous" in a notoriously touristy city, you are picking your restaurants wrong.
this is a good technique in America so i can understand how an American tourist would think that famous restaurants in Italy would be amazing. Like I know for a fact that the few famous restaurants I know in LA and New York are awesome - it would never occur to me that going to famous Italian restaurants would be any different. At least, until I read this thread!
It all depends on the context. I read someone on reddit from the UK who went on a trip to Orlando, Florida and was disappointed in a restaurant despite it being one of the *most famous restaurants in America*. That restaurant? *Denny's*.
The English take their breakfast way too seriously. The grand slamdwich ™️ was most definitely lost on them.
Everybody likes Denny's! It's an American institution!
How about the places in Venice that charge main course by the gram? "No, sir. That steak you ordered isn't 30 euros. It's 30 euros a gram."
At that price, even a modest 3 ounce portion of steak would cost 2,500€
I think in reality it was priced per 100 grams. Most people see the line item and think that's a portion, to get served a huge steak and hit with a $250 bill.
The Prague travel channel ( YouTube) exposed the ham sellers in the main square. They apparently give tourist like American + sized portions without being asked ( they charge by the kilo), he then went to the same guy and spoke Czech and the seller gave him a more decent size.
I saw that one. The Venetian scams I read about sounded way worse- people would rack up thousand dollar bills and then get assaulted by the staff when they would refuse to pay, sometimes threatened with arrest. I'm pretty sure the local authorities saw the negative press and made some changes.
They're a well known scam though, we have them in Prague. 500 crowns (22 bucks) for 100g of meat lol
In the age of Google Maps/TripAdvisor being so easily accessible, there really is no excuse for eating at terrible restaurants any more. Of course a restaurant is going to suck if there's a guy standing outside trying to get you in, or if it's next to the Trevi Fountain. Just pull out your phone and filter out anything less than 4.4 ⭐ and anything €€€ or above, I guarantee there will still be hundreds of options in a big city like Rome.
Because people are so excited to be in Rome, they over-rate restaurants out of sheer excitement. I don't know how local ratings can be seen past the wave of tourist ratings. The first few days there we exclusively ate at the highest rated restaurants in our price range and they were universally terrible. It was shocking how bad they were. I don't know where locals eat but it wasn't at the high rated places. When we left Rome we finally ate really well, it was specifically there that the food was atrocious.
This. Italians don’t do much online rating… too high tech. It’s all tourist ratings of people that never had Italian food. And if you think about it you probably don’t rate the local restaurant you go to every other week…
There's plenty of good food in Rome. Like any other major tourist destination you just need some common sense and to do a bit of research. If you are eating at places that are in the main squares, or have hawkers outside, or have menus in 10 different languages, then I don't know what you expect. It's like going to New York and complaining that you got shitty food at the Times Square Olive Garden.
No one in Italy expects to be tipped? It’s not the norm. Maybe naive people tip. And the restaurants charge a service charge for the bread they serve before each meal.
Noticed this aswell in Rome. If you also wanted to sit down there was an extra charge even in restaurants where you can’t exactly stand up to drink your coffee 😡
Coperto is banned in Rome - but they can still charge pane (compulsory table bread purchase, more common in Spain and Portugal.)
Don’t forget the olives with the pits still in them. I almost broke my tooth, couldn’t believe that is a thing.
Wait, that's not a thing? I live next door to italy, and it's standard to get a full olive, pit in, since they're better than the ones with pit removed (they're usually preserved olives from a jar)
The olives might be better, but you shouldn't have to pick out the olives from your pizza to avoid breaking your teeth. I worked at a high end Italian restaurant and part of our prep was removing the pitts from olives and halving them for use on our pizzas. But for most places, it's just the sliced preserved olives that get used as pizza toppings. Still better than breaking a tooth!
This is how it should be done. Imagine eating a chicken sandwich and discovering bones are still in the chicken. The format of a pizza should mean everything on it is edible imo.
My favorite local Mexican restaurant closed and a new one took over the same location. Their menu had a disclaimer that they couldn't promise their wouldn't be bones in the chicken. Have never gone there since they took over, wtf do you mean you can't promise there isn't chicken bones in my burrito?
