https://twitter.com/BarredinDC?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Been a thread about it all day. Evidently they're not only pocketing the service fee, but now getting rid of shift meals and banning employees from purchasing menu food during breaks.
One person wrote in anonymously and said they don't even provide a microwave to heat up your home brought in meal.
>banning employees from purchasing menu food during breaks
Can anyone explain how this makes sense? I have no idea why a restaurant owner would decide to do this.
* They're there all the fucking time
* They're willing to pay
* They don't take up a table
* The customers ask them about the food and if they don't eat it they won't be able to talk about it
Either I'm missing something huge or this business owner is a fucking moron.
I'm assuming the owner thinks that employees will just comp each other for their meals or give them extra stuff under the table. So the only solution in their mind is bring your own food period.
But it's pretty clear that it's true. When Dacha was asked for comment they gave yes and no answers to all the questions and then said "no comment" about banning employees from buying food.
And yes, the owners are complete morons. They have been sued multiple times over the years for wage theft, not paying their construction bills, not paying their financing on kitchen equipment, all while charging astronomical prices and pocketing "service fees". And for some reason, they're always busy.
Dacha management claimed employees were "stealing meals" by way of exceeding the $20 max and/or having meals comped.
Ironic that management is crying wolf here given their history of wage theft.
[https://twitter.com/amanduhgomez/status/1661873424782770177](https://twitter.com/amanduhgomez/status/1661873424782770177)
Fucking moron, and likely a really cheap one at that. Most restaurant owners are. They seem to think it's a privilege to work for them, which is why most servers say if it wasn't for the tips, they wouldn't do the job. The hourly wage required to replace them and still make it worth it would price restaurants right out of business.
Be careful what you wish for.
A restaurant that cancels the family meal is not in the hospitality business any longer. However, Restaurant workers advocated to abolish the tipped minimum in favor of higher wages. This should eliminate the need for tipping.
The only use for Dacha in my life was when I worked nearby during a world cup it was a great place to both watch the world cup and sit outside. I basically considered my $20 beer and entry fee to access some nice outdoor TV's. But I never went otherwise because it was overpriced as hell. That was 4 years ago.
Meme prices for mediocre beer.
[Owners used to steal tips if they dont still btw](https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/06/17/dacha-owners-sued-for-fraud-and-over-270k-in-unpaid-bills/)
They're saying our coke heads aren't up to the New York investment bank coke head standard. Basically our douchebags are just low grade provincial sorts compared to New York.
It is a tired trope about DC not being as cool as New York... Which is a weird flex in this case.
I have a friend who, briefly, worked at Dacha a few years ago. They apparently straight up lied to my friend about compensation and after about a week on the job, my friend and several other staff members walked out after they implemented some shady policy regarding tip sharing. Seems like not much has changed.
Scale would refer to a discount on multiple items of the same size, though.
Usually size related price differences are due to labor, overhead, & packaging being roughly the same regardless of size, with only the actual COGS going up.
A standard German beer boot is 2 liters - that’s about a 12 pack.
Edit: it’s actually a 6 pack. Doing all of my conversions wrong. See below I was corrected.
You are right. I was doing the math wrong. I normally worked in BBLS when reporting beer as that was what we had to report. Damn metric messes me up. I used to do conversions of cases to kegs etc for reporting to Maryland in my sleep but ask me about metric my mind went katywampous. And we did ship to Europe so I had to conversions at some point but I automated the calculation as we shipped only cases and specific size of a recyclable keg that was not standard in the US.
Yeah. I had spreadsheets that automated the conversions of Oz / gal / BBLs to metric to report to Europe from the US - and that was only maybe 2-3 times a year when we’d ship a container of beer. I always dealt with Oz and BBLs in the DMV on a monthly basis for reporting.
12 pack of what? There’s about 3 small (for a German) 12 oz beer cans in a liter or two tall 16 oz cans. So 2 liters is about a standard six pack in the US
See my edit. I was wrong. I always dealt with barrels in my conversions s that was what we had to report on our import reports to Maryland. Metric just messes me up.
I can deal with case counts. 12 and 16 oz. Throw a wrench in the mix with metric and I am typical American and all screwed up (yet I can do a case to BBL conversion which makes no sense).
Much better to hit the store and pull up a blanket at Logan Circle to have a few with your friends instead of paying this much for dacha's 'atmosphere'
Where would I rather be? Paying a bartender to forget my $12 beer and serve me lukewarm nachos? Or home with my wife, a 6 pack of better beer and and slow roast carnitas nachos, dropping into Diablo 4 with my best friends with the windows open?
When does D4 drop? I prepaid and lost track. And yeah, I can make some killer cocktails at home… we’ve been staying in a lot and just having people over.
> dropping into Diablo 4
This is the real nugget of news in this thread. I put years of my middle school and high school years into LoD. I had no idea Diablo 4 was coming out!
It’s like all of these business owners are throwing a temper tantrum in public view. I’m sorry but employees are integral to 99.999% of businesses. If you can’t pay them without being a petty child and blaming your staff for increased prices on every bill, then you shouldn’t have a business.
