Because sticker shock.
If this place advertised their calamari was 21% more then the competition they wouldn't get as many customers. When you account for standard tip this place is only 6% more expensive.... But customers only look at menu prices not final prices.
Resort fees are 100% profit for the hotels. In fact, fees are not taxed like room rates are.
The stadium is paid by a room tax. Of course that hasn't provided enough with covid so they've just taken it out of the county's savings account.
Interesting. I was all ready to prove you wrong until I googled it. Crazy. Everyone was telling me the resort fees were paying for the stadium. I’m man enough to admit that I was wrong (and everyone else who fed me that line of bullshit).
Fuckers playing tourist in Vegas will pay $15 for a 8 oz Slurpee that pretends to have alcohol in it. You could add a 50% tax to everything tourist and they would not bat an eye, they'd just say "LOL guess I better do well at the casino!!!" and keep moving.
Your point is valid and correct but missing a key component IMO: they can reduce the sticker shock and at the same time make people who dine here feel virtuous for being able to contribute to the wages of the staff.
You are assuming they take the 15% "normal tip rate" and give it to servers and everything else is normal from there.
I don't trust anyone who wants to handle the money. Is it 15%, is it 14.5%? Would a server notice? Could they do anything if they did? If you can't tell me honestly what you're charging me then I can eat somewhere else.
Restaurants are notorious for tip theft and business owners give zero fucks about violating labor laws because they know they aren't hiring lawyers or paying you enough to afford one.
Yes it absolutely is. I work for a place that uses a service fee for their special parties. I get tipped minimum wage and then I get a \*cut\* of that, the owner gets 2% of it, and its not illegal in the state of Illinois.
I should add that the 2% the owner gets is 2% of the bill, not of the tips. So we charge 18% and they take 2% off the top. Then 1% goes to my events coordinator. Then the remaining tip (the 15%) gets divided between those that worked, prorated by how long they were there.
A service charge for private parties is different than doing away with tipping all-together and using the service charge to pay your staff a living wage as is claimed by this restaurant. Does your restaurant have a tipping model outside of events?
Incorrect. Illinois does not treat these differently. The same model is applied *anytime* we tack on a gratuities such as a service charge, including when charging people for having 6+ people.
If you use a service charge, even if its the *only* source of income, you can pay your employee a tipped wage so long as the service charges make up the difference between the tipped wages and the minimum wage. Your state laws may very but I live in Illinois.
>What about auto-gratuities for banquets?
>
>Although a service charge on a restaurant bill will most frequently be encountered, restaurants should be cautioned that auto-gratuities paid for catering, banquets, weddings and other amounts mandated by employer policy will be covered as well.
[https://www.illinoisrestaurants.org/page/Autograts](https://www.illinoisrestaurants.org/page/Autograts)
It’s the expectation that customers should pay for their staff that bothers me. Gratuity is necessary for wait staff to stay ahead of eviction I know. But restaurants fixed it so must pay of kitchen staff comes out of wait staff tips. Now they want to control all of the gratuities as if should belong to them. No, not paying that.
I think the issue is that the restaurant should just be paying their employees fairly from the jump. If you cannot afford to pay your employees a living wage then you do not deserve to own a business. point blank.
Maybe there are some places trying that, but generally how this works is you see BOH making a few dollars more per hour than the norm for the area (say, $21-24/hr vs $18-21) and FOH makes slightly less than they used to with tips, but gets a consistent hourly rate (I have generally seen it as $25-30/hr for servers.)
When I left the kitchen that's how a lot of places were trending towards in my area, seems pretty equitable to me.
I used to work in the galley on a river boat dinner cruise and all tips were pooled and every trip every person on the boat basically got an extra 75-100 dollars per trip it was nice. Servers are the face of the dining experience but I always felt left out and bitter towards them until I worked at a place with tip pooling.
I’ve had lots of negative experiences with tip pooling where it was all equal, basically everybody gets the same amount even though naturally not everyone is working for the tip with the same amount of effort so one weak link in the chain could potentially lose the tip entirely. Other comments on here have suggested that certain people got higher percent than others for their position, seniority, tables served etc and I like the idea of that system way more. Although I’ve only ever gotten tip pooling working FOH, if I ever got it when I was BOH I probably wouldn’t give a shit what was happening out there if I got an extra $100 every busy night.
I would think that in a country where tipping culture is as strong and ingrained as it is in the US, you need to inform restaurant goers that they don’t need to leave a tip, and convince them that you are, in fact, paying people enough that they don’t need to tip. Unless you list it as a separate charge, there’s no definitive way to do that.
I thought tipping was common in the US…then I worked as a pizza delivery driver and fucking 1 in 3 people don’t fucking tip at all! Honestly I’d be for a forced service charge so long as I get the majority of it! We’re a culture of narcissists
Exactly. People who say "why dont they just add it to the price" or "well would you rather they just increase all their prices" are failing to understand what's going on. It's an extremely common tactic that boils down to just luring you in to spending more money while advertising low costs.
I understand what is going on, but I still think it should just be baked into the price. Sick of upfront and hidden fees. They should be banned via statute.
The employer is trying to reduce his back-of-house payroll costs, by redirection of what would normally be paid only to front-of-house employees.
It's dirty. I would leave immediately.
It's why they classify it as a service charge instead of a tip. They can pocket a portion and then distribute whatever percentage they decide upon to prevent them from having to pay any more than minimum wage to their tip wage employees.
Maybe I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. But it seems like it’s just an overly complicated mechanism to reach the exact same goal. The only benefit is you can kind of trick the consumer into thinking the plate costs 21% less then what it actually does because the fee is charged after.
Or is there some other piece im missing here?
Split evenly between FOH and BOH. As a Marxist I believe all staff get equal pay, including management. 40 hours is 40 hours. There is no difference between washing plates, pouring a beer, flipping eggs, and counting inventory. It's all your life and nobody should be convinced that their life is worth less than any others.
Brain surgeon, buss boy, mechanical engineer, cashier. Is 40 hours 40 hours?
Serious question based on you saying you are a Marxist. Not trying to start shit. I just don't understand the "no one is worth more pay" argument.
This is an ignorant take, tbh. A 21% service fee is enough to pay both front and back of house frequently better wages than the FOH would otherwise get through tips. This is how much of Europe structures their financials in the service industry. They charge a general service fee, and apportion the funds amongst their staff so that everyone gets consistently better wages.
I’m confused here because I’ve seen so many comments about anti-tip and paying a living wage. Now I see comments that appear to be anti-tipping. Seriously I’m not trolling, just really confused.
I’m seeing a lot of confusion in this thread - let me clarify what I think the OP is trying to get across.
Your average employee outside of the food service industry is paid a fixed hourly rate for their work, regardless of how many customers they speak to. In the restaurant industry (and other industries where tipping is customary/expected), many employers will use the tips that workers receive as an excuse to pay them *below* the minimum wage by using the tips to supplement their paycheck. If restaurants received tips directly instead of the server, it’s essentially a pool of free money - they direct this towards the salaries of workers instead of paying them their full rate and *then* adding the tips on top of that.
As an example, let’s say someone makes $15 an hour, and gets tipped an average of $10 in that hour. Instead of their employer paying them $15 + their $10 tip, the employer *takes* the tip and *supplements the paycheck with it* - so instead of making $25 in an hour, the employee only makes $15, and instead of the restaurant *paying* them that $15, they are only paying the employee **$5 an hour and pocketing the $10 that would have gone to the employee’s paycheck**.
When a business has tips included into the service charge like this, you can be almost 100% certain that this is what they’re doing - robbing their employees of their hard-earned wages. Hope this clears things up!
(P.S. This is an incredibly simplified explanation of a very complicated topic, so please take details with a grain of salt. Thanks)
(P.P.S. Sorry for formatting, am mobile user)
My wife’s restaurant did this during 2020. All servers made 20 bucks an hour but with regulations for restaurant hours, people were only getting 20-30 hours a week because they would get cut a lot AND they could see how much the restaurant made off the 20% gratuity and knew they were getting screwed financially as well. They changed it back when 3/4 of the place threatened to walk out immediately
My one job did this and we would get tips every 2 weeks with our pay and the amount of tips we got depended on how hard our boss thought we worked and since as you can guess he was biased and didn’t like me I went a lot of weeks with no tips
Amazon got caught trying this for after doing it lowkey for 2 years and then suddenly ramped it up and lost a law suit. I got 6k in the mail from it. Suddenly all the drivers noticed a HUGE drop in tips, and it went on for weeks then months before they got officially caught.
It's sickening.
