Reply to Restaurant Service Charge

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Reply to "Restaurant Service Charge"

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[quote=Anonymous]The service charge is a tip. Service charges can also be for providing requested services for a birthday dinner, private party, or corkage fee for wine. A restaurant should have a stated policy on the receipt when it applies an automatic tip. For example, for any parties over 6, an automatic tip of 20% will be applied or "an automatic tip of 20% will be applied to all diners". The total, with service charge, needs to be presented as the bill (not after the charge).

The server may have neglected to add the automatic tip, but he should have communicated the late addition before returning the card. Hard to know without knowing the restaurant's policy on automatic tips. It should be on their website or printed on their menus/receipt.

The receipt is a template from software the restaurant has limited ability to customize. Automatic tips can't be called a "tip" because the restaurant is billing you. The server should let you know when the bill is provided that the tip has already been applied b/c of "stated policy". But not all servers share this information. Sometimes, diners are deep in conversation and won't hear what is said. In other cases,  a server hopes you won't notice.

If you added a tip on top of the 20%, you should communicate with the restaurant. They should refund you.[/quote]

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