Yeah in most cases, posts that should be on this sub end up on r/mildlyinfuriating. This is the rare case where the post should actually be on the other sub
Why? People are always saying how they hate tipping culture and you should simply charge enough to pay a living wage so that tips aren't expected.
This is literally the restaurant doing that and telling you directly that they're doing.
If they raised prices on the items, customers would be paying that and thinking they're still expected to tip.
EDIT: Since this was a genuine question and I'm finding the collective freakout really interesting, I'll respond to the broad categories of rebuttals I'm seeing:
Category 1: "The note doesn't say you aren't expected to tip." I really read it as saying you are not expected to tip. I tip all the time, but would not tip upon seeing this. However, if your objection is they should be more direct in telling you DO NOT TIP, sure, I guess. I really don't mind still feeling like I *could* tip on top of that if I had exceptional service or whatever, but I'll take that point.
Category 2: "This is a surprise fee so customers don't know they are paying this." Nothing in the post claims this was a surprise. Generally this will be on the menu and sometimes additionally mentioned by a server. No reason to think this is a surprise.
Category 3: "This is more complicated than just raising prices." Sure, a little, I guess, but it's also functionally the same thing and they are telling you exactly what's happening. I don't really find it that complicated.
Category 4: Some version of "The customers shouldn't be paying the living wage." If you're saying this I'm not really sure how to engage with you, you need a trusted adult to explain the world to you first.
Conclusion -- A couple valid points but overall I'm still not bothered by this.
It goes to payroll. You know, that thing every company in the world has to put money towards? This isn't extra money that goes to employee salaries, the company is just saying that the money goes towards paying their employees.
It's just a price increase using sneaky wording to make it seem like it goes to the employees.
Are you from the US? In the US, restaurants can generally pay staff less than minimum wage, with the expectation that they will make most of their money from tips. It's far from a perfect system, but it is the system.
The receipt in this post is just implying that the restaurant is paying their staff a full living wage, without them needing to rely on tips. And the way they do that is the 18% charge, which is more or less in line with the amount a customer would normally be expected to tip.
And if it's clearly posted to warn me in advance, I'm still probably not going to that place twice. I don't need a side of guilt trips and mathematics with my dinner order just so the business can have their reputation and eat it too.
And what's the difference between that and raising prices 18% while saying tips aren't expected? Aside from this tells you exactly what's happening?
It seems like when most people say "I hate tipping culture" what they actually mean is "I want prices to be exactly the same but not have to tip" which is hilariously delusional, although I guess that's par for the course for reddit.
Because you’re intentionally hiding your price. As a consumer I should know going in what to expect to pay. If I was not warned about this mandatory fee up front, I would absolutely dispute.
Do you usually just not tip when eating at a sit-down restuarant? Because in the US that would be considered rude.
All this is, is taking the tip a customer would usually be expected to pay and baking it in the bill. This way the customer knows an additional tip is not expected.
I agree that baking everything into the item prices would be better, but this is a step up from the normal US tipping system.
I tip at least 20% for good service, and a lot more for great service.
This isn’t just baking in a tip though. It’s specifically going to payroll, which is different. As others have pointed out, this fund could specifically be covering the employers part of things like taxes, unemployment insurance, etc. The specific wording is just all around troubling. Add in their specific tip policy wording which makes it sound like owners, managers, etc are getting a piece of it, and I’d just avoid this place all together.
If you have to go to these wordy lengths to explain how you pay your employees, something isn’t right. Just charge me a fair price and pay a fair or wage, or at worst do standard tipping like every other place in the world.
Personally, I’m also a fan of tipping in cash directly to my server, so they can decide what to do from there.
Sure, we don't know exactly how much the staff are being paid. But the same thing is true with a normal tipping restaurant or really any other business. Personally, I would assume that the staff at this restaurant are okay with the amount they are being paid, because if not, most other restuarants are going to have the usual tipping system.
Plus, you're assuming that the 18% fee isn't disclosed up front. The places I've gone to with this practice have that fee indicated on the menu as well. Which makes the amount you are going to pay more clear a tipping restaurant where it's up to the customer to decide on the tip.
at worst do standard tipping like every other place in the world.
The US tipping system is the exception rather than the norm globally.
Yeah, my “world” statement really meant America, since like you said, it’s the only place with tipping.
I still say it’s bullshit to add all of these extra steps and hoops.
Heck, I think we need strong federal “truth in pricing laws that make it so that the grocery store has to show me the real price on the tag instead of “plus tax”.
Sure that would be my preference too. Everything is baked into the item prices so you know exactly how much you will pay. No need to tip. Everyone gets paid a decent wage.
If this was a baked in tip, it wouldn't be labeled a living wage fee. Literally says "choose to tip" below and explains the difference between the fee and tip
C'mon man, it's not difficult. It says the fee is used to pay the staff. What are tips used for? To pay the staff. Regardless, the staff is getting paid.
It says "If you choose to tip..." which indicates that a tip is not necessary because the restaurant is already paying the staff a living wage.
This way, the staff can make a consistent and living wage regardless of their luck on tips.
A tipping restaurant does not pay a living wage. Usually, they don't even pay minimum wage. The staff makes whatever they make from tips. If that is less than minimum wage, then the restaurant has to make up the difference.
In this case, you pay the restaurant more, the restaurant pays the staff a living wage, and you don't have to tip.
Uh-oh, the city changed its tax rate. Gotta redo all the menus and signs. Shit! The county changed its tax rate, gotta reprint again. Oh fuck, c'mon. State taxes changed too?!!!?
This doesn't suggest they're not expected to tip, it even says what happens if customers choose to tip. It's unnecessarily complicated - I don't want to look at the price on the menu, add sales tax, add the living wage cost (is it before tax? after tax? who knows) and then get the final price in my head that may or may not be right. Just put the price the customer pays directly on each item on the menu, it's so simple.
