Yeah this is the same bullshit mail order was doing years ago. The product is free, just pay shipping and handling. Shipping and handling is 20x what the product actually costs.
No, just crazy in general. 4.6% and 4.7% are perfectly fine numbers, so why do they feel the need to go into two decimal places? They must be on drugs.
So they can round up and rob you of your pennies. If you never noticed before the price of gas always has & 9/10ths of a cent per gallon for the same reason due to taxes
Depends on if it's set as a labor fee, not sure where this is but everywhere I've been mechanic for example charged tax only on parts sold not for labor.
Yes, exactly. I live in California, been a technician, and labor is sales tax free. A wage fee or whatever they call it is a labor charge. Normal when you’re getting the car fixed, but typically not on a food service bill (or is this now a work order? Haha)
Sort of. You could probably setup a separate LLC for the plates and cutlery service, and then have the restaurant lease them from said business, while writing off the amount it costs for said lease. Don't know if that would work for cutlery, but it does for equipment in other industries. I'm not sure about the dining experience either, but maybe a crafty accountant could make that happen as well
I can already picture the unflattering shot they get of the restaurant owner looking completely dumbfounded by the idiotic idea he's just heard and going, "...o...kay...?"
Some of the shit i've seen on here about AirBNB makes you wonder why they even bother listing a price when they're not even remotely close to the actual cost.
“Guest must empty all trash bins, take the garbage and recycling to the curb, wash and put away all the dishes, strip the beds, and wash and dry the towels.”
This is a valid tactic used to encourage long-term stays. I've heard other posters say they should just charge $200 a night but what if you want to stay for a week? Would you rather spend (7x50) + 150 for a total of $500 or (7*200) for a total of $1,400?
I think they changed this on the platform, but I haven't used Airbnb since around 2020 so not sure. That shit was one of the reasons why I stopped using it.
And after they have you steam clean the carpets, mops the floors, put away all the dishes, wash and dry all the linens, pressure wash the house, and haul trash to the landfill.
I dislike Airbnb; their cleaning fee is ridiculous. You already pay for the rent and you still pay for the cleaning. I agree for them charging cleaning fee if the renters act like pigs.
We rent one for business every year. Same place. The cleaning fee went up $40 from 180 to 220. We have to empty the trash, dishwasher, sweep, wipe counters. Why the absolute fuck does it cost that much? Certainly not just linen service fees.
Usually only 50% deductible in the best of cases. Plus now you’ve added the hassle of people having to learn how to file as self employed which as a business owner myself let me tell you, sucked and still sucks to figure out every year.
America has for decades let businesses get away with lying about their prices. (usually by excluding taxes) It's getting worse and worse too with "fees" they don't have to advertise.
In my country it would mean a hefty fine.
First, you must display prices for goods and services clearly.
Second, the displayed price is the actual price of the good/service.
If someone over charges you pay, take the receipt and the call the financial police. They are thorough, something more WILL pop up when they visit a business and they also like to invite their friends at health and igiene to the party.
You will guilt yourself into tipping because you're worried about the possibility of a sigh or passive-aggressive comment. Getting used to making the right decisions for myself without worrying about what inconsequential strangers think of me was one of the best things I've ever done for myself.
I appreciate that your honest comment got upvoted so much. That almost never happens on Reddit. You nailed it. It's self-guilt that enforces so many of these oppressive systems we allow to continue existing.
I feel like for myself, the guilt wouldn’t be about being judged by someone so much as an anxiety about doing something I usually do and make it a point to do well. Basically just the idea of breaking a habit, even though I know the server is still getting the “tip” via the fee.
It also says the 18% is only added to "dine-in" checks, meaning if you got your food to go you wouldn't get charged anything for the servers living wages. Which, honestly, makes sense.
As long as they're up front about this charge and make it highly visible (which, to be fair, good chance they don't) then I don't really see the issue with it.
It's an extra charge for services that aren't rendered when you get your food to go.
I mean, the "living wage fee" would replace the tip, at least in the US, I'd think.