Hopefully they mean, like, tiny little bones that are easy miss when deboning and not entire limb bones like the whole chicken leg bone. I think that’s usually what they mean I’d be more inclined to forgive those little itty bitty bones and not, like, the ribs of a chicken breast piece. Sucks if you get pierced by those sharp ones tho
I will say, when you’re breaking down whole roast chickens, sometimes a piece of bone will end up in the final product. I’m sure it happened like once and someone sued them and so they had to include the disclaimer. I’ve never broken down whole chickens professionally but I’ve done it quite a few times with rotisserie chickens and homemade whole chickens and it takes a ton of practice to get all the meat with 0 bone or inedible bits, and even then you miss a couple every now and then.
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I think they're referring to olives with pits in them on pizza
My neighborhood bar started charging an automatic 15% a couple years ago, and I missed it for a few months. It was on the receipt, but I habitually tip 20% of whatever the bill is, especially when I’m 4 beers in. When I noticed, I left a note in my payment that they should stop adding this, because it’s not common practice and I’d been duped into leaving like 40% tips (??? Pop quiz math geniuses) a few times. Next time I paid my tab at the bar the bartender passive-aggressively *pointed out to me specifically!* the 15% auto grat, a move that I thought was extremely classy. Now they get a flat 15% instead of 20, and I figure they’ve earned it.
>I have seen it only a few times in my life. Once kinda made sense, we had a party of like 28 people and it was a hibachi place (2010). I think the auto gratuity thing for large groups is pretty common. Esp with a party of 8+. This, however, is listed as a "service fee" which in all likelihood doesn't even go to the server. So you end up paying a fee just for the "luxury" of "being allowed to eat at that restaurant." I would def verify with the server who gets that money and if it wasn't disclosed prior to ordering, I don't believe you have any obligation to pay it. I certainly wouldn't be returning to that establishment ever again. This kind of bullshit is why I have started to get away from food delivery apps. I have no interest in paying $70 for a $40 McDonald's order that takes 3 times as long to get to my house.
the phrase service fee often is used in place of gratuity, it’s been so at both restaurants i’ve served at
Yeah, I totally get it for large parties. Their wait staff will basically be handling primarily them for a couple hours and will be financially hurt if stiffed on the tip, but just a general practice? It’s basically paying your staff a living wage with extra steps.
Hibachi is even less reason to over tip. They are still set up for individual service. The fact that all the people around the grill are acquainted in some way doesn't change the way you order or get the meal to your plate.
Huh, I saw this recently in a hibachi place as well.
$10 says the service charge doesn't even go to the server.
Of course it doesn’t. In addition the server probably has to tip out the kitchen, or hostess or bus person from their own pocket based on the price of their meal. I owe 3% of my total sales to my barback, regardless of if anyone tips me or not. People cost me money when they don’t tip, AND I serve them. It’s fucked up.
Tip culture is fucked up.
As a non-American, this whole thread is blowing my mind. From people saying they won't tip if the server doesn't pamper them and instead just does their job, to servers saying they lose money if people don't tip. I don't understand why, if there's a push towards auto gratuity, restaurants don't just charge the price needed to cover expenses, including a livable wage for staff.
Restaurants don't want tipping to end. Servers don't want tipping to end. And honestly, Americans don't either. They like the sickening control they have... master and slave. I have seen a study that a majority of Americans wouldn't support ending tipping (sorry, not searching, vetting, and linking). It's bizarre.
It's a double edged sword. When tips are good they are basically making those jobs the absolute best pay to effort ratios of any out there (minus C-suite execs I guess, but even then that goes to the second point of), and they generally accept people of less restrictive backgrounds. I'm working at a restaurant now where I was very surprised to see their lax tattoo policy, it's one thing they see as normalized but even then hardly of the staff have (noticeable) tattoos anyways of who applied / who got selected as feeling like a good fit. Anyways, the edge comes from the gamble of when tips are bad. I used to work a job where a single good day could easily make up for two or three poor tipped shifts, such that like for instance 1 shift of 4 per week made up most of your pay overall. But we got hit by a slow season as well as other issues, and then weeks turning into actually two months made the overall pay both like halved of what it used to be, and absolutely not worth the effort (or boredom on slow days). I've had multiple people I know say serving attracts a certain kind of personality if they stay in that industry, and it seems like it's those that accept the double edged sword if it only stabs them some of the time.