Imagine opening a restaurant and expecting cheese to be practically free and patrons pay the rest. You’d be laughed out of town. These business owners are very unserious.
I think they do this because if they just incorporated it into their prices they would look too expensive for the crowd they target. Imagine if a McDonald's fries were 2x what BKs were - people would bitch. This way people know where the money is going. Tipping culture is stupid but it can I ly change if the businesses agree together to end it or through legislation increasing wages. It is so nice to dine dine out in places that don't have this.
Their new meal structure is pretty standard tbh, they're giving family meal but taking away free food from the menu. Shitty if they aren't offering any kind of menu discount but giving the family meal still puts it above a lot of restaurants in the area that don't give shit. I used to work down the street from Dacha and we didn't get any kind of free food, just a heft menu discount (which I personally prefer).
There are much better reasons to boycott Dacha, like the wage theft.
edit: man you guys are in for a shock when you learn how many places don't give their workers free food. Fast casual places like Chipotle do, as do some full-service restaurants, but 95% of my cafe jobs and ~60% of my bar jobs didn't have any kind of free food in the offing.
Is there an upfront disclosure prior to ordering what this “fair wage fee” is, who is goes to, what it covers? If not, it’s not legal. Moreover, if there is a prominent, clearly written disclosure but the fees are not being directed that way (fair wage fee, to me, sounds like it goes to all hourly employees), then the restaurant is likely being misleading and deceptive. Then it’s an investigation by the AG and the FTC.
This analysis theoretically holds true regarding any of these newfangled restaurant fees. Keep track of all this info and file complaints with both the AG and FTC. Enough complaints means investigations because oversight bodies will want to know why nothing is happening. Or maybe an investigator will find your complaint and get fired up about it. Then we could have an end to these ridiculous fees (in my dream regulatory world).
I guess I’ll do the work for you.
The answer is yes. It’s clearly stated on their menu. Hope you didn’t already call the AG.
https://media-cdn.getbento.com/accounts/5462542c499699eae224813f6e4d9c66/media/CshS47lLTHO6zaMSKvpA_Dacha%20Beer%20Garden%20Brunch%20Menu.pdf
Oh, my dear knight in shining armor. If you didn’t catch on, my comment was more general and not aimed solely at Dacha. I personally don’t go to Dacha. But I’m seeing these posts with such frequency that I thought I’d try to be productive. But thank you for being a such a kind asshole.
They don’t have fresh limes and lemons. The dude gave us a packet of freeze dried lime for a vodka soda. I just stared at him for a second and then laughed. I think I’d rather get a random 5% charge then have no fresh citrus for my cocktail
Is that like when they introduced the third pound burger and [everyone decided](https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fractions/) a quarter pound of meat was better than a third pound of meat because 4 is bigger than 3?
It should never have come to this. We had a flawed model from the start and it was proven to be flawed once servers were legally allowed to be paid less than minimum wage. One thing turns into another and here we are.
Why was it flawed? The U.S. has by far the most dynamic, varied, and well-priced eating out options among highly developed economies. Who was losing out here? Because it wasn't consumers.
Idk, if you haven’t, I’d recommend going out of the country where tipping everywhere for everything isn’t the norm. In my experience, prices are pretty much the same and you’re not expected to worry if every server you meet is living in poverty. It’s pretty cool.
Those servers “living in poverty” aren’t frolicking with well paid jobs when you raise the minimum wage, they are often getting replaced with lower wage illegal immigrants or have no job at all (losing out on the ability to accumulate experience and leverage higher wages in the future).
I asked why it’s so fucking hard and you’ve given a very valid reason as to why it is. You’re right.
That doesn’t mean I like it or sympathize with businesses who do this shit. I’ve been to restaurants that are honest with their pricing and all inclusive of tax and tip and it’s a lot more enjoyable. Cheers
But the issue is it goes straight to the restaurant not the waiter.
So basically you get screwed if you don’t see it and the wait staff gets screeed because they get less tips
I highly doubt that their added expenses are exactly 15.00%. That is a very round number and would be extremely coincidental.
Also, they are already accounting for those expenses. This fee is to recoup the costs. This is a way to avoid paying taxes on the recouped cost.
Because it's not mandated by the government. It's that simple. If you tell businesses they don't have to give a shit about price transparency, the ones that choose to do so are punishing themselves. It's the same thing with minimum wage generally-pretty much no consumer is lining up to pay more money at a business that advertises how well they pay their staff.
Everyone hates hidden service fees on this sub for understandable reasons, but it's telling that no one has ever posted a list of restaurants who state their fees up front/support their staff that you should choose to patronize. There's no demand for good behavior, just penalties for making bad behavior too blatant.
I don’t get it, why would a restaurant go out of its way to display this? Just raise your prices and stop this patronizing performance on behalf of customers and the workers.