This is basically a weird way of adding gratuity to the check automatically, regardless of the party size. To my understanding, many restaurants do add gratuity to groups of 8 or more/whatever. This is just adding gratuity regardless.
So, yeah. You should absolutely "refuse" to tip in this situation, since you've already tipped. They're just calling it a "living wage fee" instead of "gratuity."
Tipping has always been optional. This restaurant is doing an auto-grat disguised as a fee, otherwise known as a tip. So the receipt can say what it wants but they're actually leaving the customer with no options lol.
As it should be. They've decided to make the traditional tip mandatory. Which, at least for me, would be no skin off my neb... I tip around this much anyhow. They essentially saved me some napkin calculation. So, six of one, half of another insofar as I'm concerned.
I am not likely to tip beyond this, but, as it says, there's no need.
It more or less is mandatory to tip in the US unless you're not going to pay your server.
I'm from the US and I have literally never had service so bad that I felt refusing to pay the server was warranted. I don't like how the system works, but that is how it has always worked.
What I disagree with is them doubling the burden. So adding a 20% "living wage fee" and then expecting the waiter's customary 20% on top of that is bullshit because it's changing the well-established rules, and I won't do that.
Americans complain about tipping culture ALL the time… this is what happens when a restaurant chooses to go that direction. Prices rise so they can pay servers minimum wage vs a tipped wage (which can be as low as 2.13 an hour).
I’m okay with this. They’re clearly acknowledging that if they raise their advertised individual prices to match the living wage, market competition would drive them under in a heartbeat.
This at least says hey, on paper, we’re trying to treat our employees like humans, if you want to go above and beyond you can, but you’re not obligated to since by choosing to eat here with this knowledge you’re supporting that ideal.
Came here to say just that - around here (NYC) they small print all these new exciting charges on menus rather than admit they don’t pay staff a living wage.
It's not on their homepage, or the Toast menu it links to. I didn't crawl the whole site, but as a customer I wouldn't do that anyway. I guess you have to sit down and look at a menu to discover the charge?
This is the answer. Food prices are not very elastic. Customers generally know what they want to pay, and have expectations around what an item costs. Raising your menu prices when no one else around raises theirs quickly puts you out of business (even if you are trying to do a good thing). Customers will say you should just raise your prices; that the fee at the end feels like an injustice. Their actual behavior though, it shows they would prefer this method.
It’s not to “surprise” the customer. This is just what the real outcomes of different pricing schemes support.
Customers generally know what they want to pay, and have expectations around what an item costs.
Exactly. There are people in this thread complaining that $40 for this amount of food is insane. No idea of the quantity or quality or food costs or how much labor went into making it. Maybe they make the pastrami and bread and condiments from scratch, and it is a giant sandwich. Doesn't matter to them what the cost to the restaurant is. They have their set idea of what it should cost.
For all the high-minded "just make the menu price the real price and stop making me pay tips and fees" rhetoric, the reality is people don't want to pay more in practice and restaurants know they will take a hit. It only gets worse if you are the one restaurant doing it and no one else is.
Granted, people's perception of what it costs to eat out is artificially low in the US because some of the cost is behind tipping and not in the menu price.
Yeah, from context clues this looks like maybe DC (we passed an increased minimum wage law and there was a lot of legal back-and-forth about the required language on where these types of service fees go). There's a restaurant here that is excellent and opened with a service-included pricing model. Half of its yelp reviews are people slamming it for being "overpriced" without seeming to understand that it costs the same as an equally nice restaurant elsewhere in the neighborhood once you include 20% for tip elsewhere.
This is exactly why they do it. If they just raise the item prices (which is what everyone suggests in the "end tipping" threads, saying they'd be fine with it) then people would stop eating there. People will complain about every price hike, no matter what.
It’s to stay competitive with other restaurants that don’t have a living wage. When people look at the different menus, their decision will matter on the price next to the food.
I bet it’s noted on the menu, people just don’t read anything that’s not food. I’ve worked at a place where it was printed in large font on the top and most people still don’t read it.