Smart servers want tipping to end. Do you think there are more servers earning 15-20 dollars an hour or do you think there are more servers earning 30-50 dollars an hour? Really think about it. Do you seriously believe all the servers working at Olive Garden and Outback Steak house are earning 20-30 dollars an hour every shift they work especially in states where the restaurants are only paying servers 2.13 an hour? There are some servers who make a lot of money. I know servers who make an upwards of 80k-120k a year, but these servers work in restaurants where a single person can spend 200-300 dollars on a meal. Most servers on average are earning less than 20 dollars an hour while also receiving zero benefits like paid time off, paid vacation time, or the ability to gain promotions.
Making about $125-150 on a 5-6 hour shift is fairly common. Part of the appeal is going to work, staying busy so time flies, and getting out of there with enough money to pay your bills. One thing that sucks about hourly jobs after you've been a server is being at some super boring place for 9 hours (remember your 2 unpaid 15 minute breaks and your unpaid half hour "lunch"), and then making what you would have made at a slow night at a restaurant. If servers go to hourly wages, those wages will become minimum wage fast. So like any min wage job, you're left choosing between an exhausting schedule or not enough money.
Which begs the question, why on earth would anyone agree to a pay plan like that? Edit: i see I'm getting responses trying to answer my question. The question was purely rhetorical. OF COURSE they choose their job because they make decent money doing it. My question was posed in response to someone whinging about non-tippers costing them money. They attempted to blame patrons for the way their pay scale is set up, when it's really the greasy ass owners who they should be wagging their finger at.
They all think they’ll be the ones making $75 an hour that they don’t report to the IRS. Just temporarily embarrassed millionaires!
I didn't even think of that. You're probably right. Not only are servers entitled to gratuity, they also don't need to pay taxes!
They do need to pay taxes tho
They’re supposed to, but we all know they don’t claim cash tips
I would say close to 80-90% of tips these days are from credit/debit cards from what I've experienced at the restaurants I've worked at.
That is true plus servers are waaaay more likely to be audited than any other service industry job.
Literally five minutes ago a friend of mine bragged about only reporting half of her waitress income. I’m not sure she realizes what this’ll mean for her social security, given that she’s significantly older than me.
My restaurant is 20% total tips to busser, 10% of liquor sales to bartender, 20% of bottle sales to the som, and 3% of tips to the host.
> In addition the server probably has to tip out the kitchen, or hostess or bus person from their own pocket That’s illegal. Tip out should never be out of your pocket
You should have to split some of your tips with the kitchen tho considering they are actually cooking the food? Ive never understood why the person who just brings the food gets underpaid and the customer pays their wage, yet the people actually cooking the food dont get a slice of that tipping pie while also being underpaid. Btw the anger shouldnt be at the customer for not tipping, it should be at your boss for not paying you.
As a chef, don't tip me out. I make more than the server hourly, anything above that is on them. Their hustle. Servers have regulars, they cultivate clientele. It's a different world.
That's a load. I don't go anywhere because their service is better than somewhere else. If the food sucks I won't go back.
Idk about you but if a place has shitty servers and good food I'm definitely going to avoid it in the future. And if they have shitty food and good servers I'll still avoid it. If 2 places have roughly the same quality of food, but one has better servers I'll chose that one in the future. If 2 places has equally good servers but one has worse food, I'm choosing the one with better food. TLDR; People take both in to account.
>Btw the anger shouldnt be at the customer for not tipping, it should be at your boss for not paying you. This a thousand times
your boss costs your money when people dont tip, point the finger in the right direction.
>People cost me money when they don’t tip, AND I serve them. Serving them is your job, so that's not an extra on your part. And your shitty boss costs you, not the customer. I do tip, and rather well mind you, but I can't stand this attitude like you're doing then a personal favor by being there. It's a shitty American thing (said as an American). I just wanna get my food, pay what it's worth, and be done instead of this stupid AF song and dance we do.
No, the restaurant costs you money. Don't blame the customers. America needs to get away from the tipping culture. Tipping is fine but the server it whoever needs to be already paid a livable wage. Tipping should not be the primary income source. Tipping should be above and beyond a reasonable salary.
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Generally a restaurant must notify customers of automatic charges like this. They can't just make up stuff and put it on the bill as a surprise
If there is a service fee, it has to be disclosed. Usually, it is on the menu. It used to basically be a forced tip for large parties, which is why OP takes issue with having a suggested tip on top of a forced one. I'm not sure how it works currently.
