If the restaurant is charging a 15% recovery fee, are you still tipping?

[Anonymous]

I just encountered this. I tipped because our server was wonderful and I felt bad stiffing her.

$70 meal quickly became an almost $100 meal.

Recovery fees don't go to the waiters, do the?

[Anonymous]

What is a recovery fee?

[Anonymous]

I complained about this a couple of months ago. Clyde’s charged a restaurant recovery fee, on top of their higher prices and reduced portions. I still tipped, but I won’t be going back.

15% is very high, and I would not be surprised if people are not paying a tip on top of this.

[Anonymous]

Such fees strike me as deceptive if not disclosed clearly up front before ordering, and as adding needless complexity to pricing even if disclosed. Why not just set prices to their actual level instead of breaking them up and assigning them different labels to arrive at the end result? If it's not a service fee/tip, that too should be clear as otherwise it's reasonable to expect that some patrons will interpret it as such while others won't. I wouldn't patronize a business which is coy and less than fully transparent like this.

[Anonymous]

Such fees strike me as deceptive if not disclosed clearly up front before ordering, and as adding needless complexity to pricing even if disclosed. Why not just set prices to their actual level instead of breaking them up and assigning them different labels to arrive at the end result? If it's not a service fee/tip, that too should be clear as otherwise it's reasonable to expect that some patrons will interpret it as such while others won't. I wouldn't patronize a business which is coy and less than fully transparent like this.

[Anonymous]

If this was sprung on me I would tip that one time but I would never go back.

[Anonymous]

The problem is everyone is doing this. Are we never going back to every restaurant?

[Anonymous]

Unrelated to tipping, but interesting still...I had to google recovery fee as I had no idea what it was. I found this:

https://oag.dc.gov/release/consumer-alert-dc-restaurants-are-barred-charging

[Anonymous]

Don't just pay quietly! Question it. Ask where it goes.

[Anonymous]

Given that’s it’s May 2023, the tip is reduced by the recovery fee amount. So if that means the waitstaff get 5% so be it. They can take it up with the owner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is everyone is doing this. Are we never going back to every restaurant?

Everyone is not doing this and I’m not going back to restaurants that do.

[Anonymous]

Is there an explanation on the bill or on the menu of where the fee goes?

[Anonymous]

I'm paying for my meal +25-25% depending on service. If there is a recovery fee, it's coming out of the tip

[Anonymous]

https://oag.dc.gov/release/consumer-alert-dc-restaurants-are-barred-charging

Restaurants may violate the District’s consumer laws if they:

Bury fee information in fine print on a menu.
Fail to disclose the amount or percentage of a fee until the bill is given to the diner at the end of a meal.
Use fees collected from diners for purposes contrary to the purposes disclosed.
Use ambiguous or misleading language that fails to fully convey to a diner how a fee will be used (for example, charging an ambiguous “restaurant recovery” fee without explaining what the fee will assist in recovering).

https://wtop.com/dc/2023/03/deceptive-fee-tacked-onto-your-restaurant-bill-dc-attorney-general-issues-consumer-alert/

[Anonymous]

What are they still recovering from?