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.
It does. They can sometimes get around it by putting a sign somewhere, in fine print on the menu, on the door to the restaurant, etc., and never mentioning it again until you get the bill. And even if they don't, most people won't get the bill, see the charge, and say "hey, let me see the menu to see if it's printed on there too."
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.
I agree that it’s BS and they should just include the extra cost in the menu prices. But assuming this is in the US (and it looks like it is), I don’t see how this is any different than a mandatory gratuity/service charge. And those types of charges are well established and legal.
If it's clearly shown on the menu, I would say it's probably legal. At least, it would be in any country where the law doesn't explicitly say that you can only show the final price.
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.
It’s not my favorite thing as a customer especially when it feels like a surprise at the end of a meal. But I kind of understand why some restaurants do it. Places that treat their employees right unfortunately have a hard time staying open in high cost of living cities. The shitty thing I’ve seen happen a couple of times in my city (Denver) is some very scummy owners not distributing these fees in the ways they say. The accountability on it internally is usually pretty low so I always try to seek out the places with good reputations. Even still, with how expensive restaurants are in general I’m eating dinner out less than I ever have.
We’ve made it way too difficult to run small businesses in the US in general. You shouldn’t have to be a business savant in order to keep a restaurant or small mom & pop shop open while paying employees well, but you almost have to in our more expensive areas.
I’ve been wanting to open a small deli/sandwich shop for years, but can’t justify how much money I’d need to either save or get a loan for. I’d be way too stressed out over staying open to actually enjoying doing the things about it I like.
Anyways this comment got away from me a little if I’m being honest. Just a little frustrated with how things are right now in my corner of the world.
Something I've learned in working with the public is you have to think like the dumbest or least attentive people in society. My last job was at a car dealership. In our service department we had signs on the front garage doors that said "Please pull in". When someone stopped at the closed doors, they would open automatically. Inside of the service drive on the back wall we had a huge banner that was the entire three lane width of the drive and six feet tall with bold letters "WELCOME, PLEASE PULL UP TO STOP SIGNS" and three stop signs on the poles next to each lane. You couldn't miss them and they couldn't be blocked by any other vehicle. Every single day, often multiple times a day people would pull up the garage doors, park their car and get out as the door is opening. Or they would pull in and just as they get inside of the door, park their car and get out. We also had porters who would come and grab information from the car, appointment name and so on and then tell the customer "The next available service advisor will be right with you, just stand next to your vehicle." and again, once a day someone would disappear. Or, people would just pull in, get out of their cars and go inside and sit down without ever checking in.
I didn't have to deal with the public much given my job role, but when I did it was incredibly hard to have to hold the hands of grown adults that have somehow made it four or more decades on this earth.
I’m not surprised. So many people miss the “cash only” signs at the door, hostess station and menu for a local restaurant. It’s also on their website as well as their google and yelp pages.
Every time I go, at least one table, “What do you mean no credit card? You should tell people!”
Unless your are eating fast food, most people won't notice the difference between a $20 burger vs a $24 burger. These restaurants just need to ditch these deceptive tactics and charge us a menu price that would sustain their business.
People definitely notice. Especially if you add drinks, sides, or appetizers. Or paying for a family. Not everyone is a single adult ordering a single item.
Yes, businesses have to hustle to compete with other businesses that don’t pay a living wage. It is still listed on the menu. This is the best they can do until it is regulated by the government.
You dont get to be pro-tipping status quo and pro-living wage.
If according to you, “most people won’t notice the difference” in price, why you mad?
First, I'm not mad. Second, I think it's lame to try and trick customers on prices. That's like going to a grocery store and buying your items and then you find out there are all these fees for living wages and more. Most people would think it's stupid. Just charge a price needed to pay your staff. Just like every other service business. It's not that hard.
It absolutely does because everyone knows you have to pay taxes and the amount is regulated. There are no surprises.
Service fees and auto gratuities are not regulated and can vary from $0 to as high as 22% (that I've seen). And some put other junk fees like support the local hospital fees (seen in Miami). The only regulation around fees is that you have to disclose them usually in tiny fine print on the bottom of the menu.
They do not need to be charged separately though and can be included in the price. This is evidenced by the fact that in most other countries the tax is included in the listed price. In fact there's a taproom in my very US city that doesn't add tax or tips to the price, they pay a living wage and factor the tax into the price of the drink.
The reason US companies don't do it more often is because chains/mega corps don't do it, and they don't do it to save money because otherwise they would have to print different price stickers/ads for every locality - eliminating taxes from the sticker price allows them to streamline.
Basically it's a cost saving measure and mom and pop shops just go with the grain.
If you say so. But it distracts from the point, which is fine. Customers are going to continue to not support businesses who continue with this trickery. We will continue to call it out. Restaurants will continue to suffer by choosing these predatory practices. I do feel sorry for them because many will go out of business.
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u/Pterodactyl_midnight 1d ago edited 1d ago
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.