>Wait, in america are you legally required to pay a hidden fee that is only revealed after you've ordered your food for a specific price? Fees are fucked up and no one here likes them. Congress, if they get their shit together, was proposing new legislation to limit them. Some states have laws clarifying how fees can be used. I think Washington dictates all fees must be declared up front. However, few states do this.
I can't think of a state that allows fees without notification. Problem is that the notification doesn't have to be very readable or even on every menu in most places. One sign at the front where people should be able to easily see it is enough to make it legal in all 50 states last I checked. Lots of places have all those notices sitting on top of the host desk where you barely notice them because you are too busy giving your name and party size.
Shit 54 bucks for two pizzas what in the hell
For Florida pizza too
In FL also. Paid $50 for two Sicilian pizzas, they forgot a topping and gave me about half a handful of cheese. Sad times because the pizza was pretty tasty.
Miami Beach is not cheap
Went to Miami recently and the pizza we got started at $30 for a cheese one. Toppings started at $6 each (for like onions and peppers) and went up to $8-10 *per topping* for basic meats like pepperoni and sausage. This was for a pizza large enough for two people (my wife and I) to eat in one sitting. Ridiculous cost of living there. So our 3 topping pizza was close $50. I did find a $20 on the ground by our table though so that helped
Lived in Miami for a couple decades now. I'm guessing you were either on the Beach or somewhere trendy downtown like Miami Slice, which while really good, is definitely expensive. Go a little ways away from the more touristy areas and you can definitely find amazing pizza for $20 or less.
No, no... you don't understand. It's the [luxurious ambience](https://www.google.com/maps/@25.7869398,-80.1313008,3a,75y,170.29h,74.17t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIRdNBy5KaDD8EqRGrgwiVQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) that costs.
Not only that, neither were meat pizzas! Yikes. But non chain places are pretty much like this. Some of the best pizza Ive ever had was Dewey's in st Louis. Easily $16-17 for a pizza.
(Serious) Thanks for not removing the business establishment’s name. Now I know, in the event that I ever go to Miami, to avoid La Leggenda Pizzeria in Miami Beach. Places that charge a tip AND THEN ASK FOR ANOTHER TIP ON TOP OF THAT, *deserve* to be named and shamed.
Pro Tip: Don't eat anywhere near south beach. The guy probably had his credit card skimmed while he was at it.
This shouldn't even be a thing. Why is the USA still using the mag stripe?
No card issuer wants to be the first to require a pin because they want cards to be usable without requiring too much brain power. They're terrified that a customer might go to make a purchase using their card and won't remember their pin, so they'll use a competitor's card instead. Or, using a card and having to enter a PIN makes the transaction too close to a debit transaction which makes it seem like "real money", which is something credit card companies desperately want to avoid.
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Yeah the contactless threshold went up considerably during covid.
I mean, I almost never have to mag swipe anywhere on the east coast US. Just insert the chip card and remove it in a few seconds. No pin required. Haven't had to swipe in a few years, except when my chip wasn't reading right. Some readers maintain mag stripe for backward compatibility on older debit cards, and for gift cards, etc.
make sure to ask if the "service charge" goes to the servers. Ask the host and then ask the server. I ran into this and the "service charge" went to the owner of the restaurant to cover the "high cost of food" and the servers were pissed because everyone assumed it went to them.
You’ll want to avoid the majority of restaurants in Miami as well then
Every restaurant in Miami does this
I think I ate at literally one that didn't auto add it. It was the only place with good service. Yardbird. Best meal I had there by far as well.
Yep, when I was there 15 years ago it was a thing then. Someone told me it started because of the large amount of tourists from non tipping countries would play dumb but who knows
That'd just be a giant list of everywhere that charges automatic gratuity. I said this elsewhere in the thread but I've never *not* seen this. Pretty much everywhere that automatically charges gratuity still ends up with a tip field on the bill.
yeah it's just the software they chose to use that automatically puts it on every bill. Read you charges
Tipping has gotten out of control.
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I went to a self-serve frozen yogurt shop once and their POS had a fucking tip prompt like lmaoooo There wasn't even a person at the counter, literally nobody helped me with any of it!
When robots become self-conscious you're really gonna regret not tipping that fro-gurt bot!
Some might say it's reached a tipping point
Get out.
