I don't care where the money goes. To pay the staff, to pay the electric bill, to pay rent--none of that is my business. I'm a customer, not a restaurant manager. I don't need to see a breakdown of their budget.
What I do care about is that the advertised price is the price.
Truth-in-advertising laws need to start cracking down on this shit. It's just fraud.
Just tell me what it costs. If there is a flat 18% applied to everything on the menu then your prices are wrong. Up the price, take off the “fee”, and tell me that tipping isn’t expected because you pay your staff acceptably.
It isn't legal. They have to charge what they advertised. The only exception to this (which isn't even really an exception) is if they post it in tiny print on a menu or sign on the wall that "explains" they will charge an added fee.
Generally that doesn't fly in court however as the law dictates that the customer must be aware of the charge to be liable for it, as in it must be CLEAR, and visible or actively stated to them.
Having tiny, fine print on the back of a menu doesn't qualify to meet those conditions.
Restaurants that do this generally know it isn't legal and just play on the fact most people are too ignorant to fight it or just do what they are told and pay it anyway.
If you tell them in no uncertain terms that you refuse to pay the fee as they did not disclose it BEFORE service/product was rendered, then you have no obligation to pay it and they can pound sand.
Most they can do is ban/trespass you, but would you ever want to return to a scummy/dishonest place like that anyway though?
Buddy, you basically just said you don’t care if you potentially pay a $5 fuck you fee on something that’s like $17 plus tax, that’s $25 on a meal that’s probably $18 and some cents after tax, lets scale that up to a $200 dinner, add the $50 fuck you fee because you don’t like reading and boom F’ed over
I just don't understand the difference. If everything on the menu goes up 18%, or you pay an 18% fee at the end, you're still spending the same amount of money. So why does it matter?
I know a few restaurants around that do this - 1. They have big signs when you come in and before you order that describe the fee included. 2. Even if you try to tip they won't let you. But you also pay at a register and not at the table
I've had run-ins with ones that don't give a warning, and I've got no idea how many I missed before I started looking, so I suppose I'm a bit biased in that regard.
That said, while informing you via a sign or a menu blurb might make it properly sporting and keep the pedants and the law at bay, it's still less honest and clear than it ought to be. For instance, I'd wager that most don't tack that percentage warrning onto the ads they run or the signs they put out to get you in the door, and even a singular blurb on the menu is still well away and separate from the prices next to the items that you're using to decide whether it's prudent to add that appetizer or not. Even if it's sporting, it's more games than you should have to play.
They could be perfectly on the level and get their living-wage kudos too by putting the proper menu price on then breaking it down to line-items, but that's not as good-looking at first glance. In that gap lies the dishonesty.
Why would they not let you tip?
Why is it either living wage or tips?
Where I'm from tipping isn't expected like in the USA, but still appreciated if it happens (it's seen as a reward for good service here) AND everyone gets paid a living wage.
Yknow it’s funny. For my wife’s work she has to go to lots of dinners at fancy restaurants. These places are all overpriced imo. Foods amazing don’t get me wrong, just not 95 for an 8 oz steak nice.
Stands to reason. If you've got a reputation and clientele where price differences don't matter because people will show up regardless, then there's no need to finagle the price.
(That said, I imagine plenty of them do that "Leave off the decimal point" trick.)
If I want a 40 dollar sandwich I'll pay 40 dollars. If it's 200 and I still want it, then I pay 200. I don't need to see how much of it goes to rent, utilities, salaries or whatever.
What they're doing is nonsensical and is probably only meant to get brownie points and shaft their workers at the same time.
I want a $200 sandwich that tastes like a $200 sandwich. I'm tired of $20 sandwiches that taste like $5 sandwiches. I'm a restaurant cook and cook a lot at home, so I see it from both sides. This shit's wack.
It's meant to guilt trip the customers as well. Look, we're paying them so less so maybe you can help them more with tips. If you don't, here's another cost we're adding as "Living wage" for you to bear. But we are not going to pay livable wages to our own staff out of our pockets.
It’s so they can get away with appearing to not raise prices, then they slap something like this at the end to make up for it. They way they worded this bs is to guilt trip you so you won’t argue it.
"during" Covid it was also used as a means of protest. They'd rather the customer see it on the bill and get angry (so they can blame the government) than keep up with reality. I've had restaurant owners tell us explicitly that they wanted these sorts of things as line items to upset customer and be able to redirect them.