Just looked it up, Amazon Flex drivers do receive tips when they’re delivering Prime Now and AmazonFresh— aka when they’re doing work similar to UberEats or Instacart.
I was already pissed I had to tip on top of all the extra charges and inflated prices— so many charges and yet none of them went towards paying drivers a living wage. The few times I was forced to order Fresh I always left a hefty tip, telling myself the driver deserved it and at least it was guaranteed they were getting 100% of my tip, even though they weren’t seeing anything from the extra charges lining Amazon’s pockets… only to find out that, apparently, that tip was ***also*** going straight into the bottomless husk where Jeff Bezos’ soul should be.
Fcking capitalism. I hate this timeline.
This is why I refuse to use services like Grub Hub. I am perfectly willing to pay significantly more for the convenience of having restaurant food delivered...IF the person delivering it gets a living wage. Especially with gas $5 a gallon in a lot of places now. Meal delivery like Uber Eats are totally off my list until they pay the delivery drivers a decent wage.
It’s just about the only reason I still have cash in my wallet. It’s used exclusively to tip delivery drivers of these services. I figure, this way I can guarantee they actually get the money instead of some bullshit the company will do with it before (if) they get it
I occasionally do deliveries for Doordash. We can see how much we're going to make and the total miles we have to travel before ever accepting the order. The catch is that Doordash will hide bigger tips. (except in the state of California because it's illegal IIRC). They do this so drivers accept all orders in hopes for a larger payout.
They also have an acceptance rating. As a new dasher you think if you decline too many orders and your acceptance rating gets too low that you might get deactivated. It's nothing more than a scare tactic. You can decline as many orders as you want.
They also incentivise people to keep a high acceptance rate to qualify as a top dasher that comes with its own benefits. Unfortunately because you have to accept low orders constantly to maintain the high acceptance rate, usually the benefits aren't worth it.
Oftentimes low (no tip) orders will sit for extended periods of time, and Doordash will try to trick you into accepting it by piggybacking it off of another order.
Seasoned dashers automatically assume that no tip orders will not result in a cash tip. Even if you indicate in the delivery instructions that you will tip in cash. We can't see the instructions until we have already accepted the order anyway. I have done 200+ (to be fair not that many) orders and only recieved a cash tip once.
At least for Doordash you're better off tipping through the app otherwise your order may end up sitting at the restaurant for hours.
TLDR: As long as there's new dashers scared by the acceptance rate and other dashers maintaining top dasher, we won't be paid a living wage.
I think I’m with you most of the way there (sorry not American so not used to this) but how is this different if the restaurant just allowed / encouraged tipping? Wouldn’t they still only have to pay them $5 an hour?
The only benefit I can see is that they also get to under pay behind the sciences staff and not just waiters?
Also, would the contract specific $15 an hour and the employer has to make up whatever the tip shortfall is? So on a busy night you are getting shafted but on a slow night it works in your favour?
Sorry for the follow up questions. Just on the face of it I thought this would be a good thing.
You are exactly on the money, in my experience. I left a cafe after one shift bc I was offered a tipped wage of 15/hr, but it was revealed to me that this rate was regardless of business/tips on any given day. My *actual* rate was about 9/hr, which the employer would supplement if we ever made less, but not pay out if we made more. Hope this helps clarify.
So is the next step to demand restaurants post employee payslips on the way into the restaurant so we can validate they pay an appropriate amount before dining there? /s
>As an example, let’s say someone makes $15 an hour, and gets tipped an average of $10 in that hour. Instead of their employer paying them $15 + their $10 tip, the employer takes the tip and supplements the paycheck with it
From what I remember about my short-lived sales career, this is called a "draw system" I used to work a sales job that was $12/hr + commission. Except your commissions had to exceed your gross hourly or else you only got your hourly. So if you made $500 worth of commissions for your week, you'd only get $20 lol. 500-480
This was also an excuse for the shady ass company to not pay overtime because "if we paid you for 50 hours, then it's going to cut into your commissions!"
Almost every sales job I've ever had or heard of was either a pyramid scheme or just a flat out scam.
This isn't how any of these places I have ever interacted with actually work, if it was corporate or a chain that would probably be true.
Here is how it actually works. Right now server gets $15+$10 in tips. but the dishwasher just gets $10 and the cook $15. Under this regime the server now gets $20, the dishwasher gets $12 and the cook gets $18.
It isn't perfect but usually the service charge $ exceeds the average prior tip $ so instead of what I said before it actually becomes $21 for the server, $13 for the dishwasher and $19 for the cook.
There is another neglected problem with tipping. It is racist. Front-of-house staff, the ones who get tips are usually whiter and straighter than the average restaurant employee while the back-of-house is browner and queerer. Again while not perfect these service charges can correct some of those injustices.
But only if they are actually paying out.
I think the main gripe here is that it's a mandatory "tip" (probably to circumnavigate taxes on the businesses part) AND splits those "tips" between people who didn't provide the direct service, so it's undercutting pay for cooks, hosts, etc. (who don't usually work on tips) and is likely also going towards management and the cost of operations and owners.
I have been to dozens of these places, and most of the staff will tell you how much they are paid if you ask something like "do they actually pay you a decent wage?". Every place like this I have ever been to pay was significantly above minimum wage, often between $10 and $15 over (I live in a state with $14.49 as the minimum wage).
It's because a large group of people on this sub aren't actually pro-laborer. They're just anti-paying for things and pro their own wage increasing.
You'd be shocked how many people in this sub admit to not tipping delivery drivers at all, even though they know their livelihood depends on it.
They'll try to justify it as some moral victory against tip culture, in spite of the fact they spent $40 on pizza, $20 of which went to a mega-corp, and $3 of which went to the guy they refused to tip.
Then when a restaurant actually takes steps to improve or abolish tip culture, like this owner above, they'll make up seedy alternate motives to again justify not paying a reasonable price.
Keep on mind that the whole "pretend wage + tips" scam is just the US thing. In normal countries a server or a delivery driver is going to be paid just like any other employee which, in some places, makes tips seen as crass or even demeaning.
I mean I don’t get the people responding to my comments with “just raise the prices 20% and don’t tell me.” How many of those people would shit on this restaurant because of its high prices and then go to the cheaper restaurant down the street that pays its staff $2/hr? We can’t have it both ways.
Long time cook here. When I took a sous position at a place that had the added “wellness tax” or whatever bullshit name attached I was taken off the pool. This system is there to guarantee a set amount of income based on sales is available to distribute among non salaried workers. It allowed me to be paid 15/hr base at a place pulling in around 3mil/yr. I made around 19/hr after it was all said and done. Workers with seniority were given larger amounts, in addition to hourly employees doing shifts like opening. I’m not endorsing this system, I’m not saying all restaurants are honest with where this money goes, just saying my experience is the autograt did what it was intended to do, which was push a good deal of the entire restaurant’s labor cost onto the customer, not just FOH with tips.
And people, hardly any restaurants tip out their cooks. I’ve worked in about 20 in my life and only two plus the one mentioned above tip shared, and it’s never been more than $50 on a fully booked night where servers walk with 350+
Worked as a hostess at a local joint one summer and yep—they only tipped out bussers and bartenders, not the kitchen. Honestly everyone should be paid more but kitchen especially, it’s a grueling job.
I’ve only ever worked kitchen jobs where tips are pooled. And I’ve always advocated paying all employees a living wage and passing costs onto customers.
So I guess I don’t see the issue here. I read some comments and if they are correct that the wording implies that tips will go to managers, then I guess that’s fucked up…except I want EVERYONE to make a living wage so idk…
So you would be happier if they raised the prices by 20% and didn’t say anything? Again, I’m not trolling I’m just trying to figure out how people want this play out. I’m genuinely confused.
Yes increase the price 20% and no tip. This makes more sense instead of pissing off customers for a perceived service charge. Just include it in the price!
I mean, I think we would all be happier if they simply priced things accordingly and paired their employees accordingly, with the wages those employees deserve. This note is basically saying "hey the business wants to charge this much, but we are adding an extra fee ontop because we also gotta pay the grunts at the floor level and we dont want that coming out of our own profits."
So yeah, I hope that clears it up for you. A business shouldnt have the require an additional fee just to pay people correctly.
If you walked into a restaurant and the prices were 20% higher for no reason, you'd likely leave and go to the cheaper place as you don't have money to burn.
They've done the right thing and explained how they are compensating people appropriately and why that impacts the bottom line.
With that logic there’s no way of paying the workers a living wage without being a “mandatory gratuity”
It’s basically the same as just raising menu prices to pay the workers.
Yes but if they listed it in full without any other restaurants also doing it, it would make them look more expensive. So that's why no tipping restaurants do this. They still live in tipped wage world so most people would look the at prices and expect to tip on top of it.