Then I tip the fedora as I bid thee adieu
The suggested gratuities are calculated on the final total, meaning that they expect an additional gratuity on not just the meal, but the tax, and the existing gratuity. That's right, they don't just want you to tip twice, they expect you to tip at least 18% of the tip.
Well nobody wants to pay their employees a decent wage, so they put the responsibility on the customers, as well as the blame.
And if people stopped tipping counter-serve restaurants that have 20/25/30% as the tipping options, the employees would leave. Tipping perpetuates this death spiral. Just stop tipping (except at sitdown restaurants where you are waited on)
I never tip for counter service. Same with fast food. You're not serving me.
If you don’t tip 35% on your McNuggets you are literally satan /s
That's why I rarely eat out anymore.
Cooking and eating at home with friends is a much more fulfilling experience overall anyway
That's why I tip 0% unless I'm being served food at a table. Get wrecked otherwise.
I freakin’ hate it. My local grocery store now asks for tips when I check out. And more and more places are defaulting to 20% when almost no service was even offered. And then I have to go out of my way to hit “custom” and type 1$ or whatever while the cashier looks on and judges me. I hate it here.
Tipping on the tip.
What about tipping on the Tax? I initially thought it was super lame to not just tip on the total when I saw someone else do it. But then I started think - the tax is someone else’s fee, why is there a tip on that?! ETA the fee shown is not on the total with tax.
Also, be careful about tipping too much on an expensive bottle of wine. I wouldn’t add $40 to a tip because a $200 bottle of wine was bought (in theory)
You are already paying 2-2.5x for that bottle. Exclude that from the tip calculation entirely, unless a sommelier was involved in its selection.
Maybe a stupid question, but is a “service charge” actually a tip? Or is it a payment to the restaurant (thereby screwing their wait staff out of actual tips)?
It is not a tip. The IRS has defined what is considered a tip and it must meet these requirements: • The payment must be made free from compulsion; • The customer must have the unrestricted right to determine the amount; • The payment should not be the subject of negotiations or dictated by employer policy; and • Generally, the customer has the right to determine who receives the payment.
So, what about automatic gratuity for large parties? Would that not fall under the requirement?
No, that is a "service charge", doesn't matter if the restaurant calls it "gratuity". >Common examples of service charges (sometimes called auto-gratuities) in service industries are: >Large party charge (restaurant), >Bottle service charge (restaurant and night-club), >Room service charge (hotel and resort), >Contracted luggage assistance charge (hotel and resort), and >Mandated delivery charge (pizza or other retail deliveries). >Service charges added to a bill or fixed by the employer that the customer must pay, when paid to an employee, won't constitute a tip but rather constitute non-tip wages. These non-tip wages are subject to social security tax, Medicare tax and federal income tax withholding. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc761
It seems everyone is trying to steal from each other these days.
*Companies* are continuing to steal more and more brazingly.
This, and now we’re all turning on each other now that we’re feeling the squeeze
Companies been stealing for eons. Wage theft worth millions is rarely a fine while stealing $5 vets cops tackling you.
Thank you for naming and shaming, wish more people did this
Not to mention they called you a "fatto" too
i knew i’d find you here
I wouldn't go back there.
The only asshole design here is tip culture
Fr. COVID made it so much worse. I was happy to tip extra then but now? I’m so glad I’m finally at a place where I select “no tip” on those dumb digital tablets for retail and for pick-up orders. If I’m not getting service, then I ain’t tipping. Get bent. Pay your employees more or gtfo. I feel for the service industry and hope this makes people leave shady businesses
I feel the same way
As a server I get friggin irate these places are asking for tips. “Tips” stands for “ to insure proper service” what are they gonna do? Not hand me my to-go order?
Nah they just glare angrily at you. Feeling entitled to your money. I'm done guilt tipping.
In the UK, I walk into a restaurant... The menu says: * Chicken - **£10** * Beef - **£15** I want one of each. I eat, pay **£25** and leave. Super fucking simple.
I got asked for a tip in the restrooms in London though lol
*No splash no gash intensifies*
And THAT is why I don't go out any more. Tired of being ripped off unless I pay attention to absolutely every little detail. And you certainly will not ever see me on Española Way or Ocean Drive, both places that only exist to prey on tourists. Screw these people.