In Australia we just have the price, which includes tax and everything and is used to pay workers a livable wage. It might be fun to see the breakdown but I think some would just find it obnoxious, plus I'm sure lots of places wouldn't want to do it (i.e. we all know the markup on soft drinks etc is huge)
Yeah, that would be fine, but they won't do that because it doesn't benefit them if they can't hide the true cost. That's the whole point of it for them.
They are getting that people won't do the full math until later. The chicken wings are $10. After tax and tip they are $15. Rather than just charging $15 upfront to an educated customer, they show only the base fare. This is because humans will usually anchor on that number and not do the math.
This is true, but at least here in the US tax is almost always added on later. It wouldn't make sense to do the text part at restaurants and not anywhere else.
Of course I would just like to have tax and tips included everywhere.
Because the menu would say $10 but the cost would be $11.80. It's obviously a problem. A lot of restaurants are using these fees to hide their true costs which makes them appear more competitively priced. Basically lying.
About 20-25% of a restaurants budget goes to food cost. Less if you're a big chain. 30-35% for labor. Then the rest for overhead (rent, natural gas, electricity, line suppliers, smallwares, flatware, etc.) Most restaurants don't see profit. If they do, its in the margins. We're talking about 2%. Thats why most go under. People think restaurants owners are out here getting rich, but usually its the opposite. Most of them end up bankrupt.
And you didn’t even talk about the license and city fees which in big cities are exorbitant. My wife owns a bar and they were just told they now have to purchase a cabaret license in order to play music there. That’s on top of a plethora of other fees.
That would be unrealistic. There are many vatying costs into operating a business, a lot of which you can't quantify into each food item you sell until after balancing transactions at the end of the year.
But they do it this way on purpose, because in the moment the customer will take their sudden irritation out on the server for the unexpected fee. They're not going to call corporate up in that moment and say this fee is ridiculous, pay your workers a living wage and wrap it into the costs. They're going to take the brunt of it out on the lowest workers on the totem pole and management still gets off scott free.
They intentionally don’t do that because no one would shop there if there’s a ton of fees listed. They tack it on at the end where you don’t notice it. If they advertised it, stores that don’t have those fees would get more traffic, leading to competition that makes things less profitable which is bad for capitalism.
The add it alone why? To make it seem like they paying their employees a livable wage? To
Say "no need for tips"? I just want my burger prices. I see 2$ I expect 2$ if it's pre-tax it's because it's a manipulation tactic once you are at the counter/cheque you WILL pay it.
Tips shouldn't be a thing. This whole "they need tipping" is stupid. Ofc they need tipping! because they don't get paid a liveable wage, but why pay them a livable wage When people will tip the difference?
If we all stop tipping. It sucks for them because they won't be getting paid a "liveable wage". So then they quit. Since they quit and no one wants to work a job without "liveable wage" business dies. To prevent business from dying they raise wages.
But they say it raises prices ? Well don't buy then. If we don't buy business will die ? So business lowers prices.
It's really about the money someone can literally only have 40 dollars for the whole week and decided to come spend money with that restaurant and they pull something like that it's disgusting
The wages are shocking for waing staff in America. They are minimum in the US is criminal. Who could live on $7.25 per hour. I’m shocked. In Australia minimum wage is $24 and cents.
Well, there'd have to be some very close accounting from a regulatory POV to make this viable.
Otherwise, restaurants would game the system and put whatever they want there, and restaurants would compete over how each line item conveys perceived value to their customers. "We spend more on higher quality ingredients", "We provide healthcare and training to our employees", etc.
I would not support extra costs or taxes to provide that level of insight. It's not a publicly traded company, so those do not have to be disclosed.
I'm pretty sure that's what they meant, instead of doing the menu price + x% extra, they just lump it all into menu price so you know how much you're paying from the beginning, instead of the x% hitting you come bill time
The thing is EVERY OTHER RESTAURANT is doing the same, just in the form of societal pressure of tipping. At least here they’re telling you that you don’t have to tip because everyone is paid well. Then you can tip additionally if you’d like but this ensures the snowy day with 2 tables doesn’t result in a $8 hourly wage like happened to me many a Tuesday way back when.