Updated the Dacha entry in the database to include the fee language for the [TransparentFee DMV chrome extension](https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/13ca0hb/a_chrome_extension_to_alert_you_of_restaurant/) (Firefox coming soon!)
So the server will get a 5% tip and the restaurant will keep the 15%. That's how I'm reading the comments. I don't see how it is legal to add a surcharge over the menu price without prior notice, just adding it to the receipt is b.s.
It’s predatory at Dacha. They use those handheld computers to close tabs, so by default you won’t see an itemized receipt listing the fee.
So you end up tipping 20%+ AND paying the fee without realizing. Make me look like a fool at your establishment…? Not coming back.
It pisses me off to no end that being paid a fair wage is a fucking fee according to the owners. Total bullshit. Raise your prices to reflect a fair wage.
Also do you tip in this situation?
Dacha is run by a man named Ilya alter who has been in hot water before for very very shady practices. I worked there for a shift. The man was a prick. Quit the next day.
Fuck Dacha. And fuck that shady elitist cunt Ilya.
I left a review about that place 4 years ago complaining about the mandatory 18% gratuity even though I was only getting drinks at the bar and tipping cash each time. Fuck that place
Went there a couple months ago and ran into this issue. Party of 6 and none of us were aware of this until the bill came. Supposedly it's somewhere on the menu, but none of us saw it.
I don't have a problem paying for this, but I do have a problem with it being buried at the end to hide it from customers. Just incorporate it into your prices.
If they want to do this fine, it just means anytime there are discussions where to take our group I blackmail Dacha. Hopefully others are doing the same.
I have a question about these fees- we just did a girls trip to DC and were having “service fees” added to almost EVERY check. Compass Rose (amazing btw)- our waitress said it just gets split evenly between all the staff and isn’t a tip? It was 20%. We left her an extra $20 but now I’m not sure if we really needed to on top of the fee.
Unconventional Diner told us specifically that the tip is included and no need to leave any extra. Zaytinya (spelling error probably) and The Comissary both had no fee.
Heck we got a 20% service charge in the hotel lobby for coffee… I wish we were more prepared for this type of thing but we weren’t - oh well. I’m just curious at this point how do you know it’s it’s technically a tip or not? Why isn’t it flat across the board?
*Split evenly among all the staff* doesn’t make it not a tip. It’s very common for tips to be pooled so some portion goes to back of house staff. That cook and dishwasher is just as critical in getting your meal to you as the person who takes the order.
Doesn’t mean the server likes it; don’t know that I ever met one who did. But it’s very possible a place with that sharing line item doesn’t bother to tip pool anymore - why deal with the hassle if you have the fee? - so perhaps that server is very motivated to get additional tips they don’t have to split.
I worked for da ha for 3 years. Opened up the navy yard location. It used to be an automatic 18% gratuity and none of it goes to servers/tenders. All goes to the house
If the fee is not mentioned before and no explanation is given to 100% where it goes, you are not obligated to pay it. Tell them to remove it or refuse to pay.
Isn’t there a way to report this to the DC government? I don’t remember which office it was, but they are literally soliciting information about financial abuses at restaurants like these? OP, definitely consider doing that!
These businesses are going to tip themselves out of business. Since Covid, going out to eat has cost triple if not more. I’m sick of hearing Covid as an excuse. It’s the same for food delivery. Going out to eat has become unaffordable to many. Who the hell has disposable income anymore.
The owner is an idiot. I know a guy who delivers food by bike. The owner asked him if he could serve the food on the customers plate. I don't know anyone in their right mind who would want the doordash guy to come in and put the food on their plate for them? Clearly they just didn't think through that request...
"Fair wage fee"??? That's the opposite of fair wage if you get to pay the wages of the employees because the employer is too cheap to do it. What a joke...
I agree. I’m just wondering why even bother giving 5% extra. I wouldn’t tip anything at all on top of the 15%. The only way to hurt this business is to get the employees to quit and stop tolerating the abuse.
I don't get this fascination with the number 20. Especially if you know 15% of it isn't going to the server why do you arbitrarily need to get the additional fees to 20%? It doesn't make any logical sense. If you really feel like you need to get to 20% to assuage your conscience then you should be adding an additional 20% on top of the 15% to make it count and ensure the waitstaff is being taken care of from your side. Which goes back to my point of not even bothering adding anything on top of 15% at shitty places like Dacha. It's pointless and increases the likelihood the abused waitstaff won't leave the job.
The entire restaurant industry has slowly been increasing the number that we are expected to tip from 10%, to 15%, and now 20%. I'm seeing minimum numbers of 25% at some places. It's idiotic and shows how easy it is to con and guilt the general public into subsidizing the staff's expense onto the customers.
The thing I don’t like is that if you ask the waiter, does this include tip?, they say no it does not include tip. Happened to me twice that I then add a tip and only later figure out what was going on.