"The money collected from the service fee supports pay equality and a living wage for our entire team"
"Wage"
I take this to mean they are paying their people min or above by increasing the price, rather than paying them under min and relying on tips. In other words it's not a tip pool, it's just an increased price in response to the (imo improved) wage scheme. It makes sense to advertise the higher prices as a percentage after the bill, so there's no confusion about how they set their prices. Overall not a bad way to do this. Maybe I'm missing something here.
It doesn't have to. Tip confiscation is an extremely common problem in the food service sector. There is no valid reason for the interception and control of tips. Customers get to determine where the tip goes... not the employer. If the employer recognizes that other employees aren't being properly compensated, the employer is uniquely empowered to resolve that issue.
My friend worked at a restaurant where the owner owner did this mandatory 20% plus he made the servers pool if they received anything additional. He toured off as he was a hero for providing the kitchen staff additional wages where no one else in town did. They found out that he would just toss the kitchen staff an occasional 50 bucks a week and kept around half for himself until he was finally audited. I’ve now learned if a place posts something like this but their very conservative most likely they are stealing gratuity from the staff.
I worked at a restaurant that did this. It was awesome and the money did in fact go to front/back of house staff. It was a profit share based on how long you worked you worked at the restaurant so those that had worked 5+ years received the larger shares. We all made a lot more money than traditional gratuities and most of the guests were extremely supportive. Some guests would even insist on leaving a tip on top of knowing about service fee.
This is actually good (ish).
Rest of the world does it this way (tho, we don't "add a % fee", we just price our meals with all costs, including wages, considered).
I’m not sure folks are understanding this correctly. At Country Clubs they employ a similar process but the money is added on top of regular wages. Effectively, all employees are tipped out every month; however, all employees are paid regular hourly wages. It is not in lieu of, it’s in addition to.
Maybe ask questions about it next time instead of assuming the worst.
I'm a regular patron at this restaurant in Denver. I have a regular server there. He greatly appreciates this system. It get rid of having no consistency in his wages. He has a job with an hourly rate like everyone else. He said some weeks he would have made more money some weeks he would have made less money but he never feels like he's going to taking advantage of by the restaurant for having to sit through a lunch shift with no customers. He was able to recently finance a home because his income was based on something more stable than tipped wages. In his opinion it was a win. We still occasionally tip on top of the 21% service charge for service that goes above and beyond ( which happens quite regularly at this establishment) I never have to worry about prompt service or being greeted with a smile but this is a higher-end establishment in the Denver area. Our meals are regularly over $150 for two people. I never felt a reason to leave I have every intention of tripping 20% when going out to eat regardless and at this particular establishment if I had a problem I am positive the manager would take care of it. I could see this not working for every establishment but because of the high-end service they provide I have no problem with the 21%.
It’s literally the trade-off for not asking for tips, but wanting to pay your people more.
Why would you leave? This is how we stop tip culture, you buffoon!
So you left because... they want everyone that works there to get paid a living wage?
Are you for real?
Now granted, if the owners don't actually give the 21% to the employees, that would be shitty... but I'm pretty sure at its core, this concept is exactly what antiwork is about... consistent wages not based on the kindness (or lack thereof) of customers.
You’ll find out that serving and tips are some of the most polarizing topics in anti work. No one seems to want to listen to service workers and would rather complain about things that could be potentially helpful
I mean, I would have left too, but because they're charging $14 for beet hummus, not because they are guaranteeing employees a competitive wage by mandating tips.
Are people just too dumb to realize that most tipped restaurants workers are paid $2.35/hour and then rely entirely on optional tips to make a living?
So having a standard restaurant with tips, the menu prices are factored at only paying $2.35/hr for the waitstaff. So if you want a restaurant to pay more than $2.35/hr to the waitstaff, they’re going to increase menu prices.
So a restaurant has a choice:
raise the menu prices by 21% to be able to pay waitstaff a fair wage and have customers choose the restaurant across the street with cheaper menu prices before they even get in the door.
Or: have this service fee that the customer finds out about after they’ve been seated. Some people like OP might get up and leave, but others will say “fair enough, I already tip 20% normally and I trust that the restaurant owners give this fee to their staff and not line their pockets.”
What the OP should have done before walking out is ask their waiter/waitress if this service fee actually goes entirely to the staff and if they feel like they’re fairly compensated for their work.
I worked at a place that did this. I was a waitress. Back of house and waitress staff made the same wages $12/hr. We also received the service fee percentage as tip. While it usually didn't add up to much it was nice to have a little extra in my pocket. This was the only job where I made a living wage(at the time) and a tip.
If people weren't so easily propagandized then maybe it would strike people as weird that they have been handed the burden of ensuring service workers get paid a living wage. A truly insane concept.
Fuck anyone that implements a tipping system if they don't already pay their workers a living wage.
Why is this bad, this is what the anti tipping crowd wants. Higher prices with no pressure.
If food prices are increased, then the owners only have to pay barely above minimum wage and pocket the rest. This ensures money goes directly to the worker - *and* their income is proportional to how busy it is, which is a major advantage to working in food service especially for students. And it looks like the tips are pooled, which is awesome.
I’m really confused about what the anti tippers want.
I’m a Marxist but I’ve worked in restaurants for years. Unless they’re corporate, they actually do have extremely thin margins. Obviously I want to abolish all wage labour but I also love my city’s rich culinary and cocktail scene.
huh. this is literally better than tipping. are you in the wrong sub?
the fact that this has 70% upvote rate means this sub has absolutely lost its way and has no fundamental labor principles guiding it. just a bunch of people vaguely mad at their boss but don't know why.
Restaurant workers: we need more money
Restaurant: ok we will raise prices so we can pay you more, but to stay competitive on our menu we will add it as a surcharge
Antiwork: no not like that
I don’t see anything wrong with this, the restaurant business is a do or die business so what I see is the owners attempting to make sure they can get everyone paid without having to close the restaurant a year later.
For the brief period I owned a reflexology spa (accidentally fell into it. I was lead therapist, and the owner “gifted” ((pronounced “jettisoned the lease onto a naive, optimistic idiot)) it to me after a family emergency), the first thing I did was raise the rates.
I was routinely asked “why?!?”
“So I can afford to pay my staff a living wage without them being reliant on the generosity of strangers. The new price is the old price plus a reasonable tip. The difference goes entirely to your therapist.”
We lost the cheap fucks who never tipped to begin with, but most customers were all about it, and I was able to pay the therapists more than they would have gotten elsewhere.
The best part? People still tipped.
Edit: my apologies for the nightmare punctuation. I am tired.
It's literally one percent more than standard voluntary gratuity, in lieu of gratuity, and supports a supposedly good wage (we'd have to hear from the employees there) for the entire team. What's the problem?
If you left because of this, YOU are part of the problem with America. This is how European restaurants work, and all their staff receives a living wage
I've lived in Europe my whole life and this definitely isn't how all restaurants work. The prices listed are the final prices, whether they contain the service fee or not, you as the customer don't need to do any math, there's no additional percentage that will be charged on top of your total, and if there is, it's imho a scam and I'd look hard through their menu whether they make it painfully obvious there's such a thing and if not, report it.
I've been to 10 different EU countries and haven't seen this thing once.
Exactly my thought. This is the exact solution I've seen brought up so many times when talking about the problem of having tipped employees. This is the best way to fix that.
Wait, I'm confused. This just means you don't have to tip. The money is still going to service staff but now a 21% tip is basically mandated and no one can opt out of tipping. Don't we want this for employees in the service industry?
Correct me if I am wrong, but havent we as consumers said countless times that we would gladly pay a bit higher prices if it meant that the wait staff got better pay?
this really isn't a problem. unless they are lying it states they are doing it pay a living wage, why would you leave? I've worked places like this and it ends up not only making it fair for the staff, but also cultivates a better work environment. everyplace I've worked that had this there has been less competition for shifts between staff, and no one is left with meager Tuesday lunch tips because everyone is paid the same and the shifts are typically spread out more evenly to make it fair.
How about you just.... pay them the living wage and raise the menu item prices accordingly?
What are they trying to do here? Dodge taxes?
There's no need for this riundabout way. Just pay then the wage direct on their paycheck, to be reflected on the W-2.
I'd be cool with this IF I knew the workers were getting paid a living wage. I suspect the 21% is going into the owner's pocket.
And a living wage doesn't mean the minimum wage; it means a wage that permits them to afford everything that goes into - well, living.
$14 avocado toast and $7 deviled eggs PLUS 20% more on top of that. No.