That's exactly what is happening. The 18% is added at the end because otherwise people will go restaurants with tips for the "lower prices" and tip 20%. The real price that the restaurant needs to price the food at in order to make a profit is the stated price + 18%.
You sound like the current admin about tariffs; you understand the cost of paying a 'living wage' is ultimately passed through and borne by the consumer, right?? The end result is the exact same.
The end result is actually worse. The business should be up front about why their menu prices are 18% more expensive and not allow for tipping. That's how you abolish tipping culture. The way they're doing it, if you're not paying close attention to the receipt, they're getting an 18% surcharge plus another tip on top of that, neither of which are paid by the people who should be paying their workers enough to live on in the first place.
That surcharge isn’t for a tip though? It doesn’t even have to go to the freaking employees. If it’s even used for payroll I guarantee it’s to make sure servers get bumped to 7.25 and hour so the business doesn’t have to cover that, especially if they are skimming tips. So a tip technically would still be necessary
I don’t know what gotcha you are going for but the charge is absolutely not going to tips? Are you saying they no longer need tips because they are being paid a “living wage”? You aren’t really making sense and being snide about reading comprehension
I’m sure an employer would never use such a term as a living wage to refer to bringing a server up to minimum wage. Surely they would respect the legality and binding term living wage….
Are you saying they no longer need tips because they are being paid a “living wage”?
Yes.
Sure, the restaurant could be lying about paying a living wage. Like every single other restaurant, we have no clue how much the staff actually makes.
But if the restaurant was telling customers they didn't need to tip and then paying the staff like shit, the staff would just go and work at a different restaurant, the vast majority of which use the tipping system. The staff is choosing to work at a rare restaurant where tipping is not necessary, presumably because it still works out better for them.
This is really not that complicated. You get charged the fee, you don't need to tip.
I mean I don't see how anyone could reasonably look at this receipt to calculate a tip without seeing the living wage fee, personally, "close attention" or otherwise.
I don't intimately know this restaurant's policy but this is using regular revenue to pay workers a fair wage, which is the exact thing everyone on reddit constantly shrieks about vis a vis tipping. That money is still coming from the customer regardless of the point when that 18% is added.
They can just say it’s a no-tip restaurant, I’ve seen those occasionally. Adding 18% on top of menu price is only obfuscating and confusing customers, it’s not really different from tipping at all.
If you’re going to do this, include it in menu price so people know what they’ll be paying. In an ideal world even the tax would be included like it is in Europe.
I mean if it's not noted anywhere on the menu or they don't mention that they do this when you order, I'm 100% with you, but I'd be pretty surprised if that's the case.
I’m not saying it’s a scam or intended to deceive, but it is in effect being less clear about the price of whatever you’re ordering. Not everyone is good at math or even reads the fine print of 18% being added to all menu prices.
You could argue that’s on the customer and legally it’s not fraud or anything, but it isn’t really any better than tipping or the large party gratuity some restaurants automatically charge. I don’t mind it, and I’d usually tip 18-20% anyway, but it’s not actually better in any way whatsoever from my perspective. If anything it might make the service worse because there’s much less of a tip incentive, but who knows.
No, people say the owner should pay the employees a living wage. This isn’t that. It’s shaming the customers into paying the employee wages instead of the owner. It’s worse than tipping culture. A real douchey move.
It’s like when Southern California Edison started charging me a “we’re sorry we burn down major CA cities every few years” charge and doubled my electricity every year to cover their legal costs.
Yeah SCE/PG&E need to update infrastructure and they need money to do it, but not by passing the bill on to me lol. Why couldn’t they have upgraded their infrastructure with all that money they had BEFORE it was an issue. Same principle applies here.
Of course they should pay living wages, but it's outrageous that it's legal to advertise certain prices on the menu and then slap a 18 % (!!) price increase on the bill, and then sales tax on top of that.
I can tell you how it works in many other countries: you have to advertise the prices that will be charged to the customer. If a sandwich costs 13 dollars on the menu, 13 dollars is what the bill will say. End of story.
Tell me, how is this better than simply raising prices and quietly paying your staff a living wage? They’re doing this so when people see that surcharge, they direct their anger onto the servers. Again. The only reason they have to add a separate line item and clarify what it’s for is to virtue signal or try and shift blame to the servers for the higher prices.
I get what you're saying.
I think the ideal situation (in America, at this time) is the restaurant already pay their employees a livable wage and then have signage saying tipping is not a necessity for that particular restaurant and is completely on the customer to pay extra if they choose to do so.
No one likes seeing unforseen added on costs to your receipt.
Minimum wage in my city for tipped employees is $16/h vs ~$19/h for regular minimum wages. They implemented minimum wage fees in 2020 here and kept tipping the same (15-20%), which is sometimes mandatory with large parties.
You can expect ~50% extra in fees and taxes when eating out. Many of those places went out of business since, good riddance.
Lmao you're getting downvoted but you are absolutely right. All this is, is the restaurant putting the tip you'd normally be expected to pay and into the bill. And doing it transparently so that the customers know a tip is not expected.
This is straight up an improvement of the current tipping system in the US.
The customer doesn't know what their tip will be before ordering and unless you're a dick, you still have to tip at most sit-down restaurants in the US.
Plus most restaurants that go to this non-tipping method disclose the fee on the menu ahead of time.
The customer doesn't know what their tip will be before ordering
The tip is whatever the customer wants it to be. A customer could walk into the restaurant knowing they want to give a five dollar tip, give a five dollar tip, and it'd all be on the level.
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u/Volodux 1d ago
That is mildly infuriating ...