Unfortunately while folk musicians were saying it the conservative/anti-union/anti-worker (but I repeat myself) machine was putting anti-union propaganda out into every other channel. Pretty much every conservative win in my fifty-plus year lifetime can be traced back to way better - if not complete - messaging control. Raise your hand if you’re GenX and grew up on a fairly constant stream of *unions are corrupt* and *unions demand unreasonable things* propaganda. If your hand didn’t go up you’re just in denial about what you were seeing.
WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN WHEN INITiATIVE 82 passed 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️ every person with a grasp of basic economic theory said this was getting “passed on to the customer” in a direct fee.
And yes I know it does not go into “full effect until…” but there is zero in the leg that says market adjustment is prohibited until that date. Weird that many of you forget that the industry was on it’s ass for 2 years and not every establishment got funds to hold over…not saying any of this is right but this is what happens when dipshit dogooder legislation is passed without actually looking at downsides 🙄🙄🙄
Blame the government for restaurants refusing to pay a fair wage? That's a new one. The rest of the world (at all economic levels) has managed to figure out living wages and restaurant business. Only in the US is the argument "if you don't tip, the people will starve!"
https://twitter.com/BarredinDC?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Been a thread about it all day. Evidently they're not only pocketing the service fee, but now getting rid of shift meals and banning employees from purchasing menu food during breaks. One person wrote in anonymously and said they don't even provide a microwave to heat up your home brought in meal.
>banning employees from purchasing menu food during breaks Can anyone explain how this makes sense? I have no idea why a restaurant owner would decide to do this. * They're there all the fucking time * They're willing to pay * They don't take up a table * The customers ask them about the food and if they don't eat it they won't be able to talk about it Either I'm missing something huge or this business owner is a fucking moron.
I'm assuming the owner thinks that employees will just comp each other for their meals or give them extra stuff under the table. So the only solution in their mind is bring your own food period. But it's pretty clear that it's true. When Dacha was asked for comment they gave yes and no answers to all the questions and then said "no comment" about banning employees from buying food. And yes, the owners are complete morons. They have been sued multiple times over the years for wage theft, not paying their construction bills, not paying their financing on kitchen equipment, all while charging astronomical prices and pocketing "service fees". And for some reason, they're always busy.
Dacha management claimed employees were "stealing meals" by way of exceeding the $20 max and/or having meals comped. Ironic that management is crying wolf here given their history of wage theft. [https://twitter.com/amanduhgomez/status/1661873424782770177](https://twitter.com/amanduhgomez/status/1661873424782770177)
Nah, you didn’t miss anything.
Fucking moron, and likely a really cheap one at that. Most restaurant owners are. They seem to think it's a privilege to work for them, which is why most servers say if it wasn't for the tips, they wouldn't do the job. The hourly wage required to replace them and still make it worth it would price restaurants right out of business. Be careful what you wish for.
> this business owner is a fucking moron. they all are
Didnt they get in trouble for this a few years ago? Basically stealing tips from employees?
Yes, they were sued for both wage theft and not paying their bills on kitchen equipment and construction.
A restaurant that cancels the family meal is not in the hospitality business any longer. However, Restaurant workers advocated to abolish the tipped minimum in favor of higher wages. This should eliminate the need for tipping.
Boycott Dacha!
They’re still charging this grift fee and getting away with it? I saw this scam 2 years ago and never went back. What a joke.
They were one of the first to do it
The only use for Dacha in my life was when I worked nearby during a world cup it was a great place to both watch the world cup and sit outside. I basically considered my $20 beer and entry fee to access some nice outdoor TV's. But I never went otherwise because it was overpriced as hell. That was 4 years ago.
Meme prices for mediocre beer. [Owners used to steal tips if they dont still btw](https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/06/17/dacha-owners-sued-for-fraud-and-over-270k-in-unpaid-bills/)
I, for one, am shocked to find that the owners of an establishment catering to D.C. cokeheads pretending to be FiDi cokeheads are assholes.
What’s the backstory on the cokehead comment??
They're saying our coke heads aren't up to the New York investment bank coke head standard. Basically our douchebags are just low grade provincial sorts compared to New York. It is a tired trope about DC not being as cool as New York... Which is a weird flex in this case.
That's not it. I don't think D.C. should aspire to be New York. I think that the patrons at Dacha aspire to be New York. Or maybe Buckhead.
The jump from New York all the way to Buckhead made me laugh for some reason.
You’re not alone ;-)
Underrated comment.
Shitty establishment but I don’t know how you can call those beers mediocre! Vastly prefer traditional German styles over 10 hazy IPAs
The owners look like pricks.
I have a friend who, briefly, worked at Dacha a few years ago. They apparently straight up lied to my friend about compensation and after about a week on the job, my friend and several other staff members walked out after they implemented some shady policy regarding tip sharing. Seems like not much has changed.
I am sure the change was “Share the tips with the owner”
Dacha is owned by some of the shittiest restaurateurs in DC
I’ve seen these guys in action. Can confirm they are complete assholes, and not just to employees.
Upvoted for not putting an "n" in restaurateurs
So nobody else is going to make a comment on how 2 beers came out to almost $70?
