I still don't understand what you do when a restaurant tacks on a 20% service fee

[Anonymous]

Who is still tacking on 20%? I was at a place yesterday that added 3%. But 20%? Really?

[Anonymous]

I don’t tip unless they explicitly say it doesn’t go to the server. Then I’ll tip because I don’t want to screw over the server, but I’m not going back there.

[Anonymous]

I could understand a small service charge during covid plus a normal tip. now that covid is not an issue, I assume that a service charge added by the restaurant automaticity goes to the servers, especially if its in the 18-20% range.

Restaurants have the ability to turn off the "request for tip" on most of the credit card applications. they are either just too lazy to do so or they are hoping to getting more money for the servers.

while not likely I hope Restaurant managers and owners read this... You can do one or the other, but when you do both, it comes off looking greedy and slimy, like a car salesman or an ambulance chasing lawyer....

Don't charge tax on a service charge.

Just bump your prices 20% across the board reprint your menus and ditch the tip line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who is still tacking on 20%? I was at a place yesterday that added 3%. But 20%? Really?

They shouldn’t even be adding 3%.


I am avoiding gong to restaurants that still charge “COVID recovery fees”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are supposed to leave 0% tip, right?

Restaurants in DC are adding these ridiculous fees. According to the law, they have to use it to pay staff, so if staff are now getting more money, why would you leave a tip? I keep hearing about people being expected to tip 40+% now on top of bill after they pay 20% more for tip on top of the service charge. That's insane and I'll never pay that. So what exactly are you supposed to do? It's awkward when the waiter is there with an electronic device to process your card payment and you add 0% because there's a service fee. Tipping culture in the US is infuriating, and they're treating customers like cash cows.

It isn't the restaurants that caused this mess, it is voters. 98% of voters never worked as a server, and certainly never managed a restaurant or coffee place or bar. Why they felt they had a right to mess with a perfectly functioning pay scheme of tipped service in the US is a mystery to me.
When I worked as a server my base pay, in todays dollars was $5/hour, but in tips, because I was good at my job, I made about $30/hour. No wait staff makes less than minimum wage in the US, but with this system almost all wait staff will be making no more than minimum wage.

I had a motive to do my job well and efficiency and at the endo of this proposition 82, no waiter or service staff will have any motive to be polite, attentive and to do their job well.

As far as tipping culture in the US, it is WAY better than Europe. You have no idea how many people don't have basic manners and are lazy that take a job as wait staff. They can destroy a restaurant's reputation. They get sorted out in the restaurant business because they don't make as much money. Either they learn to be good at their job or they just make minimum wage or slightly more and quit. As far as Europe, I lived in Europe half my life and Europeans are used to bad service in restaurants. Americans rate service as the number one aspect of eating at a restaurant. The food can be excellent and if service is bad Americans do not come back. Just wait to US restaurants have bad service like restaurants in Italy, France, Spain or Germany.

No idea where you got this from but I used to be a server and I voted in favor of the the initiative. I had an awful time actually trying to get my employer to pay the difference between the hourly and the minimum wage when I didn't make minimum wage. One week I think I worked four shifts and two of them were training so I got zero tips (even though I was "shadowing" a super lazy server who did almost zero work and kept the tips). He tried to average it out over the entire week and then argued that he could pay me less because I was a student (?). This was not how the law worked in the state I was in but I accepted it because I didn't know any better and frankly I needed the job.

The second bolded is absurd- you can and should be fired if you aren't polite to customers. And we all know that a server's politeness or competency is not 100% correlate with the tips they get. I absolutely will tip 20% even if a server isn't on her game the entire night and will not tip more unless there are fantastic circumstances.

Some of the quotes in that DCist article are insane- the MiVida owner is basically admitting that he can't run a restaurant unless he pays his servers a few bucks a hours and then expects his customers to make up the rest. He is basically admitting that tips are being put into his pocket in the form of a reduced wage. What is interesting is the Door Dash got into trouble for this a few years ago- they gave drivers a guaranteed hourly wage but then the tips were used to offset that- so if I tipped a driver $10 and the wage he was getting was $8 then he only saw $2 of that. The other $8- right to DoorDash.