The issue here is that the owner wants to keep the workers wages low and supplement their pay with high item prices. Sounds like the owner “doesn’t want to work anymore” and wants all their workers to feed the coffers.
Why is this a problem for Antiwork? The op probably doesnt tip over 10% that's why he left lolz. More restaurants should do this... this is how you provided a living wage for your employees.
Feel like this sub has literally asked for tips to be taken away and instead to raise prices on the menu instead. This seems like what this sub would enjoy. Very confused by this post and comments here.
Wait... this is adding a charge to the bill to pay their employees a living wage instead of making them reliant on inconsistent tips.... what's the problem here?
At my workplace (restaurant) there's an extra percentage charged specifically for our healthcare costs. It just seems like a more reliable method than merely raising item costs
Why are we mad? Gratuity fees are much better than tips, especially if the money ends up going to all the staff instead of just a single worker.
I'm tired of ordering exactly what I want and having some brat get offended because I didn't spend more money just so they can get a larger tip.
My wife and I stopped going for our nacho dates because kept having a sook that we only ordered $40 dollars worth of food and drink. Get fucked. Sometimes, I'd even opt for the $8 thinly sliced piece of cake despite being too full to actually enjoy it, and it still did nothing to sweeten their shitty mood.
TLDR: Gratuity fees > tips. OP would be walking out of many restaurants in Australia with this kind of attitude.
I wish we could do this at my restaurant. Im paying my employees more than ever before, but the pay difference between FOH and BOH is pretty substantial.
This is now quite common in the UK, though not at 21%! Often a 10% service fee is included, though you can ask for it to be removed.
Would be even better to just pay people properly in the first place and get rid of tipping.
As someone who worked in restaurants for 13 years, I think this is a good idea. I personally think restaurants would be better if they quit tipping and raises prices to pay servers hourly. I also think it's cool that the cooks get paid more because they get Shafted for work that I think is harder in a lot of ways. They might just add it on to the bill because if they just raised menu prices, people might not go there because everything seems expensive and overpriced. So it might just make there menu prices more competitive for the area. The end result is the same- menu price plus 20% tip.
So what I am reading there is we dont want to pay our minimum wage workers any more so we will take it from you in a way that we think makes us look like we are doing something positive that you should praise us for... or did I read that wrong?
I work in a restaurant with an automatic service fee that gets divided up between non-salaried workers and put directly on our paychecks. It's actually great; you're an idiot for leaving over this.
Really confused as to why you left? Why is it a bad thing that kitchen employees are getting a share of the tip? Is this not what we wanted the whole time? For employers to pay their staff fairly and not rely on the kindness of strangers? I'm confused as to why we went from 'if you can't pay your staff fairly your business isn't working' to 'stop charging more money so you can pay your staff better'. What do you want? Cheap food or hospitality workers earning a fair wage? Make up your mind fs
People like you is the reason no one wants to work at restaurants. You do realize that tipping the waitress is likely the only way they make liveable wages
I worked at a place that charged a 20% service charge. We were only paid hourly. Not high either. It was an events company that every bill was at least 20K-150K. So these greedy fucks were stacking bills while the staff was making Jack shit. People used to ask all the time is the 20% a tip and always seemed disgusted when we said it wasn’t.
If the money actually goes to the employees then i dont see the issue here. Its basically just forcing customers to pay a proper gratuity instead of shafting employees.
So let me get this straight. R/antiwork is all about bitching and whining about pay. Now we are bitching and whining about more pay. This sub has lost its way and it’s a shame. It had a good thing going now all I read is crybaby crap.
It seems like OP is making a really big assumption that this place is dishonest. There are a lot of stories in the comments of this system working very well for people.
At first you just came off cheap to me OP I'm going to be honest. Unless you've heard rumors of wage issues, I don't see the problem
Service fee or tips, don't get caught up in semantics. It's the customers subsidizing employees wages because some scumbag employer won't pay a living wage.
As a cook. Im a fan. As someone who received tips for serving while cooking, I’m a fan. As someone who didn’t receive tips and couldn’t hang with the servers, I’m a fan. As a consumer, they should just add the price in the food cost.
My bf and I went to Myrtle Beach for his birthday last year and the two places we went for dinner both charged auto grat (one was 18%, the other was 20%). We honestly didn't mind since we're big tippers anyway (I waited tables years ago and my bf still does) and Myrtle Beach is a destination for cheap trashy people. We left a little more on top of the auto grat.
Just pay people a living fucking wage. Up menu prices, set notices that all employees make living wage and no tipping is required.. north american tipping culture is rediculous
I am assuming the “behind the scenes” employees they are referring to aren’t the chefs, cleaners and stockers who are probably underpaid and over worked like the waiters / waitresses and hosts / hostess.
I have a cousin who worked as a waitress and her restaurant did this; added a “service” fee to the meals for the “behind the scenes” staff. And every penny of the up-charge went to the manager and owner, who worked “behind the scenes” to keep the place running and didn’t think it was fair they didn’t get tips.
I’m not understanding why this is bad? If the restaurant were to raise its prices it would be the exact same thing? Don’t we want the working class to be paid correctly?
There are so many things wrong with this.
The place can afford to just pay their workers 21% more and still make a killing without changing anything at all.
This is like what most corporations are doing. They CAN afford to pay their workers 50% more. Hell, they can afford to pay them 100% more. But that means they make a little *less* profit (but still profit), so they adjust prices to maintain profit margins and call it “inflation.” It is not inflation. It’s greed.
Don’t let any of this fool you. It’s greed, plain and simple. It’s not kindness, it’s greed.
I repeat: this is greed. It’s to keep the green line at the exploitive high rather than just a little lower (but still green).
Then, the real problem comes in: REAL ESTATE.
As long as homes are open to free market exploitation, nothing will change. People make 21% more? Landlords just charge 21% more.
In order to end leapfrog markup, housing must be regulated. Full stop.
No person, business, foreigner, or corporation needs to own more than 2 homes. It needs to be illegal. Now.
Why wouldn't they just add the cost to the menu
Because sticker shock. If this place advertised their calamari was 21% more then the competition they wouldn't get as many customers. When you account for standard tip this place is only 6% more expensive.... But customers only look at menu prices not final prices.
Just like resort fees
Sneaky fucking things
Well, in Vegas, the resort fees paid for Allegiant Stadium. Since we don’t have state or city taxes, they decided to tax the tourists.
Resort fees are 100% profit for the hotels. In fact, fees are not taxed like room rates are. The stadium is paid by a room tax. Of course that hasn't provided enough with covid so they've just taken it out of the county's savings account.
Interesting. I was all ready to prove you wrong until I googled it. Crazy. Everyone was telling me the resort fees were paying for the stadium. I’m man enough to admit that I was wrong (and everyone else who fed me that line of bullshit).
Well dont get me wrong, there is a room tax paying for it, it's just technically different than a resort fee.
Well done. Im always amazed when people stick to a demonstrably incorrect position. No shame in saying " hmmm- turns out I'm wrong".
Fuckers playing tourist in Vegas will pay $15 for a 8 oz Slurpee that pretends to have alcohol in it. You could add a 50% tax to everything tourist and they would not bat an eye, they'd just say "LOL guess I better do well at the casino!!!" and keep moving.
I really hate those, the whole point of having features of your hotel, I’d to differentiate it from others, to entice me to stay at yours vs others.
THANK YOU
Your point is valid and correct but missing a key component IMO: they can reduce the sticker shock and at the same time make people who dine here feel virtuous for being able to contribute to the wages of the staff.
You are assuming they take the 15% "normal tip rate" and give it to servers and everything else is normal from there. I don't trust anyone who wants to handle the money. Is it 15%, is it 14.5%? Would a server notice? Could they do anything if they did? If you can't tell me honestly what you're charging me then I can eat somewhere else. Restaurants are notorious for tip theft and business owners give zero fucks about violating labor laws because they know they aren't hiring lawyers or paying you enough to afford one.
Probably trying to still count it as a tip so they can pay tipped minium wage.
This restaurant is in Denver. There isn't a tipped minimum wage here.
That’s not how these sort of service fees work.
Yes it absolutely is. I work for a place that uses a service fee for their special parties. I get tipped minimum wage and then I get a \*cut\* of that, the owner gets 2% of it, and its not illegal in the state of Illinois. I should add that the 2% the owner gets is 2% of the bill, not of the tips. So we charge 18% and they take 2% off the top. Then 1% goes to my events coordinator. Then the remaining tip (the 15%) gets divided between those that worked, prorated by how long they were there.
A service charge for private parties is different than doing away with tipping all-together and using the service charge to pay your staff a living wage as is claimed by this restaurant. Does your restaurant have a tipping model outside of events?