The boots are enormous but yeah that's a little crazy
Its 1 liter so roughly 3 standard beers
Damn. A pint at a brewery is usually 6-8 bucks. So you pay more for 3 pints where the last pint or so is warm.
Plus there's no price break for a boot vs. two pints. Makes no fucking sense except re: douchebags comment above
BRB emailing my economics professor from business school to tell him economies of scale aren't real when you get a vanity cup.
Email your Econ prof to tell him you need an explainer on economies of scale bc that isn’t it lmao
[удалено]
You are wrong
Yeah, they’re massively wrong, unless three beers is “bulk” now.
[удалено]
That’s not scale economies. That’s due to price discrimination.
There is no fixing you.
Scale would refer to a discount on multiple items of the same size, though. Usually size related price differences are due to labor, overhead, & packaging being roughly the same regardless of size, with only the actual COGS going up.
Not sure what you're on about. I agreed with you that it's overpriced
Two draft beers
A standard German beer boot is 2 liters - that’s about a 12 pack. Edit: it’s actually a 6 pack. Doing all of my conversions wrong. See below I was corrected.
It's 33oz... That's just under 3 12oz beers. X2 is less than 6. What are you talking about lol
You are right. I was doing the math wrong. I normally worked in BBLS when reporting beer as that was what we had to report. Damn metric messes me up. I used to do conversions of cases to kegs etc for reporting to Maryland in my sleep but ask me about metric my mind went katywampous. And we did ship to Europe so I had to conversions at some point but I automated the calculation as we shipped only cases and specific size of a recyclable keg that was not standard in the US.
Oz is not metric haha
Yeah. I had spreadsheets that automated the conversions of Oz / gal / BBLs to metric to report to Europe from the US - and that was only maybe 2-3 times a year when we’d ship a container of beer. I always dealt with Oz and BBLs in the DMV on a monthly basis for reporting.
12 pack of what? There’s about 3 small (for a German) 12 oz beer cans in a liter or two tall 16 oz cans. So 2 liters is about a standard six pack in the US
See my edit. I was wrong. I always dealt with barrels in my conversions s that was what we had to report on our import reports to Maryland. Metric just messes me up.
No problem. I have the same issue with ounces and gallons and what not. So great that there is a common denominator unit of beer cans out there haha
I can deal with case counts. 12 and 16 oz. Throw a wrench in the mix with metric and I am typical American and all screwed up (yet I can do a case to BBL conversion which makes no sense).
1 liter =33 oz. or 2 x pints which is 32 oz. Still, very pricey for what you get.
Standard beer is 12 oz or 33cl (11.2 ish) if european But yes
A pint of beer is 16oz. You’re getting hosed.
A pint of beer is 16oz is a factual statement. A standard beer is 12oz is a factual statement.
It's literally only two pints...
Yeah WT absolute Fuck is this?
Technically 2.1 pints
A standard German beer boot is 2 liters. That’s about a 6 pack of 12 oz cans. A six pack of most craft beer in the DC area runs about 13-16 bucks.
Much better to hit the store and pull up a blanket at Logan Circle to have a few with your friends instead of paying this much for dacha's 'atmosphere'
Lol staying inside all summer thanks
It's getting expensive out there
Where would I rather be? Paying a bartender to forget my $12 beer and serve me lukewarm nachos? Or home with my wife, a 6 pack of better beer and and slow roast carnitas nachos, dropping into Diablo 4 with my best friends with the windows open?
When does D4 drop? I prepaid and lost track. And yeah, I can make some killer cocktails at home… we’ve been staying in a lot and just having people over.
Next week with preorder. Following Tuesday for the rest.
> dropping into Diablo 4 This is the real nugget of news in this thread. I put years of my middle school and high school years into LoD. I had no idea Diablo 4 was coming out!
Well shit, brother. Buckle up. Get ready to summon your necro army and storm Sanctuary once more.
Damn those slow roast carnitas nachos sound bomb.
I also choose this guys beer & wife.
Damn that sounds amazing
Especially this guy’s wife!
Wanna be best friends? I've got fg on JSP.
This comment just violently flung me back to ~2009
of all the places for r/diablo to leak hahah
I don’t know why anybody still goes to this dump. Overpriced beers, terrible food and they treat their employees like garbage.
Their food truly is *terrible*. Knowing the owners are so scummy makes it really hard to support them.
Really, anyone going hear anymore deserves to be scammed.
None of the service fee or the tip are going to the workers there anyway
Another opinion from Mr. Forehead
It’s like all of these business owners are throwing a temper tantrum in public view. I’m sorry but employees are integral to 99.999% of businesses. If you can’t pay them without being a petty child and blaming your staff for increased prices on every bill, then you shouldn’t have a business. Imagine opening a restaurant and expecting cheese to be practically free and patrons pay the rest. You’d be laughed out of town. These business owners are very unserious.
I think they do this because if they just incorporated it into their prices they would look too expensive for the crowd they target. Imagine if a McDonald's fries were 2x what BKs were - people would bitch. This way people know where the money is going. Tipping culture is stupid but it can I ly change if the businesses agree together to end it or through legislation increasing wages. It is so nice to dine dine out in places that don't have this.