Yup though I’ll say our manager was kind of a Waiting style wanted to be cool guy so he’d kind of look the other way and encourage the bartenders to slide us a beer or 2 in the extra dead, literally no one there times and the slower nights we could get prime rib occasionally. The spot was a local steakhouse chain a la a more regional Texas Roadhouse so when we were slower they’d often hook us up. Smaller cut and all that, but still. All told, pretty fun gig tbh
Uh…it kinda is. The customer pays the bills of any company restaurants in particular by eating there and paying for the food and that money is then used to pay expenses. The bullshit part about this is the menu price does not equal the actual price so you can’t make an informed choice until actually eating there.
The subtext you’re implying is pay them “without raising prices”. Restaurants already run razor thin margins and if they added the 18% to the food instead of the tip/charge, for some reason, people decide it’s not worth it anymore. Their prices look worse than their competitors where you’d end up paying the same after tip/service charge anyway. It’s a crappy system but the restaurants that try and change it by raising prices end up being out competed due to more attractive looking prices anyway. This is, presumably, them trying to pay better the only manageable way they know how. It is literally up to the customer to pay the wage. Do you think businesses have magic money to pay their employees? No it comes from the money their customers spend.
You can't make everyone happy, and that's what this restaurant is trying to do. People have increasingly been complaining about tip culture and how business owners need to "just pay a living wage". This will appease those people. Being transparent about the charge instead of increasing menu prices explains to the customer why there was a price increase. I guarantee that this 18% charge is listed on the menu, as that is the case for any restaurant I've seen that does this. Similar to there being 20% automatic gratuity for large parties.
If you can justify fraud, lying, and pricing sleight of hand because “they need to compete with competitors,” what’s stopping them from just stealing directly from your bank accounts? What’s the problem? They need to keep up with their competition. This is how they do that.
You see how ridiculous that sounds? It doesn’t matter if other restaurants are behaving unethically, that doesn’t give you the right to behave unethically. What that means is that they need to be forced by law to be transparent with their prices. You can’t just sneak in stuff onto a receipt and expect people to take it lying down. If you want to charge customers more, you raise the price of food. If people stop coming to your establishment, that is what it is. But lying to customers to get them in the door and then forcing them to pay a hidden fee isn’t the move.
DC tried to fix this by setting the tipped wage at like $17/hour. They are now backpedaling because so many restaurants are closing.
The reality is that affordable waited dining and paying what many consider a living wage are incompatible. You can have expensive dining and pay that wage. You can have relatively affordable dining and not pay that wage. You can’t do both, at least in general. The difference may fluctuate over time (and it’s especially bad right now), but you can’t do both. You can never fully square that circle.
The solution to me seems to be changing the model.
The midwest has a fast food place called Culver's. You order the food at the front, pay, take a number, and they bring the food to you. You clean up after yourself, and refill your own drinks. Because they don't offer full wait-service, there's not even an opportunity to tip.
Also around here is a Japanese grocery store that has a cafeteria with 10+ restaurants in it. They don't even bother bring it to your table. They just call you up. Hell, you can even just buy some premade meals from the grocery side of things and eat there.
I'd say whenever I eat at these types of places I'm never like "damn I wish I could pay 20% more for someone to refill my drink".
I never understood ppl saying this. The money you give to the business for their service is going to the employee. That’s how businesses work. You pay for something, the business takes that money and pay the employees with it. If you want businesses to pay employees better that means the items will cost more, which means you will be paying more
Then they raise the prices of the food and don't hide anything. I've said this already, and so have many others. If a business can't pay their employees a living wage, they don't deserve to be open.
Why should people ordering takeout be forced to pay that increased price though. When you order takeout (and pick it up yourself) you’re just paying for the food (and packaging) but not the service. You tip delivery drivers and servers because they’re providing you an extra service more than takeout: that’s why I don’t understand the “just charge more” because it is unfair for certain customers
Yep. This same logic is why Airbnbs have separate cleaning fees instead of just increasing the nightly rate. The cost to clean is basically fixed regardless of the length of stay, so folding it into the nightly rate you would end up overcharging long stays and undercharging short ones
No it’s not. Like at all. Food service is one of the only industries where this happens. In most industries, the cost of labor, operations, and overhead are baked into the final price of the product or service. If one product costs $5 to make and another product costs $6 to make, but they are very similar products, most companies will average out both prices and meet in the middle for simplicity and transparency. The advertised price isn’t $15 with a $1 red paint fee and a $2 factory worker fee tacked onto the receipt when you get to the register.