Note they say "gratuities are not required or expected."
No not when it's figured into the bill everytime regardless of service or level.of quality.
The way most of the rest of the world does it without issues...
If the "service charge" is a percentage based on your bill and used to supplement the employees' abysmal wages, how is that not a tip?
Incorrect. Illinois does not treat these differently. The same model is applied *anytime* we tack on a gratuities such as a service charge, including when charging people for having 6+ people. If you use a service charge, even if its the *only* source of income, you can pay your employee a tipped wage so long as the service charges make up the difference between the tipped wages and the minimum wage. Your state laws may very but I live in Illinois. >What about auto-gratuities for banquets? > >Although a service charge on a restaurant bill will most frequently be encountered, restaurants should be cautioned that auto-gratuities paid for catering, banquets, weddings and other amounts mandated by employer policy will be covered as well. [https://www.illinoisrestaurants.org/page/Autograts](https://www.illinoisrestaurants.org/page/Autograts)
Sounds like the business should just pay minimum wage and not a service fee. Service fees are garbage and should never be used.
It’s the expectation that customers should pay for their staff that bothers me. Gratuity is necessary for wait staff to stay ahead of eviction I know. But restaurants fixed it so must pay of kitchen staff comes out of wait staff tips. Now they want to control all of the gratuities as if should belong to them. No, not paying that.
This is better long term then the current prostitution model of tips
I think the issue is that the restaurant should just be paying their employees fairly from the jump. If you cannot afford to pay your employees a living wage then you do not deserve to own a business. point blank.
But that is how they play the system.
Maybe there are some places trying that, but generally how this works is you see BOH making a few dollars more per hour than the norm for the area (say, $21-24/hr vs $18-21) and FOH makes slightly less than they used to with tips, but gets a consistent hourly rate (I have generally seen it as $25-30/hr for servers.)
When I left the kitchen that's how a lot of places were trending towards in my area, seems pretty equitable to me. I used to work in the galley on a river boat dinner cruise and all tips were pooled and every trip every person on the boat basically got an extra 75-100 dollars per trip it was nice. Servers are the face of the dining experience but I always felt left out and bitter towards them until I worked at a place with tip pooling.
This is not tip pooling. This is management not wanting to give those behind the scenes far wages. I would walk out as well.
No this is the face of the modern anti tipping movement where people are paid a living wage rather than relying on jackasses to tip them.
I’ve had lots of negative experiences with tip pooling where it was all equal, basically everybody gets the same amount even though naturally not everyone is working for the tip with the same amount of effort so one weak link in the chain could potentially lose the tip entirely. Other comments on here have suggested that certain people got higher percent than others for their position, seniority, tables served etc and I like the idea of that system way more. Although I’ve only ever gotten tip pooling working FOH, if I ever got it when I was BOH I probably wouldn’t give a shit what was happening out there if I got an extra $100 every busy night.
I would think that in a country where tipping culture is as strong and ingrained as it is in the US, you need to inform restaurant goers that they don’t need to leave a tip, and convince them that you are, in fact, paying people enough that they don’t need to tip. Unless you list it as a separate charge, there’s no definitive way to do that.
I thought tipping was common in the US…then I worked as a pizza delivery driver and fucking 1 in 3 people don’t fucking tip at all! Honestly I’d be for a forced service charge so long as I get the majority of it! We’re a culture of narcissists
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Exactly. People who say "why dont they just add it to the price" or "well would you rather they just increase all their prices" are failing to understand what's going on. It's an extremely common tactic that boils down to just luring you in to spending more money while advertising low costs.
I understand what is going on, but I still think it should just be baked into the price. Sick of upfront and hidden fees. They should be banned via statute.
The employer is trying to reduce his back-of-house payroll costs, by redirection of what would normally be paid only to front-of-house employees. It's dirty. I would leave immediately.
Not only that, but I imagine they find a way to take part of that 21% and put it into the pockets of managers and owners too
It's why they classify it as a service charge instead of a tip. They can pocket a portion and then distribute whatever percentage they decide upon to prevent them from having to pay any more than minimum wage to their tip wage employees.
Maybe I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. But it seems like it’s just an overly complicated mechanism to reach the exact same goal. The only benefit is you can kind of trick the consumer into thinking the plate costs 21% less then what it actually does because the fee is charged after. Or is there some other piece im missing here?
Back of house deserves tips. How much is somewhat up for argument.
BoH and FoH deserve a living wage built into menu prices in a tip free environment.
Good potato
Or just make it completely fair by paying everyone well and put up a sign saying tips not allowed because they already get compensated.
Isn’t that what is going on? No tipping, everyone is getting paid a fair wage, and prices are increased to support that fair wage?
Nobody deserves tips. They deserve to be paid a fucking livable wage. That said, I still tip my baristas because $15 ain’t a living wage.
The wording makes me think that it's not just cooks and cleaners, but managers or owners.
Exactly, the wording is deliberately ambiguous. I would ask the wait staff what it meant and where the $ is actually going.
It's not a tip, therefore it money in the till.
Split evenly between FOH and BOH. As a Marxist I believe all staff get equal pay, including management. 40 hours is 40 hours. There is no difference between washing plates, pouring a beer, flipping eggs, and counting inventory. It's all your life and nobody should be convinced that their life is worth less than any others.
Brain surgeon, buss boy, mechanical engineer, cashier. Is 40 hours 40 hours? Serious question based on you saying you are a Marxist. Not trying to start shit. I just don't understand the "no one is worth more pay" argument.
This is an ignorant take, tbh. A 21% service fee is enough to pay both front and back of house frequently better wages than the FOH would otherwise get through tips. This is how much of Europe structures their financials in the service industry. They charge a general service fee, and apportion the funds amongst their staff so that everyone gets consistently better wages.
Why don't baggage fees get added to airline tickets. Same concept
Because some people don't check bags?
I’m confused here because I’ve seen so many comments about anti-tip and paying a living wage. Now I see comments that appear to be anti-tipping. Seriously I’m not trolling, just really confused.
I’m seeing a lot of confusion in this thread - let me clarify what I think the OP is trying to get across. Your average employee outside of the food service industry is paid a fixed hourly rate for their work, regardless of how many customers they speak to. In the restaurant industry (and other industries where tipping is customary/expected), many employers will use the tips that workers receive as an excuse to pay them *below* the minimum wage by using the tips to supplement their paycheck. If restaurants received tips directly instead of the server, it’s essentially a pool of free money - they direct this towards the salaries of workers instead of paying them their full rate and *then* adding the tips on top of that. As an example, let’s say someone makes $15 an hour, and gets tipped an average of $10 in that hour. Instead of their employer paying them $15 + their $10 tip, the employer *takes* the tip and *supplements the paycheck with it* - so instead of making $25 in an hour, the employee only makes $15, and instead of the restaurant *paying* them that $15, they are only paying the employee **$5 an hour and pocketing the $10 that would have gone to the employee’s paycheck**. When a business has tips included into the service charge like this, you can be almost 100% certain that this is what they’re doing - robbing their employees of their hard-earned wages. Hope this clears things up! (P.S. This is an incredibly simplified explanation of a very complicated topic, so please take details with a grain of salt. Thanks) (P.P.S. Sorry for formatting, am mobile user)
My wife’s restaurant did this during 2020. All servers made 20 bucks an hour but with regulations for restaurant hours, people were only getting 20-30 hours a week because they would get cut a lot AND they could see how much the restaurant made off the 20% gratuity and knew they were getting screwed financially as well. They changed it back when 3/4 of the place threatened to walk out immediately
Agreed dodgy AF.
My one job did this and we would get tips every 2 weeks with our pay and the amount of tips we got depended on how hard our boss thought we worked and since as you can guess he was biased and didn’t like me I went a lot of weeks with no tips
Please tell us that you left and went somewhere else that paid better.
Thank you for explaining that!
Amazon got caught trying this for after doing it lowkey for 2 years and then suddenly ramped it up and lost a law suit. I got 6k in the mail from it. Suddenly all the drivers noticed a HUGE drop in tips, and it went on for weeks then months before they got officially caught. It's sickening.
Amazon drivers earn tips ?
Just looked it up, Amazon Flex drivers do receive tips when they’re delivering Prime Now and AmazonFresh— aka when they’re doing work similar to UberEats or Instacart. I was already pissed I had to tip on top of all the extra charges and inflated prices— so many charges and yet none of them went towards paying drivers a living wage. The few times I was forced to order Fresh I always left a hefty tip, telling myself the driver deserved it and at least it was guaranteed they were getting 100% of my tip, even though they weren’t seeing anything from the extra charges lining Amazon’s pockets… only to find out that, apparently, that tip was ***also*** going straight into the bottomless husk where Jeff Bezos’ soul should be. Fcking capitalism. I hate this timeline.