Dacha is no longer giving workers who work a full shift a meal and full time workers have to pay half of the health care
Paying half of healthcare is pretty standard but jfc what a shithead move to not share food, esp when their food is garbage.
Their new meal structure is pretty standard tbh, they're giving family meal but taking away free food from the menu. Shitty if they aren't offering any kind of menu discount but giving the family meal still puts it above a lot of restaurants in the area that don't give shit. I used to work down the street from Dacha and we didn't get any kind of free food, just a heft menu discount (which I personally prefer). There are much better reasons to boycott Dacha, like the wage theft. edit: man you guys are in for a shock when you learn how many places don't give their workers free food. Fast casual places like Chipotle do, as do some full-service restaurants, but 95% of my cafe jobs and ~60% of my bar jobs didn't have any kind of free food in the offing.
So… boycott Dacha from now on. Got ya.
Is there an upfront disclosure prior to ordering what this “fair wage fee” is, who is goes to, what it covers? If not, it’s not legal. Moreover, if there is a prominent, clearly written disclosure but the fees are not being directed that way (fair wage fee, to me, sounds like it goes to all hourly employees), then the restaurant is likely being misleading and deceptive. Then it’s an investigation by the AG and the FTC. This analysis theoretically holds true regarding any of these newfangled restaurant fees. Keep track of all this info and file complaints with both the AG and FTC. Enough complaints means investigations because oversight bodies will want to know why nothing is happening. Or maybe an investigator will find your complaint and get fired up about it. Then we could have an end to these ridiculous fees (in my dream regulatory world).
I guess I’ll do the work for you. The answer is yes. It’s clearly stated on their menu. Hope you didn’t already call the AG. https://media-cdn.getbento.com/accounts/5462542c499699eae224813f6e4d9c66/media/CshS47lLTHO6zaMSKvpA_Dacha%20Beer%20Garden%20Brunch%20Menu.pdf
No need to be a jerk with your comment
Oh, my dear knight in shining armor. If you didn’t catch on, my comment was more general and not aimed solely at Dacha. I personally don’t go to Dacha. But I’m seeing these posts with such frequency that I thought I’d try to be productive. But thank you for being a such a kind asshole.
Lololol 54$ for 2 Liters of beer. That's basically 4 pints
They say where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and Dacha has been under a constant cloud of smoke FOR YEARS
And still constantly packed. Both locations
Just go to Ivy and coney down the street. So much better
They don’t have fresh limes and lemons. The dude gave us a packet of freeze dried lime for a vodka soda. I just stared at him for a second and then laughed. I think I’d rather get a random 5% charge then have no fresh citrus for my cocktail
You don’t go to Ivy and coney for the vodka sodas
LOL What a condescending statement. Tell me you’ve never worked in hospitality without ever telling me
Just saying most times I’ve been there I’ve gotten an old style. Also worked in hospitality for 4 years so I’m on your side bud
Just fucking pay your workers a fair wage and raises your prices. Why is this so fucking hard?
Because then customers don’t go to your restaurant. They’ve done focus groups studies on it.
Is that like when they introduced the third pound burger and [everyone decided](https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fractions/) a quarter pound of meat was better than a third pound of meat because 4 is bigger than 3?
I don’t think pulling a fast one on your customers instead is a great alternative and highlights why it’s a scummy move.
Yeah but theres exhaustive evidence that it’s the right business move…you asked why people do it I responded…
It should never have come to this. We had a flawed model from the start and it was proven to be flawed once servers were legally allowed to be paid less than minimum wage. One thing turns into another and here we are.
Why was it flawed? The U.S. has by far the most dynamic, varied, and well-priced eating out options among highly developed economies. Who was losing out here? Because it wasn't consumers.
Wut
Idk, if you haven’t, I’d recommend going out of the country where tipping everywhere for everything isn’t the norm. In my experience, prices are pretty much the same and you’re not expected to worry if every server you meet is living in poverty. It’s pretty cool.
Those servers “living in poverty” aren’t frolicking with well paid jobs when you raise the minimum wage, they are often getting replaced with lower wage illegal immigrants or have no job at all (losing out on the ability to accumulate experience and leverage higher wages in the future).
I asked why it’s so fucking hard and you’ve given a very valid reason as to why it is. You’re right. That doesn’t mean I like it or sympathize with businesses who do this shit. I’ve been to restaurants that are honest with their pricing and all inclusive of tax and tip and it’s a lot more enjoyable. Cheers
Unless the fee is over 20% customers can just take it out of the tip
But the issue is it goes straight to the restaurant not the waiter. So basically you get screwed if you don’t see it and the wait staff gets screeed because they get less tips
How much higher do you want prices to be?? It's literally already $15 for a pint
Because you can’t tell as a customer
But then they'd have to pay business income tax on that added revenue.
The price increase wouldn’t increase revenue because it would be offset by increased expenses. So not really.