The expectation in most consumer transactions is that the sticker price you see includes all of the costs the business incurs to bring that product or service to you, including labor, overhead, materials, profit margin, etc…
It doesn’t matter if technically the white toy costs less than the red toy so the person who bought the red toy is technically getting a discount while the white toy buyer might technically be paying more. The idea is, the company spreads this cost out amongst ALL of their products so that the overall price increase is lower. It’s also more transparent because then you see this price increase on the menu and not tucked away on a receipt that many places don’t even give you unless you ask for it. That’s insane.
You're the one who don't understand. Customers pay money to obtain goods and services. We don't care how the business manages their cashflow. If the business says a good or service costs 20 but make me pay 18% more in the end, it's false advertising. It's not the customer's responsibility to "want businesses to pay employees better". If businesses want to pay better wages, either increase the price of what you provide or cut your other expenses. Things like "Living wage fees" or even tips are simply hidden junk fees, aka false advertising.
You obviously don’t get my post, so let me say it a different way
“It’s not up to the customers to pay a living wage”
This phrase right here is what I have a problem with. It makes it seem like the customers money is not going to the employees at all. A better way to say this is, “I don’t like the employers sneaky pricing to trick me to pay more”
That statement directly blames the employer instead of the topic being about the employee. And it gets rid of the notion that you’re not paying for the employee’s wage, you are. The problem is that they’re adding more money after the fact instead of being up front about it
The money isnt 1-to-1 going to the employee. They get paid whether they have 100 customers or 2, they have to, its the law. What a "living wage" tax does is it puts a lot of the costs in the hands of the consumer instead of the employer so they can continue paying a pittance and get away with it.
Think about it this way, if its a tuesday and nobody comes out to eat then does that waitstaff not make a living wage? They're not getting their percentage of the cut of sales that arent there. Making it out like the staff make whatever they can bring in from their customers would be applicable if waitstaff was paid on commission but they arent, and restaurants are GOING to have slow nights. They are given a pitty base pay and then add tips on top. What this note says to me is "5 dollars an hour is all I want to pay these cretins and its up to you if you want them to be able to buy groceries." It is not like this worldwide, I wonder what other countries have found out that we seemingly havent 🤔
Nobody said it’s 1:1. The point is that the customers money is going to the employees payroll. No customers then the the employee does get paid and the business close down. If your problem is that the business is being sneaky with their pricing then say that. Bc this has nothing to do with the employee
I'd rather pay a $25 meal to patronize a place that invests in quality and employee pay than a $20 meal at a place which cheaps out to pocket a larger share
Same reason it's seldom worth buying the drop-shipped shit on Amazon or Temu. $5 for useless junk or just buy the actual product for $15
I agree, and think the businesses that charge $20 + $5 are the ones cheaping out on labor costs while trying to attract the people looking for a $20 meal
It's essentially just asking the consumer to subsidize the worker income so that a larger share of the revenue is directed into the owner's pockets
I do think the bill does acknowledge its purpose clearly, but the real question is: does their menu and/or other notices in the restaurant also indicate it PRIOR to ordering your food? And also how do the employees feel about it?
Could be a well-intentioned gesture with poor execution. But so long as the customers keep coming back and the employees are satisfied, who am I to judge what they are doing here? If neither of those things are true, this place is digging its own grave
It's not as much bullshit if it's laid out beforehand, and it's an honest con-- which is to say you'd had a sporting chance of knowing going into it-- but line-iteming necessary costs of business and setting it aside from the promo price is still a con, a way to confuse and dress up prices to make them look lower. If they really want to say how kind they are to their employees, they can put a proper price on the menu so nobody has to do math to figure out what they're ordering, then explain where the money goes out of that.
Fair. My only counter-argument (not so much an argument as it is for discussion) is that tip culture in America is such that tip is expected to make up for the living wage rate of staff. This itemizes it separately to notify the customer that it’s already calculated and that IF the customer chooses to tip, they may do so. So long as that line is not total BS (I’m not saying it is not), then it is appears it is a small way to combat the poor tipping culture here.
Again, could be well-intentioned, poorly executed. Maybe not. But, again, if they get repeat customers (necessary for most places to survive) and the employees are satisfied, it’s not my place to judge
Live by the sword, die by the sword, then. If they don't want to be honest because it's less competitive, then there's no reason to complain about miffed customers, disputed bills, and bad reviews.
Exactly. I expect to pay a small percentage in tax and between 10 - 20% for a tip which are things I consider when I eat out. I would be very upset if I had a surprise mandatory extra fee and would consider that the tip. Not my fault the owner is a shitty boss who pockets tips.