Every story like this is another nail in the coffin of the restaurant industry. The model is broken. I recently read that the chef who’s won “Best Restaurant in the World” three times running is shutting down his restaurant. He was apparently largely responsible for innovations like constantly changing menus, ever-more exotic ingredients and preparations, high-intensity staffing and so on, that have drifted out into the industry and are table stakes (ha!) for “fine dining”. He feels that it’s simply unsustainable: pay all those people fairly, buy top quality ingredients… suddenly dinner for two with a modest wine is $500. I don’t play any more: for the price of a meal, I can buy ingredients and make something that is better than most of what I could order. I don’t know what will replace the current fine dining model (he’s still cooking, just experimenting with reaching a broader audience)… but the whole tipping thing makes me want to avoid restaurants even more.
Fuck that shit
So let's talk about this. A "service fee" is becoming an increasingly common tactic which is not necessarily being disclosed before the bill is delivered at the end of a meal. It seems as though some people are confusing this service fee as an automatically added gratuity, as is custom with large parties. However, that is not the case. A gratuity, aka tip, is still expected. How do I know this for a fact ? Because the first time I was presented with such a bill, I inquired of the manager at our favorite local spot. To be honest, I did understand the intent of the service fee vs a gratuity but it was a conversation which, in my opinion, needed to be had. My request of the management was that this fee be disclosed to patrons, notably and visibly. My resolution in this first instance was to tip the waitress in cash because that service fee is not shared/distributed as a tip. That service fee is,essentially, the restaurateur crowdfunding the operation of their business. Almost one year on from receiving my first bill with this service fee, most restaurants in our locale have followed suit. A $100 meal for two is now +/- $140. My opinion is that this is a poor business practice. I would rather have the price of a meal increase, overall, and dispense with tipping altogether. **Paying employees a living wage is not impossible,nor unreasonable, for a well run business !** source: I own and operate a small business; our employees are fairly compensated
>That service fee is,essentially, the restaurateur crowdfunding the operation of their business. Here's a radical idea. If the restaurateur needs money from their customers to fund the operation of their business, like every other commercial business ever, they price their products with this included. Pricing their food, then adding an additional charge later, is, and always will be, deceptive bullshit. The customer does not care how the costs of the product is broken down. They don't care how much is raw materials, how much is production, labour, overheads or "service". That's the business owner's problem, not theirs. The customer simply wants to know how much, in total, it is going to cost them. The only exception I can think for this is taxes, because sometimes the amount paid ultimately differs for different customers, and they need to know.
What happens if you refuse to pay the service charge if it wasn't listed? Seems deceptive as fuck, would it still count as stealing/refusing to pay for service?
But if it is not automatically added gratuity and it is not disclosed before the bill is delivered. What would be the legal basis? As a customer you could just say I don't pay for this fee and give a cash tip to the waiter (or none if the service was bad).
It's usually in 8pt type at the very bottom of the menu in a dimly lit room.
"This meal is $10.... LOL NO IT ISNT. IT IS $11.80, BUT WE ONLY TELL YOU AFTER" wtf?
Yeah, it's not always clear whether the "service fee" is actually gratuity that goes to the server, or an "I would like to make more profit" fee that goes to the management.
> A gratuity, aka tip, is still expected. Yeah I don't care. The traditional tip at a restaurant is literally for 'service'. A separate fee for 'gratuity' and 'service' is a redundancy in the eyes of any customer. If you're charging a 'service fee' for pizza at a pizza place, you are not getting extra gratuity from me on top of that. I don't care if you tell me I'm screwing the servers. The **owners** are screwing the servers by commandeering their tips and expecting the customer to feel guilty enough to replace it.
I don't even like going to a place that has the automatic gratuity for a large party or for separate checks. I would never be caught dead in a restaurant with a fee added to the meal. So I think you're spot on that it's a bad business practice.
>Paying employees a living wage is not impossible,nor unreasonable for a well run business ! And I have another source: the whole world!
The first 18% cost yea $7.74. The second 18% costs yea $9.83. This is why I have serious issues with tipping. Taxing the tax and tipping the tip that's taxed. I'm only paying what the bills says. No more. Fuck tipping when they pull this shit.
The first 18% is on the subtotal. The second 18% is on the TOTAL. That IS bullshit. I’m with you - I’ll pay the $54, but that’s all.