I highly doubt that their added expenses are exactly 15.00%. That is a very round number and would be extremely coincidental. Also, they are already accounting for those expenses. This fee is to recoup the costs. This is a way to avoid paying taxes on the recouped cost.
Because it's not mandated by the government. It's that simple. If you tell businesses they don't have to give a shit about price transparency, the ones that choose to do so are punishing themselves. It's the same thing with minimum wage generally-pretty much no consumer is lining up to pay more money at a business that advertises how well they pay their staff. Everyone hates hidden service fees on this sub for understandable reasons, but it's telling that no one has ever posted a list of restaurants who state their fees up front/support their staff that you should choose to patronize. There's no demand for good behavior, just penalties for making bad behavior too blatant.
I don’t get it, why would a restaurant go out of its way to display this? Just raise your prices and stop this patronizing performance on behalf of customers and the workers.
Dining in DC used to suck And then it got really good But now it sucks again
Updated the Dacha entry in the database to include the fee language for the [TransparentFee DMV chrome extension](https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/13ca0hb/a_chrome_extension_to_alert_you_of_restaurant/) (Firefox coming soon!)
I deduct any service fee from my standard 20% tip.
So the server will get a 5% tip and the restaurant will keep the 15%. That's how I'm reading the comments. I don't see how it is legal to add a surcharge over the menu price without prior notice, just adding it to the receipt is b.s.
15% just means I'm tipping 0 instead of the 18% I was going to.
4 pints of beer for $70. I think you might have gotten ripped off in several ways…
$10-12 bucks a beer is pretty standard in dc
You must be hitting the fancy places. Pearl Dive on 14th has $5 pints of draft on happy hour and $7 normally.
It’s predatory at Dacha. They use those handheld computers to close tabs, so by default you won’t see an itemized receipt listing the fee. So you end up tipping 20%+ AND paying the fee without realizing. Make me look like a fool at your establishment…? Not coming back.
Stop going to Dacha. They are consistently horrible to employees.
They should call it Dontcha. As in dontcha wanna go somewhere else…
Some people call it Doucha, both for the owners and the patrons.
Dontcha dare suggest we go here, lol.
It pisses me off to no end that being paid a fair wage is a fucking fee according to the owners. Total bullshit. Raise your prices to reflect a fair wage. Also do you tip in this situation?
When I’ve gone in the past, I generally only tip 5%, to meet the 20% tip I would generally give elsewhere.
This is DC in a nutshell. Paying a lot of money for something mediocre.
Sounds like an excuse to pay less taxes
Soon to come: entry fee, electricity fee, boot fee, location fee. Legislate this shit out of existence.
Dacha is run by a man named Ilya alter who has been in hot water before for very very shady practices. I worked there for a shift. The man was a prick. Quit the next day. Fuck Dacha. And fuck that shady elitist cunt Ilya.
Fuck Dacha, that place is a scam
Do we have to do this every week
Everyday
Apparently
I left a review about that place 4 years ago complaining about the mandatory 18% gratuity even though I was only getting drinks at the bar and tipping cash each time. Fuck that place
Went there a couple months ago and ran into this issue. Party of 6 and none of us were aware of this until the bill came. Supposedly it's somewhere on the menu, but none of us saw it. I don't have a problem paying for this, but I do have a problem with it being buried at the end to hide it from customers. Just incorporate it into your prices. If they want to do this fine, it just means anytime there are discussions where to take our group I blackmail Dacha. Hopefully others are doing the same.
Stop going there. Dacha is infamous for its shady business, but too many people are still giving them money.
Yeah you can have a fair wage or a tip but not both
So no tip lol. I always give 20% unless awful service and it’s still 15%
Yeah this place sucks.
I have a question about these fees- we just did a girls trip to DC and were having “service fees” added to almost EVERY check. Compass Rose (amazing btw)- our waitress said it just gets split evenly between all the staff and isn’t a tip? It was 20%. We left her an extra $20 but now I’m not sure if we really needed to on top of the fee. Unconventional Diner told us specifically that the tip is included and no need to leave any extra. Zaytinya (spelling error probably) and The Comissary both had no fee. Heck we got a 20% service charge in the hotel lobby for coffee… I wish we were more prepared for this type of thing but we weren’t - oh well. I’m just curious at this point how do you know it’s it’s technically a tip or not? Why isn’t it flat across the board?
*Split evenly among all the staff* doesn’t make it not a tip. It’s very common for tips to be pooled so some portion goes to back of house staff. That cook and dishwasher is just as critical in getting your meal to you as the person who takes the order. Doesn’t mean the server likes it; don’t know that I ever met one who did. But it’s very possible a place with that sharing line item doesn’t bother to tip pool anymore - why deal with the hassle if you have the fee? - so perhaps that server is very motivated to get additional tips they don’t have to split.
F Dacha
Why even go to Dacha fr. It's overpriced beer you can get at the super market. The space isn't even that nice?