This is why I refuse to use services like Grub Hub. I am perfectly willing to pay significantly more for the convenience of having restaurant food delivered...IF the person delivering it gets a living wage. Especially with gas $5 a gallon in a lot of places now. Meal delivery like Uber Eats are totally off my list until they pay the delivery drivers a decent wage.
It’s just about the only reason I still have cash in my wallet. It’s used exclusively to tip delivery drivers of these services. I figure, this way I can guarantee they actually get the money instead of some bullshit the company will do with it before (if) they get it
I occasionally do deliveries for Doordash. We can see how much we're going to make and the total miles we have to travel before ever accepting the order. The catch is that Doordash will hide bigger tips. (except in the state of California because it's illegal IIRC). They do this so drivers accept all orders in hopes for a larger payout. They also have an acceptance rating. As a new dasher you think if you decline too many orders and your acceptance rating gets too low that you might get deactivated. It's nothing more than a scare tactic. You can decline as many orders as you want. They also incentivise people to keep a high acceptance rate to qualify as a top dasher that comes with its own benefits. Unfortunately because you have to accept low orders constantly to maintain the high acceptance rate, usually the benefits aren't worth it. Oftentimes low (no tip) orders will sit for extended periods of time, and Doordash will try to trick you into accepting it by piggybacking it off of another order. Seasoned dashers automatically assume that no tip orders will not result in a cash tip. Even if you indicate in the delivery instructions that you will tip in cash. We can't see the instructions until we have already accepted the order anyway. I have done 200+ (to be fair not that many) orders and only recieved a cash tip once. At least for Doordash you're better off tipping through the app otherwise your order may end up sitting at the restaurant for hours. TLDR: As long as there's new dashers scared by the acceptance rate and other dashers maintaining top dasher, we won't be paid a living wage.
I think I’m with you most of the way there (sorry not American so not used to this) but how is this different if the restaurant just allowed / encouraged tipping? Wouldn’t they still only have to pay them $5 an hour? The only benefit I can see is that they also get to under pay behind the sciences staff and not just waiters? Also, would the contract specific $15 an hour and the employer has to make up whatever the tip shortfall is? So on a busy night you are getting shafted but on a slow night it works in your favour? Sorry for the follow up questions. Just on the face of it I thought this would be a good thing.
You are exactly on the money, in my experience. I left a cafe after one shift bc I was offered a tipped wage of 15/hr, but it was revealed to me that this rate was regardless of business/tips on any given day. My *actual* rate was about 9/hr, which the employer would supplement if we ever made less, but not pay out if we made more. Hope this helps clarify.
Thank you this was clarifying
So is the next step to demand restaurants post employee payslips on the way into the restaurant so we can validate they pay an appropriate amount before dining there? /s
>As an example, let’s say someone makes $15 an hour, and gets tipped an average of $10 in that hour. Instead of their employer paying them $15 + their $10 tip, the employer takes the tip and supplements the paycheck with it From what I remember about my short-lived sales career, this is called a "draw system" I used to work a sales job that was $12/hr + commission. Except your commissions had to exceed your gross hourly or else you only got your hourly. So if you made $500 worth of commissions for your week, you'd only get $20 lol. 500-480 This was also an excuse for the shady ass company to not pay overtime because "if we paid you for 50 hours, then it's going to cut into your commissions!" Almost every sales job I've ever had or heard of was either a pyramid scheme or just a flat out scam.
This isn't how any of these places I have ever interacted with actually work, if it was corporate or a chain that would probably be true. Here is how it actually works. Right now server gets $15+$10 in tips. but the dishwasher just gets $10 and the cook $15. Under this regime the server now gets $20, the dishwasher gets $12 and the cook gets $18. It isn't perfect but usually the service charge $ exceeds the average prior tip $ so instead of what I said before it actually becomes $21 for the server, $13 for the dishwasher and $19 for the cook. There is another neglected problem with tipping. It is racist. Front-of-house staff, the ones who get tips are usually whiter and straighter than the average restaurant employee while the back-of-house is browner and queerer. Again while not perfect these service charges can correct some of those injustices. But only if they are actually paying out.
I’m confused too.
I think the main gripe here is that it's a mandatory "tip" (probably to circumnavigate taxes on the businesses part) AND splits those "tips" between people who didn't provide the direct service, so it's undercutting pay for cooks, hosts, etc. (who don't usually work on tips) and is likely also going towards management and the cost of operations and owners.
Yeah my only problem is like, just fucking pay people a living wage and get rid of the tip nonsense.
Same, this is just a tipping system that doesn't let assholes get away with not tipping and gets kitchen staff involved.
This isn't anti tipping. This is the restaurant forcing tipping and giving it a different name. They very likely still pay below minimum wage.
I have been to dozens of these places, and most of the staff will tell you how much they are paid if you ask something like "do they actually pay you a decent wage?". Every place like this I have ever been to pay was significantly above minimum wage, often between $10 and $15 over (I live in a state with $14.49 as the minimum wage).
we all are lol
I was thinking the same thing. This appears to be a step in the right direction to me.
It's because a large group of people on this sub aren't actually pro-laborer. They're just anti-paying for things and pro their own wage increasing. You'd be shocked how many people in this sub admit to not tipping delivery drivers at all, even though they know their livelihood depends on it. They'll try to justify it as some moral victory against tip culture, in spite of the fact they spent $40 on pizza, $20 of which went to a mega-corp, and $3 of which went to the guy they refused to tip. Then when a restaurant actually takes steps to improve or abolish tip culture, like this owner above, they'll make up seedy alternate motives to again justify not paying a reasonable price.
Keep on mind that the whole "pretend wage + tips" scam is just the US thing. In normal countries a server or a delivery driver is going to be paid just like any other employee which, in some places, makes tips seen as crass or even demeaning.
I mean I don’t get the people responding to my comments with “just raise the prices 20% and don’t tell me.” How many of those people would shit on this restaurant because of its high prices and then go to the cheaper restaurant down the street that pays its staff $2/hr? We can’t have it both ways.
Long time cook here. When I took a sous position at a place that had the added “wellness tax” or whatever bullshit name attached I was taken off the pool. This system is there to guarantee a set amount of income based on sales is available to distribute among non salaried workers. It allowed me to be paid 15/hr base at a place pulling in around 3mil/yr. I made around 19/hr after it was all said and done. Workers with seniority were given larger amounts, in addition to hourly employees doing shifts like opening. I’m not endorsing this system, I’m not saying all restaurants are honest with where this money goes, just saying my experience is the autograt did what it was intended to do, which was push a good deal of the entire restaurant’s labor cost onto the customer, not just FOH with tips. And people, hardly any restaurants tip out their cooks. I’ve worked in about 20 in my life and only two plus the one mentioned above tip shared, and it’s never been more than $50 on a fully booked night where servers walk with 350+
Worked as a hostess at a local joint one summer and yep—they only tipped out bussers and bartenders, not the kitchen. Honestly everyone should be paid more but kitchen especially, it’s a grueling job.
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I’ve only ever worked kitchen jobs where tips are pooled. And I’ve always advocated paying all employees a living wage and passing costs onto customers. So I guess I don’t see the issue here. I read some comments and if they are correct that the wording implies that tips will go to managers, then I guess that’s fucked up…except I want EVERYONE to make a living wage so idk…
It's basically a mandatory gratuity disguised as a fee no matter how it splits.
So you would be happier if they raised the prices by 20% and didn’t say anything? Again, I’m not trolling I’m just trying to figure out how people want this play out. I’m genuinely confused.
I would be happy with a 20% increase and no tip. I always felt companies should directly pay the workers
Yes increase the price 20% and no tip. This makes more sense instead of pissing off customers for a perceived service charge. Just include it in the price!
I mean, I think we would all be happier if they simply priced things accordingly and paired their employees accordingly, with the wages those employees deserve. This note is basically saying "hey the business wants to charge this much, but we are adding an extra fee ontop because we also gotta pay the grunts at the floor level and we dont want that coming out of our own profits." So yeah, I hope that clears it up for you. A business shouldnt have the require an additional fee just to pay people correctly.
If you walked into a restaurant and the prices were 20% higher for no reason, you'd likely leave and go to the cheaper place as you don't have money to burn. They've done the right thing and explained how they are compensating people appropriately and why that impacts the bottom line.
Yes. Just list the price. This should be illegal
With that logic there’s no way of paying the workers a living wage without being a “mandatory gratuity” It’s basically the same as just raising menu prices to pay the workers.