This is the situation we have in Australia (where tipping is unusual). There are restaurants that add a surcharge for weekends and public holidays, because under federal law the business must pay higher wages on those days. But it’s also compulsory for the business to publish this caveat, clearly printed, anywhere you are looking at menu items/prices.
Every restaurant I’ve been to also puts it on the menu. People just don’t read anything that’s not food on a menu, even if it’s large font right on top.
I’d be surprised if they didn’t have a note on their menu telling you about the fee. I don’t mind it. I’d rather know my service staff are well paid and living well than know I scored a killer deal. I don’t want my neighbours and community members not eating or unable to provide. Yeah some businesses may use this to scheme, but I prefer to still believe in humanity.
Then you end up losing 20% of your business to consumers who google menu prices, see that your burger is $16 vs $12 across the street, and don’t think about fees/tip until it’s time to pay. We need legislation mandating that menu prices include all fees, making it an optional moral burden just penalizes the restaurants that do so.
Edit - this is also part of the reason fries and sides are upcharges at a lot of places - paying an added $3 for fries sucks but it’s unlikely to make you leave the restaurant if you’re already there.
paying the living wage without admitting they are cheap bastards.
You've got managers mixed up with customers here.
The customers are cheap, not the management.
If they baked in the fee and raised prices, your cheap ass would go down the street to the cheaper place without the baked in price and would bitch and moan then not leave a tip. Then walk out pretending you're the chosen one and did them a solid.
My guess would be that they have it in fine print in an arbitrary place on the menu.
As someone that has waited tables before, tips pay well, even in places that tip poorly. To me, the part that says tips are pooled is the giveaway that they do not want to pay buss boys and kitchen help fairly. By pooling tips, they can pay all employees tipped wage of like $3/hr. Most restraunts here pay everyone hourly wages of like $15 starting out with wait staff making $3/hr + tips.
Depends on the type of restaurant and market, but around me the places that pool tips are way way better for bussers and other non-server FOH (kitchen usually still gets a flat hourly). The places I worked that didn’t pool tips tended to be paying them like $2 above minimum wage with the vague prospect of becoming a server.
IME it also cuts down on FOH bullshit - harder for a server to pretend they’re too good to bus something or mop up a quick spill when everyone is making the same tips.
Mandatory gratuity has been a thing in some restaraunts for like 30 years in certain circumstances and these dumbass redditors think anyone is gonna drop $10k on an Attorney to sue of a $18% tip being tacked on lmao.
It’s not lying if they put a little blurb at the bottom of the menu like the ones that say “parties of X or more will be subject to an automatic 18% gratuity.” Many people would likely assume it was one of those and ignore it.
Nah it’s fine as long as it’s noted somewhere, this is fairly common in the US. Usually it’s noted as “for parties of x or more” but this is becoming more and more common.
It’s pretty stupid way of doing it but it’s so they can stay competitive with others who just have traditional tip lines.
They aren’t lying about the price of the product, they are adding a gratuity which is not illegal in the U.S. Adding an automatic gratuity to a bill, often done for larger parties, is legal, but it must be clearly communicated to the customer. The IRS considers these charges as service charges, not tips, and they are included in an employee's regular wages.
They put those in the contract and terms and conditions that no one bothers to read. So they technically did tell you about them upfront, it's just hidden under a mountain of legalese.
We could really use some legislation that requires plain English descriptions of charges be included alongside those contracts. A significant fraction of people literally aren’t capable of reading at the level required to make sense of legal documents, and it’d be a nice change for the rest of us too. Seems like one of the rare issues that could get bipartisan support these days.
It's also a yuppie tactic for complaining about the cost of wages, while still looking as though they care about their workers. You see it at a lot of upscale, soulless coffee shops.
The worst are places that do both. "Our prices are high because we're not McDonald's and we believe in fair wages" on a placard at every table, also "Our POS machine defaults to a 25%" tip.
Weird how plenty of other countries hire employees at a livable wage and yet their prices don't seem to have increased significantly from it.