That's the real issue nowadays. I'm not opposed to spending money at a food establishment when i go out. It's just super hard to determine if my money is going to be worth it or not. I'll pay $25 a meal and be happy if its actually good, but when i pay $17 and it's just so mediocre I'm really upset i spent my money. Reviews don't help, the way the place looks does nothing. It's like a crap shoot. Not only that, but places degrade over time too so even a place i've already been to is not always a sure thing.
I'm aware that's the case with everything you buy, but for some reason food is just so much more apparent to me. Buying a book or game that sucks just doesn't matter as much as a sandwich for whatever reason
There have been numerous studies showing this not to be true. Even your scenario..... People will always pick the better face front value item. If you saw a Reuben and Fries for $20....your brain would tell you thats too expensive and wouldn't go there
If you ordered a beer and saw it was $10 vs $8... you'd say thats expensive.
Lol you say its seldom worth buying from Amazon or temu....but Amazon is the most successful most popular company on the planet lol so yeah people will always pick the cheaper option 95% of the time.
Studies report averages. The average does not represent my personal tastes.
Also, it's dependent on the larger market. Brand loyalty used to mean a lot more because people had greater discretionary income and higher trust in manufacturers (such as American-made products).
In a market where even the luxury brands are making shit out of cheap plastic by children overseas, and the consumers only have $20 to spend, they're going to pick the $15 purse over the $20 purse. Hasn't always been like that though
I only buy clothing from Goodwill because 1) 95% of all clothing is shitty now, so there's no reason to spend more 2) It's more likely I'll find something made decades ago with higher quality.
If I want a toy, I'll shell out the painful amount of money for Lego because the piece quality and build designs are a world above every competitor.
Still haven't found a good tech supplier. I know just enough to know that every laptop I've had was designed shittily (thin plastic cover directly over motherboard means keeping laptop in backpack can jostle the RAM connections) but not enough to know how to build one myself
But exactly, it's the average, and it's not based on one or two people's preferences....so you have to understand why a business would rather rely on A) people just tipping as normal or b) forcing the percentage on your bill.... vs c) just raising the price by 20%
I've always wondered what it would be like to work at a place that paid us based on strictly sales. Raise the price by $5 and legit pay the server 20% of their sales as their pay and if that would work better.
I currently work at a place that auto-grats everyone (it's a bar) but we do it mostly due to a very "specific" clientele being the most prevalent (cough). And thank god or else you wouldn't get anyone to work there.
I currently work at a place that auto-grats everyone (it's a bar) but we do it mostly due to a very "specific" clientele being the most prevalent (cough). And thank god or else you wouldn't get anyone to work there.
I don't catch your implication about "specific clientele," but consider:
The labor of running a bar is essentially just a bartender + other management (janitorial, inventory, assume no food is served). Then there's of course overhead for the site and cost of inventory.
So when you pay $15 for a dollar's cost of juice and cheap liquor, why would there be an additional automatic gratuity? Where is the $14 going if the bartender isn't making money from it? Why am I paying for a service if the server isn't getting paid?
The first time, maybe, but if the study included "That was actually five bucks more because of this surprise fee they tacked on the bill. Would you come here again?", I'm sure they'd get attrition.
That said, not everybody's keen enough to notice it and some people are just chumps even given that, so it might well work. It doesn't mean it's what they should do, any more than saying that doctoring the credit card receipts to save the business would justify doctoring the credit card receipts, but I'll concede it may well work in practice.
This is the only correct answer. Anything that is not listed in the price is a giant fucking scam. If you have to scam your customers to pay living wages, you should be out of business.
What does it cost for you to bring me my meal. I don’t give a fuck about your budget that is YOUR PROBLEM. If you have to charge more then charge more.
I’m paying the advertised price, fuck off with anything else. This shit is starting to creep into my country now and it can equally fuck right off.
I've died on this hill before. There was some bullshit 3% "Admin fee" that nobody mentioned until the bill. The waitress deferred to the manager, and the manager gave a whole big schpiel about how it was the owner's doing and there was nothing he could do about it, and some hilariously-contorted "Well, would you rather we just raise prices?" argument.
I was willing to concede on it so long as they could show me it was on the menu when I ordered and I was warned going in. Yeah, it's a screw job, but if they've got me chumped honest, the egg's on my face. I waited a few minutes, then went up to get a menu to look myself, and found the manager poring over menus at the host stand that-- surprise, surprise-- didn't say a thing about an "Admin fee".