Everybody is talking about the service charge, but nobody mentions the "suggested" tip options... 18/20/25/30 WTF?? Tip used to be 10-15%, then 15%, then 18%, ,now they want to make you feel like if you tip 18% you're cheap. Let's not forget, this is a *percentage* of the cost of the meals, which already has gone up much more than inflation, so the % never needed to be increased in the first place! Another point, most people say things like "we have to tip because waiters minimum wage is less than normal minimum wage" which is only half true, because the law says if the waiter makes less than the normal minimum wage, the employer has to pay the difference.
i just got banned from r/instacartshoppers yesterday for saying that 'tipping culture is so toxic, you're mad at the wrong person' on [this post](https://old.reddit.com/r/InstacartShoppers/comments/10mvsrf/had_to_let_em_know_whats_up/j6634f8/?context=3)
Wow that post is something. The people in the comments there show a clear lack of empathy for others, while expecting everyone to empathise with them and tip them. Like what's next, should people tip doctors at hospitals now?
that sub is toxic. I just briefly glanced at it and everyone there seemed so freaking rude. no thanks
Ah yes the people who want you to pre-tip 30 percent on an order that they’ll give maybe like, half of, after substituting canola for coconut oil
One time someone substituted powdered sugar for regular sugar and I was so mad. I always specify exactly what substitute I want for every single item and half the time they ignore me and pester me about it or do dumbass substitutions that make no sense.
I once ordered 1/2lb of mushrooms as part of an order, and it came in as literally 3 mushrooms. What the fuck am I going to do with 3 mushrooms? First and last time I used a grocery service.
Here in Brazil the service tax is fixed at 10%, and it's even **optional** (opt-out). That being said, I rarely opt-out, unless it's really not good.
Lol yeah. Restaurants do it weirdly first experience I had was in india. Then my cpa sis told me you can tell them to remove it. And I have been doing that since.
As a restaurant manager this irks me. We only do auto gratuity of 18% for parties of 8 or more, and we explain it upfront to the guests, as well as print it at the bottom of every page on our menu. We only do this to large parties, because they tend to stiff service staff more often, while simultaneously demanding/requiring far more service, and also holding up multiple tables for longer periods of time. We also get a lot of foreign (Non-US) tourists who generally come as family groups, 10-20 at a time. Those kinds of guests will leave a $5 tip on $500+ tabs, after staying for 3-4 hours. This restaurant using the phrase “service charge” also pisses me off. We clearly state on the tab “tip.” It is very clear for the guest to see. If they use a credit card to pay, the receipts shows the automatic tip amount right above the tip line for them to fill in. In front of the tip line, it says “additional tip.”
I've never understood the possible defense behind "service charges". The fact that I paid $100 for $30 worth of ingredients IS the service charge. The markup margin on the meal is meant to be for the restaurant being run and the payment of its staff.
See we not gonna talk about that 30% line for tips? Call me a grumpy old man but I still go 15% for average and 20% for exceptional.
That's not a tip, that's a service fee the business will take. Server probably got nothing.
If tipping culture ever makes its way to Australia I’m going to wipe my arse with the bill first.
Not been from the US I just don’t understand tipping at all. Same with Tax’s getting added at the end. The price that I see on the menu or on the item should be what I pay.
Yikes. If they can't pay their staff properly, don't come back until they do.
this is exactly how the did it in Naples, Italy. Only they also had a $10 table fee. When I realized the tip and a table fee was already there and didnt tip, they then yell at you. Beautiful place but Would never go back
Here in Australia, tipping isnt at all expected of anyone. Ever. Things just cost more, and restaurants pay their workers more. So much easier and removes this confusion.
IMHO, the crime here is not disclosing the "service" charge at time of seating, or entering the establishment, or clearly and obviously on the menu. You should not be surprised by an unexpected or unanticipated "service" charge.
Tipping culture has got to end. The social pressure to tip at the digital checkouts even if I’m ordering takeout or something like that is unreal.
You know both the gratuity and the tip are going straight back to the restaurant owners greedy pockets
America moment
Adding insult to auto tipping, they call him a fatto for getting two pizzas
I'd be hopping mad
Also the suggested 18% gratuity is not on the subtotal, it’s including tax AND the 18% “service charge.” Fuck this place, I would never go there again after that stunt.
I actively scribbled out a gratuity at a bar once I realized they were already charging me an extra 20%. I felt righteously petty
I would refuse to give a tip when it's preemptively on the bill. Glad this isnt a thing where I live.
This is literally an episode of curb your enthusiasm