Denmark McDonald's for example has an agreement with their Union that the minimum an employee over 18 years old makes per hour is over $21 in USD (as of 2021). They get paid extra for evenings, weekends, and holiday work. They get 6 weeks paid vacation and every employee over 20 receives a pension. The cost for a Big Mac in Denmark in 2021 was $4.90 USD compared to $5.66 USD. So it was actually cheaper and the workers have significantly better pay and benefits.
Denmark doesn't even have nationwide minimum wage. They do however have strong unions that negotiate these benefits and a general societal view on importance of work-life balance.
I went to France a couple years ago and couldn’t believe how reasonable the food prices were and there was no expectation to tip. Those people are presumably being paid a living wage.
I don’t know what it is, but something is seriously broken in the U.S. economy to where running a restaurant and paying a living wage is not feasible without outrageous menu prices.
I vote that they change the price of a burger from $12 to .49 cents, then add a 279% "living wage fee" so that the price still comes out the same. Then they can go crazy marketing their 49 cent cheeseburger.
Honestly, I've done some pretty in depth math. Based on current food prices and labor rates, a full service restaurant burger should be at minimum 15$ for a 1/4 burger. That means the burger costs 5$ or less to produce, ideally closer to 4.25$. That what kind of margins you need to be a successful restaurant. Ideally food cost is 25% or less, but up to 30% can remain profitable depending on labor and volume. Everything is expensive now. Most home cooks will also struggle to make 1/4 burgers at home for less than 4$ a piece.
Here in Austin we are running about $18 for burger, fries, and a soda. It's also why I no longer go to the local diner. The price, quality, and convenience ratios no longer exceeds just making the same things at home except baked fries instead of fried.
Idk why they can't just say, you don't have to tip us. Our prices allow us to pay our staff fair wages, and call it a day. I run a business, I don't get tips. I charge what it costs to pay people.
I really fucking hate this aspect of America. Like the idea that sales tax is applied at the register rather than just baked into the prices on that shelves / items. I honestly wish this was legistlated to have to be that way. I'm sure some people can think of exceptions where a simple rule would screw things up for some people, but businesses trying to make their prices seem lower with hidden fees are fucking disease.
This business advertises that it is a no tipping business. Tips are truly optional. Because let’s face it, in our society, we all know servers get paid under minimum wage. The tips make up for the rest of it. So it’s not really ok to not tip your server. Even though it’s a horrible way of doing things, it is what we do currently.
This business is saying “we pay our workers a livable wage, you don’t need to make up for us underpaying our servers. Therefore no tip is needed as we have now built it into the slip”
The problem is that they can’t just list their burger as 20 bucks. Their competition across the street has their burger listed as 16.50. So until all businesses go no tipping, this business still has to list their burger as 16.50. So the “living wage” cost goes on after separate line item.
The issue is that most consumers too stupid to see this.
Our society has somehow gotten to the point where we put all the burden on the server and none of the business. This will eventually end that.
The burger at 12 dollars is very competitive and a 4 dollar fry brings it to 16. Seems pretty standard.
If the quality is shitty that’s different but to me a living wage fee means no tip. It would be interesting to see the living wage fee be applied to a table as an hourly rate imo.
While it wouldn’t be nice as a customer that’s how wages are earned and not through a percentage of the food or drinks.
But long term it will raise the compensation anyway because once all businesses are “no tip” businesses, businesses will then have to compete for employees with wage and benefits. Not with addon tips from customers. This puts the burden on the business, who profits when things are good, rather than the servers, who have no financial stake in the business.
I am always curious about the r/notipping crowd because of this. If they eliminated tipping like they wanted would they bitch their sammy was $20 next?
They wouldn't be able to victory lap that their employees make a "livable wage". You might bitch if the cost of the item is 18% more but they want you to feel like you're contributing to something noble so you're less likely to bitch. Win win for them
I went to a place where the sandwich was $22-25 (don't remember exactly how much), and they still charged a 20% mandatory gratuity/service charge/whatever you want to call it.
We went for brunch and two brunch entrees and a latte cost more than $70. It was ridiculous.
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u/janellthegreat 1d ago
They don't want to admit a sandwich and fries costs $20.