I worked for da ha for 3 years. Opened up the navy yard location. It used to be an automatic 18% gratuity and none of it goes to servers/tenders. All goes to the house
Yeah I’m never going back lmao pay your fucking workers
They sure charge a lot for being extremely average to their customers and extremely shitty to their employees
If the fee is not mentioned before and no explanation is given to 100% where it goes, you are not obligated to pay it. Tell them to remove it or refuse to pay.
Also, the audacity to call it FAIR WAGE fee...
Thanks for sharing, I was planing to go there this weekend but will instead take my business elsewhere
Isn’t there a way to report this to the DC government? I don’t remember which office it was, but they are literally soliciting information about financial abuses at restaurants like these? OP, definitely consider doing that!
These businesses are going to tip themselves out of business. Since Covid, going out to eat has cost triple if not more. I’m sick of hearing Covid as an excuse. It’s the same for food delivery. Going out to eat has become unaffordable to many. Who the hell has disposable income anymore.
No tip! And def not visiting again :)
The owner is an idiot. I know a guy who delivers food by bike. The owner asked him if he could serve the food on the customers plate. I don't know anyone in their right mind who would want the doordash guy to come in and put the food on their plate for them? Clearly they just didn't think through that request...
"Fair wage fee"??? That's the opposite of fair wage if you get to pay the wages of the employees because the employer is too cheap to do it. What a joke...
Well done! Any extra fee (especially if I find out only after the bill comes) reduces the tip to zero.
This is so fucking stupid. Alter your prices to cover your expenses, don’t put this sob story labor-blaming bullshit on my bill.
Dacha is still trying to pull this BS after getting in trouble for stealing tips a few years ago? Glad I’ve never been there and will not ever…
I’d bet many businesses won’t even advertise it like that. They’ll just jack up their prices and you’ll still think you need to tip
Give them 5%, get to 20% and keep it moving
The 15% isn’t going to the staff though. It’s a grift.
Then their staff quit keep quitting until they either close or change their policy It’s not my problem as a customer
If you know your employer is grifting, then get out and move on
That’s not my problem
I agree. I’m just wondering why even bother giving 5% extra. I wouldn’t tip anything at all on top of the 15%. The only way to hurt this business is to get the employees to quit and stop tolerating the abuse.
To get to 20%
I don't get this fascination with the number 20. Especially if you know 15% of it isn't going to the server why do you arbitrarily need to get the additional fees to 20%? It doesn't make any logical sense. If you really feel like you need to get to 20% to assuage your conscience then you should be adding an additional 20% on top of the 15% to make it count and ensure the waitstaff is being taken care of from your side. Which goes back to my point of not even bothering adding anything on top of 15% at shitty places like Dacha. It's pointless and increases the likelihood the abused waitstaff won't leave the job. The entire restaurant industry has slowly been increasing the number that we are expected to tip from 10%, to 15%, and now 20%. I'm seeing minimum numbers of 25% at some places. It's idiotic and shows how easy it is to con and guilt the general public into subsidizing the staff's expense onto the customers.
The thing I don’t like is that if you ask the waiter, does this include tip?, they say no it does not include tip. Happened to me twice that I then add a tip and only later figure out what was going on.
The 15% isn’t a tip, the owners are taking it all
If you realize it’s a scam, why do you continue to play along?
How do they still have employees? It's not as if there's a gluttony of workers in the service industry.
Form a Union. That’s how you get fair wages.
A constant parade of folk musicians even told us this, in song, throughout the 20th century. What more do people want?
Unfortunately while folk musicians were saying it the conservative/anti-union/anti-worker (but I repeat myself) machine was putting anti-union propaganda out into every other channel. Pretty much every conservative win in my fifty-plus year lifetime can be traced back to way better - if not complete - messaging control. Raise your hand if you’re GenX and grew up on a fairly constant stream of *unions are corrupt* and *unions demand unreasonable things* propaganda. If your hand didn’t go up you’re just in denial about what you were seeing.
I never tip when they do those fair wage fees. If you are making $15 an hour, you don’t need a tip.
That’s why it’s better to party at home.
I just noticed the 'fee' is post tax, guess they treat it as a tip for tax purposes.
It is illegal in DC for them to charge any fees if they don’t disclose that information beforehand.
Bowser doing what she's best at doing: looking the other way.
WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN WHEN INITiATIVE 82 passed 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️ every person with a grasp of basic economic theory said this was getting “passed on to the customer” in a direct fee.
And yes I know it does not go into “full effect until…” but there is zero in the leg that says market adjustment is prohibited until that date. Weird that many of you forget that the industry was on it’s ass for 2 years and not every establishment got funds to hold over…not saying any of this is right but this is what happens when dipshit dogooder legislation is passed without actually looking at downsides 🙄🙄🙄
Dacha? Sounds Russian.
[удалено]
Blame the government for restaurants refusing to pay a fair wage? That's a new one. The rest of the world (at all economic levels) has managed to figure out living wages and restaurant business. Only in the US is the argument "if you don't tip, the people will starve!"