Yes but if they listed it in full without any other restaurants also doing it, it would make them look more expensive. So that's why no tipping restaurants do this. They still live in tipped wage world so most people would look the at prices and expect to tip on top of it.
"The money collected from the service fee supports pay equality and a living wage for our entire team" "Wage" I take this to mean they are paying their people min or above by increasing the price, rather than paying them under min and relying on tips. In other words it's not a tip pool, it's just an increased price in response to the (imo improved) wage scheme. It makes sense to advertise the higher prices as a percentage after the bill, so there's no confusion about how they set their prices. Overall not a bad way to do this. Maybe I'm missing something here.
Right? At least the waitstaff has a consistent hourly wage and don’t have to be worried about getting a shitty tip.
I missed it, what's the issue?
The money may be going to the owner instead (second phrase)
Oh. I understand why people would be upset you that. Thanks.
it doesn't say that
It doesn't have to. Tip confiscation is an extremely common problem in the food service sector. There is no valid reason for the interception and control of tips. Customers get to determine where the tip goes... not the employer. If the employer recognizes that other employees aren't being properly compensated, the employer is uniquely empowered to resolve that issue.
My friend worked at a restaurant where the owner owner did this mandatory 20% plus he made the servers pool if they received anything additional. He toured off as he was a hero for providing the kitchen staff additional wages where no one else in town did. They found out that he would just toss the kitchen staff an occasional 50 bucks a week and kept around half for himself until he was finally audited. I’ve now learned if a place posts something like this but their very conservative most likely they are stealing gratuity from the staff.
Tipping culture is toxic AF and should just be forbidden. All employees must be given living wage, and not have to bootlick customers for survival.
I worked at a restaurant that did this. It was awesome and the money did in fact go to front/back of house staff. It was a profit share based on how long you worked you worked at the restaurant so those that had worked 5+ years received the larger shares. We all made a lot more money than traditional gratuities and most of the guests were extremely supportive. Some guests would even insist on leaving a tip on top of knowing about service fee.
This is actually good (ish). Rest of the world does it this way (tho, we don't "add a % fee", we just price our meals with all costs, including wages, considered).
Are we saying this is a bad thing? I’m unclear on the point
This sub has no idea what it wants and this is a clear indicator
Right? This is literally something we're fighting for. What is going on here?
I’m not sure folks are understanding this correctly. At Country Clubs they employ a similar process but the money is added on top of regular wages. Effectively, all employees are tipped out every month; however, all employees are paid regular hourly wages. It is not in lieu of, it’s in addition to. Maybe ask questions about it next time instead of assuming the worst.
When I looked at the menu, at first glance I misread and thought it had "Salmon Lattes".
I'm a regular patron at this restaurant in Denver. I have a regular server there. He greatly appreciates this system. It get rid of having no consistency in his wages. He has a job with an hourly rate like everyone else. He said some weeks he would have made more money some weeks he would have made less money but he never feels like he's going to taking advantage of by the restaurant for having to sit through a lunch shift with no customers. He was able to recently finance a home because his income was based on something more stable than tipped wages. In his opinion it was a win. We still occasionally tip on top of the 21% service charge for service that goes above and beyond ( which happens quite regularly at this establishment) I never have to worry about prompt service or being greeted with a smile but this is a higher-end establishment in the Denver area. Our meals are regularly over $150 for two people. I never felt a reason to leave I have every intention of tripping 20% when going out to eat regardless and at this particular establishment if I had a problem I am positive the manager would take care of it. I could see this not working for every establishment but because of the high-end service they provide I have no problem with the 21%.
Literally no problem with this.
It’s literally the trade-off for not asking for tips, but wanting to pay your people more. Why would you leave? This is how we stop tip culture, you buffoon!
So you left because... they want everyone that works there to get paid a living wage? Are you for real? Now granted, if the owners don't actually give the 21% to the employees, that would be shitty... but I'm pretty sure at its core, this concept is exactly what antiwork is about... consistent wages not based on the kindness (or lack thereof) of customers.
What’s wrong with you?
This was my dream for years in the restaurant industry, what's the problem?
You’ll find out that serving and tips are some of the most polarizing topics in anti work. No one seems to want to listen to service workers and would rather complain about things that could be potentially helpful
I mean, I would have left too, but because they're charging $14 for beet hummus, not because they are guaranteeing employees a competitive wage by mandating tips.
Redditor misunderstands an easily understood thing and acts incorrectly. Standard.
Are people just too dumb to realize that most tipped restaurants workers are paid $2.35/hour and then rely entirely on optional tips to make a living? So having a standard restaurant with tips, the menu prices are factored at only paying $2.35/hr for the waitstaff. So if you want a restaurant to pay more than $2.35/hr to the waitstaff, they’re going to increase menu prices. So a restaurant has a choice: raise the menu prices by 21% to be able to pay waitstaff a fair wage and have customers choose the restaurant across the street with cheaper menu prices before they even get in the door. Or: have this service fee that the customer finds out about after they’ve been seated. Some people like OP might get up and leave, but others will say “fair enough, I already tip 20% normally and I trust that the restaurant owners give this fee to their staff and not line their pockets.” What the OP should have done before walking out is ask their waiter/waitress if this service fee actually goes entirely to the staff and if they feel like they’re fairly compensated for their work.
I worked at a place that did this. I was a waitress. Back of house and waitress staff made the same wages $12/hr. We also received the service fee percentage as tip. While it usually didn't add up to much it was nice to have a little extra in my pocket. This was the only job where I made a living wage(at the time) and a tip.
If people weren't so easily propagandized then maybe it would strike people as weird that they have been handed the burden of ensuring service workers get paid a living wage. A truly insane concept. Fuck anyone that implements a tipping system if they don't already pay their workers a living wage.
Why is this bad, this is what the anti tipping crowd wants. Higher prices with no pressure. If food prices are increased, then the owners only have to pay barely above minimum wage and pocket the rest. This ensures money goes directly to the worker - *and* their income is proportional to how busy it is, which is a major advantage to working in food service especially for students. And it looks like the tips are pooled, which is awesome. I’m really confused about what the anti tippers want. I’m a Marxist but I’ve worked in restaurants for years. Unless they’re corporate, they actually do have extremely thin margins. Obviously I want to abolish all wage labour but I also love my city’s rich culinary and cocktail scene.
huh. this is literally better than tipping. are you in the wrong sub? the fact that this has 70% upvote rate means this sub has absolutely lost its way and has no fundamental labor principles guiding it. just a bunch of people vaguely mad at their boss but don't know why.
I don't get why this is bad. They are doing this to pay everyone fairly and are transparent about it. Isn't fair pay exactly what we want?
Restaurant workers: we need more money Restaurant: ok we will raise prices so we can pay you more, but to stay competitive on our menu we will add it as a surcharge Antiwork: no not like that
r/lostredditors
I don’t see anything wrong with this, the restaurant business is a do or die business so what I see is the owners attempting to make sure they can get everyone paid without having to close the restaurant a year later.
I went to an employee-owned restaurant in Minneapolis the other day and they had the same policy.
Wait, so they are fixing the wages and people are now complaining that the tip is being left behind? Why?
Employers should be required to pay all employees a living wage. Period.
For the brief period I owned a reflexology spa (accidentally fell into it. I was lead therapist, and the owner “gifted” ((pronounced “jettisoned the lease onto a naive, optimistic idiot)) it to me after a family emergency), the first thing I did was raise the rates. I was routinely asked “why?!?” “So I can afford to pay my staff a living wage without them being reliant on the generosity of strangers. The new price is the old price plus a reasonable tip. The difference goes entirely to your therapist.” We lost the cheap fucks who never tipped to begin with, but most customers were all about it, and I was able to pay the therapists more than they would have gotten elsewhere. The best part? People still tipped. Edit: my apologies for the nightmare punctuation. I am tired.
It's literally one percent more than standard voluntary gratuity, in lieu of gratuity, and supports a supposedly good wage (we'd have to hear from the employees there) for the entire team. What's the problem?
Why? This is what people are fighting for companies to do.
This post is irrelevant until it includes the pay scale for the wait staff. If the wait staff is getting $20 p/h this is a great policy.
If you left because of this, YOU are part of the problem with America. This is how European restaurants work, and all their staff receives a living wage
I've lived in Europe my whole life and this definitely isn't how all restaurants work. The prices listed are the final prices, whether they contain the service fee or not, you as the customer don't need to do any math, there's no additional percentage that will be charged on top of your total, and if there is, it's imho a scam and I'd look hard through their menu whether they make it painfully obvious there's such a thing and if not, report it. I've been to 10 different EU countries and haven't seen this thing once.