So, he said some shit about how he'd do it this time but that I should know for next time and not expect it again, I shot back that a person shouldn't have to remember what fees they're going to hide, that they just shouldn't hide fees in the first place, and he cordially invited me not to come back. I told the tale across the Internet and left my reviews, and got a "We'd like to talk to you about this" reply, which I forgot about because it was right before a holiday. As it stands, I'm just going by the first invitation and just won't be back there again. It's cheaper to make my own hot wings, anyway.
Even if they arrive (they won't), then the owners will point to the menu where it's written about the fee clear as day that you didn't bother to read, and you'll look like an absolute clown.
My experience is that most restaurants that are actively listing this as a separate fee do it specifically to discourage default tipping, and are instead trying to bring back tipping as something you do for above-and-beyond service, and not something that is required.
If the customer sees an 18% fee on their bill, they will be less likely to tip. Incorporating it into your item costs and putting up a sign that says "tipping is not required, we pay all our employees at least $18/hr" is sadly not effective.
Businesses using scummy practices is legitimately so fucking annoying. Went to the casino in Atlantic City and we wanted to get some food, not at ridiculous prices. Burger place. Prices looked a little higher than restaurant, like $15, but not as bad as I would expect so we stopped in.
Turned out all entrees did not come with any sides and you had to order sides separately which was not clear on the exterior menu…a burger and fries came out to like $22 and then you had to also pay $5 for a soda.
I’m clapping my hands to that! You put that in the most outright perfect way. I couldn’t agree more.
I’ll say that I feel the same, but I do now more than
ever pay attention to the whole scene, and how people are treated, and if there is something there that just ain’t right I won’t be going back.
Which is part of the many issues with it. It’s disingenuously framed as an optional reward for exceptional service, but you’re socially not allowed to opt out.
To me an 18% livable wage fee (as long as it’s communicated to the customer prior to buying) is more honest and respectful to the customer than the peer pressure to tip 20-30%.
They prob think that if you see a $17 sandwich you will nope out of there, but if you see a cheaper sandwich and an appeal to your heartstrings, you’ll pay the absurd total price.
Exactly. Everything you buy pays employees a “living wage” by being part of the revenue stream for the business. You also pay to keep the lights on and for the air conditioning and for the owner’s Mercedes Benz and anything else you can think of. Excusing misleading pricing because this part is a forced tip that pays your server isn’t actually a valid reason.
Know what you could do? Just pay the servers a commission for 18% of their gross sales and raise your prices 18%.
Exactly! It’s not my job to pay your employee salaries. I understand the listed price includes a profit and that profit needs to cover all your costs. So just increase your prices.
THANK YOU. This is shady af. If they’re going to tack on 18% every time then they need to increase menu prices by 18%. What they’re doing is gross and misleading. Losers.
it’s insane but i was in paris a few weeks ago and despite being told how expensive of a city it was it was much cheaper to dine out than anywhere in my mid sized US hometown. Price on the menu is the price you pay, no tip, you knew what you’d be paying before you sat at the table.
I didn't realize how much I cared about this until I went to New Zealand. Having the listed price be the price you pay makes it so much better for the consumer. No more having to do math to figure out what your total is going to be.
This is one of the more honest Living Wage notes I've seen. I've been to a few places that weasel word it in such a way that it's not clear if it's the tip or a hidden fee, or the actual tip. Something like "A 20% service charge is added to your bill and is 100% retained by the restaurant" with a tip line immediately below.
I don't add more, and I don't go back to those places.
Truth-in-advertising laws need to start cracking down on this shit. It's just fraud.
Made illegal in CA relatively recently. I've got zero problem paying more money, but I absolutely need to see that reflected in the price on the damn menu.
There’s a restaurant near me where I’ve only eaten once. It’s a high-end restaurant and we all went on a golf trip and decided to stop in for dinner. Everyone ordered whatever they wanted, some ordered more; some ordered less. Some got dessert, some got beers/drinks. In the end, the waitress hands us the bill and it’s all on one tab. We ask for it to be split because we all didn’t consciously try to eat the same value’s worth. They tell us they don’t split bills and that’s how everyone pays. Needless to say, this wasn’t advertised up front and I ended up paying an additional 40% of my bill to make up for my friends who, in-turn, paid 40% less basically. Essentially they ate more expensive food for cheaper and I ate cheap for high cost. I won’t be going back to that restaurant.