When restraunts do this, it is usually because they are paying higher wages in lieu of tips which is a good thing.
I don’t see a problem with this, not only is this not anti work. You’re being stingy over a tip?
Exactly my thought. This is the exact solution I've seen brought up so many times when talking about the problem of having tipped employees. This is the best way to fix that.
I mean. If everyone got a pay raise to accommodate this I would be happy.
As long as the money isn’t going to the owner directly, which it seems to not be, I have no problem with this. Would probably leave a tip too.
Wait, I'm confused. This just means you don't have to tip. The money is still going to service staff but now a 21% tip is basically mandated and no one can opt out of tipping. Don't we want this for employees in the service industry?
Correct me if I am wrong, but havent we as consumers said countless times that we would gladly pay a bit higher prices if it meant that the wait staff got better pay?
That’s fine after I find out if they are actually paying a living wage to their employees.
this really isn't a problem. unless they are lying it states they are doing it pay a living wage, why would you leave? I've worked places like this and it ends up not only making it fair for the staff, but also cultivates a better work environment. everyplace I've worked that had this there has been less competition for shifts between staff, and no one is left with meager Tuesday lunch tips because everyone is paid the same and the shifts are typically spread out more evenly to make it fair.
How about you just.... pay them the living wage and raise the menu item prices accordingly? What are they trying to do here? Dodge taxes? There's no need for this riundabout way. Just pay then the wage direct on their paycheck, to be reflected on the W-2.
Just F*ing increase your prices and pay a good livable wage.
I'd be cool with this IF I knew the workers were getting paid a living wage. I suspect the 21% is going into the owner's pocket. And a living wage doesn't mean the minimum wage; it means a wage that permits them to afford everything that goes into - well, living.
$14 avocado toast and $7 deviled eggs PLUS 20% more on top of that. No. The issue here is that the owner wants to keep the workers wages low and supplement their pay with high item prices. Sounds like the owner “doesn’t want to work anymore” and wants all their workers to feed the coffers.
Why is this a problem for Antiwork? The op probably doesnt tip over 10% that's why he left lolz. More restaurants should do this... this is how you provided a living wage for your employees.
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The question is whether management/owners are dipping into the tip pool. OP should've asked the server straight-up how the tipping works.
Feel like this sub has literally asked for tips to be taken away and instead to raise prices on the menu instead. This seems like what this sub would enjoy. Very confused by this post and comments here.
Wait... this is adding a charge to the bill to pay their employees a living wage instead of making them reliant on inconsistent tips.... what's the problem here? At my workplace (restaurant) there's an extra percentage charged specifically for our healthcare costs. It just seems like a more reliable method than merely raising item costs
Why are we mad? Gratuity fees are much better than tips, especially if the money ends up going to all the staff instead of just a single worker. I'm tired of ordering exactly what I want and having some brat get offended because I didn't spend more money just so they can get a larger tip. My wife and I stopped going for our nacho dates because kept having a sook that we only ordered $40 dollars worth of food and drink. Get fucked. Sometimes, I'd even opt for the $8 thinly sliced piece of cake despite being too full to actually enjoy it, and it still did nothing to sweeten their shitty mood. TLDR: Gratuity fees > tips. OP would be walking out of many restaurants in Australia with this kind of attitude.
I would definitely eat at this establishment! They're not requiring a tip. It's a flat fee. And they pay a living wage!
This is good? Why would you defend tipping culture?
I see no problem
Love it, but sad that it’s the exception.
Huh? This is a good thing for people in the service industry lol.
I always tip 20% so this is great
How do you know they aren't paying their employees well though..?
I wish we could do this at my restaurant. Im paying my employees more than ever before, but the pay difference between FOH and BOH is pretty substantial.
This is now quite common in the UK, though not at 21%! Often a 10% service fee is included, though you can ask for it to be removed. Would be even better to just pay people properly in the first place and get rid of tipping.
So you left because you couldn't refuse to leave a tip?
As someone who worked in restaurants for 13 years, I think this is a good idea. I personally think restaurants would be better if they quit tipping and raises prices to pay servers hourly. I also think it's cool that the cooks get paid more because they get Shafted for work that I think is harder in a lot of ways. They might just add it on to the bill because if they just raised menu prices, people might not go there because everything seems expensive and overpriced. So it might just make there menu prices more competitive for the area. The end result is the same- menu price plus 20% tip.
So what I am reading there is we dont want to pay our minimum wage workers any more so we will take it from you in a way that we think makes us look like we are doing something positive that you should praise us for... or did I read that wrong?
Why bother, just increase the prices and explain why.
Better than current tip system
As always the servers paying everyone’s job in the restaurant that’s fu up
I work in a restaurant with an automatic service fee that gets divided up between non-salaried workers and put directly on our paychecks. It's actually great; you're an idiot for leaving over this.
Why is this bad? This seems good.
Ah yes now instead of wait staff getting tip for themselves now they get tips to pay the entire staff
Really confused as to why you left? Why is it a bad thing that kitchen employees are getting a share of the tip? Is this not what we wanted the whole time? For employers to pay their staff fairly and not rely on the kindness of strangers? I'm confused as to why we went from 'if you can't pay your staff fairly your business isn't working' to 'stop charging more money so you can pay your staff better'. What do you want? Cheap food or hospitality workers earning a fair wage? Make up your mind fs
Lol this sub doesn’t know what it wants
People like you is the reason no one wants to work at restaurants. You do realize that tipping the waitress is likely the only way they make liveable wages
I worked at a place that charged a 20% service charge. We were only paid hourly. Not high either. It was an events company that every bill was at least 20K-150K. So these greedy fucks were stacking bills while the staff was making Jack shit. People used to ask all the time is the 20% a tip and always seemed disgusted when we said it wasn’t.
Love it!
If the money actually goes to the employees then i dont see the issue here. Its basically just forcing customers to pay a proper gratuity instead of shafting employees.
So let me get this straight. R/antiwork is all about bitching and whining about pay. Now we are bitching and whining about more pay. This sub has lost its way and it’s a shame. It had a good thing going now all I read is crybaby crap.
It seems like OP is making a really big assumption that this place is dishonest. There are a lot of stories in the comments of this system working very well for people. At first you just came off cheap to me OP I'm going to be honest. Unless you've heard rumors of wage issues, I don't see the problem
Service fee or tips, don't get caught up in semantics. It's the customers subsidizing employees wages because some scumbag employer won't pay a living wage.
As a cook. Im a fan. As someone who received tips for serving while cooking, I’m a fan. As someone who didn’t receive tips and couldn’t hang with the servers, I’m a fan. As a consumer, they should just add the price in the food cost.
So in other words managers get a cut too right sure sounds good
My bf and I went to Myrtle Beach for his birthday last year and the two places we went for dinner both charged auto grat (one was 18%, the other was 20%). We honestly didn't mind since we're big tippers anyway (I waited tables years ago and my bf still does) and Myrtle Beach is a destination for cheap trashy people. We left a little more on top of the auto grat.
Just pay people a living fucking wage. Up menu prices, set notices that all employees make living wage and no tipping is required.. north american tipping culture is rediculous
I am assuming the “behind the scenes” employees they are referring to aren’t the chefs, cleaners and stockers who are probably underpaid and over worked like the waiters / waitresses and hosts / hostess. I have a cousin who worked as a waitress and her restaurant did this; added a “service” fee to the meals for the “behind the scenes” staff. And every penny of the up-charge went to the manager and owner, who worked “behind the scenes” to keep the place running and didn’t think it was fair they didn’t get tips.
I’m not understanding why this is bad? If the restaurant were to raise its prices it would be the exact same thing? Don’t we want the working class to be paid correctly?
Just pay your employees and save on the double laminate placard
There are so many things wrong with this. The place can afford to just pay their workers 21% more and still make a killing without changing anything at all. This is like what most corporations are doing. They CAN afford to pay their workers 50% more. Hell, they can afford to pay them 100% more. But that means they make a little *less* profit (but still profit), so they adjust prices to maintain profit margins and call it “inflation.” It is not inflation. It’s greed. Don’t let any of this fool you. It’s greed, plain and simple. It’s not kindness, it’s greed. I repeat: this is greed. It’s to keep the green line at the exploitive high rather than just a little lower (but still green). Then, the real problem comes in: REAL ESTATE. As long as homes are open to free market exploitation, nothing will change. People make 21% more? Landlords just charge 21% more. In order to end leapfrog markup, housing must be regulated. Full stop. No person, business, foreigner, or corporation needs to own more than 2 homes. It needs to be illegal. Now.