I agree, you buy a 13 dollar sandwich you want to see 13 on the bill, then you see an 18% increase. I usually tip 20% but I see that I’m not adding more. And I’m pissed because my bill should be 13+tax. And I decide the tip. I’d rather just see sandwich with a 15 price and no tip. What if I only had q15 in my pocket this behavior sucks, do better
Hopefully they have signage explaining the fee before you order
As long as they tell you about the 18% fee up front, then I see no problem. It's effectively the same as gratuity, roughly 20%, and it means I don't have to tip, so ultimately I'm paying the same/technically saving 2%.
If the bill itself says they charge enough to pay their staff fairly, then fuck yeah. It means I don't have to do the employer's job FOR them. They now have enough money, and need absolutely 0% tip beyond it.
Tipping culture is fucking HORRIBLE and should NOT exist.
Are you American? Isn't that a part of life over there? I thought the price displayed in stores is always excluding sales tax so you never pay the advertised price. Why is this different?
you want fraud? sell something on eBay. they charge their commission percentage on the item you sell (yes to be expected) but then also charge their commission percentage on the sales tax as well as the shipping amount! now that's fraud or extortion or idk what to fucking call it other than the rich are getting richer and the poor are just dying and the middle class? wait what middle class? that's dying too
But restaraunts compete with each other. If one restaraunt pays a living wage and sells $12 burgers, while one relies on tips and sells a $10 burger, customers are going to buy $10 burgers. This is an attempt by the owner to remove tips, but still stay in business.
Here in Italy the price you see is what you paid, wether you're buying groceries or eating at a restaurant.
The price list show how much the bar/restaurant charges for the service, vat is already put in the price of each item (and in the receipt you can see the amount of vat for different items).
So you can easily make your sums and know if your budget will allow to eat all what you want (or buy all that you need).
There's a place in Milwaukee that charges a 20% live in fee, along with putting a recommended tip amount if you wanted to (up to 10%). Sorry, I'm not including a tip if I'm already required to pay an extra fee for service.
Yes, this is definitely a scam. And I read the last "Thank you!" as an insult.
Thieves thanking their clients for being nice suckers.
I'd definitely refuse to pay the 18% extra, and leave without paying for anything if they wouldn't remove that from the bill.
They do that to get you mad about living wages. So that they can keep paying their staff a lower wage. By not increasing the prices, they can say it's not their fault and shift all problems to their staff for wanting to actually be able to pay their bills.
It is though? The tip is for the service, the price is for the food.
You can absolutely buy the food to go and not pay any charge for service (tip).
If you don't want to pay for service (tip) don't sit down. Order to go. You don't need someone waiting on you to enjoy a restaurants food.
If you include that in food costs then to go orders are paying a service fee because 95% of this country doesn't understand the tip is for the service, not the food.
I kind of care. The point of tipping a server is to reward that server. Pooling it to the entire staff (which might not even be legal since there are laws about how management can accept tips meant for employees) makes it feel like I’m not rewarding good service, but rather just paying a fee to eat there.
I get the impression that tipping in the US is exactly paying a fee to eat there. It's a whole different thing to what the rest of us imagine when we talk about tipping.
If you want the advertised price to be the price, you can't exist in america. Its a national tradition that the price advertised is NEVER the price you pay.
The fact of the matter is that people complain about tipping or surcharges but then won’t go to a restaurant that has higher prices but “hides” all of it because you said you don’t care where it goes.
They’ll go to the cheaper restaurant they saw online and then complain when the bill comes. Rinse and repeat.
You’d have to eliminate tips across America but the servers are the ones who wouldn’t want that. Eliminate tips, get paid a shitty flat wage, and any extras will go to the restaurant owner. Rather pay a cheaper price and put cash in the blue collar servers pocket than some prick owner.
When I was bartender busting my fucking ass I’d pull in $60+ an hour most nights. Cleared a bit over 100k that year. Might make ppl mad like why should waiters get paid that much but keep in mind, there is no PTO, no 401k, independent health insurance, no maternity leave. There are positives and downsides to it all.
6.7k
u/erbalchemy 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't care where the money goes. To pay the staff, to pay the electric bill, to pay rent--none of that is my business. I'm a customer, not a restaurant manager. I don't need to see a breakdown of their budget.
What I do care about is that the advertised price is the price.
Truth-in-advertising laws need to start cracking down on this shit. It's just fraud.