Went to a restaurant in LA today and when I got the check I noticed that it was a bit higher than it should be. Then I noticed this 18% service charge. So… We, as customers, need to help pay for their servers instead of the owners paying their servers a living wage. And on top of that they have suggested tip. I called bs on this. I will bet you that the servers do not see a dime of this 18% service charge. [deleted a word so it wasn’t a grammatical horror to read]
So it’s a mandatory tip, and it’s also suggested you voluntarily leave a secondary tip.
Tip culture in America is so aggressive.
Service charge I would presume is primarily paid out to the non-wait staff at the restaurant. The kitchen in particular.
Tips go to the wait staff, and they will pay some of that out to other staff (e.g. front staff) depending on how the restaurant works.
These are going to be separate. The service charge is there so they can increase prices by a tightly controlled amount without needing to fuck up the carefully targeted price points ($8 or $7.99 is a lot better than $9.44). Which is shitty, to be clear: it’s a hidden way to increase prices while still advertising the same price. But it’s not something that replaces or complements the tip, it’s just a shitty price-adjustment.
A waiter or waitress is still going to be dependent on the actual tip.
THIS^
pay them , what You want to … And increase the price on your menu … BUT DO NOT STICK 😞 YOUR CUSTOMER WITH A HIDDEN FEE …
Especially when we(customers) HAVE to pay tip 😉 … {{ Like 'TF was the person who came up with the hidden fee even thinking… 😞🤔 ? }}
flips table
Because that’s not how it works in America. You know this. Don’t ask a question; it’s stupid. Declare your intention that it should be changed, and propose a way to do it.
If you actually care more than posting online, you can start a restaurant.
Because they’re allowed not to do so. The answer is shitty yet simple.
Someone not tipping won’t change that either; all that will do is stiff a worker. This needs to be fixed by changing labor laws.
Because then they’d have to raise prices.
Especially nowadays with so many people looking up menu prices online before going somewhere, it’s a way to present your prices as lower than they actually are.
That’s a good question, and the easy answer is ‘they should.’ As the commenter above you mentioned, they use it as a tactic to advertise the same (competitive to other local restaurants) price people are used to. A more transparent way of doing business would be raising the price of the menu items to compensate staff fairly. The restaurant owners/management fear that if they do this it would drive away customers who believe the food is overpriced and look to their competitors. It’s easy to say, ‘just pay the staff a fair wage,’ but not quite as easy in practice. Most restaurants are small businesses just barely scraping by. The OP is right to be annoyed, but as always, context and a basic understanding of a situation’s underlying principles make the easy answer difficult to implement.
Or they can get a less shitty employer. I see a hidden “service” fee, that’s the tip, take it to up with the owner, I’m not responsible for this. Restaurant staff really need to start directing their anger and efforts at their employer instead of customers.
Ya… That doesn’t seem realistic to me. Very few people will “direct their anger” toward someone with power over them. There’s always risk in a addressing issues with your employer because they can make your life worse. They can fire you, reduce your income or working hours, become inflexible with scheduling and demands, remove benefits, etc. No, it doesn’t always go this way and there are plenty of fine employers. But even if you have a reasonable employer and are free to raise concerns, there’s still risk and confrontation.
And what about alternate employers? Restaurant staff can go find a better employer, right? Except, job searches are very difficult and it’s near impossible to identify a good employer from a bad one while interviewing. Very real chance that you make a change and end up with more problems.
Don’t get me wrong. These hidden fees are 100% bs. It’s just not the employee’s responsibility to fix things. They usually have zero power in these situations. “Be good to the customer or I won’t get a tip. Be good to the employer or I won’t be scheduled to work.”
Found their website. They use a lot of flowery words, but I think you sum it up pretty well.
Biden was in the news saying he wants to get rid of hidden fees. I was surprised that restaraunts weren’t on the list of industries being targeted. This kind of fee should be illegal. It should be required to be a part of the up-front price.
Hell, I feel the same about sales tax. It should be baked in to the price you see on the shelf or menu.
So what’s to stop them from setting all prices to 1 cent and having the rest as service fee?
Thank you for posting this you are correct the fee goes to the restaurant and they use the money to pay the back of house. In my experience it is just so the restaurant can provide the same wages as before to back of house but not out of the restaurants pocket. This tends to result in people tipping less so the server directly makes less money. There is also often no accounting/oversight into how the restaurant uses the fee. If I recall correctly the city of Los Angeles is looking into the legality of how these fees are presented to the customer and the fact there is no oversight.
Reminds me of how dealerships can sell cars above the MSRP … SMH
(( They do it in US but not in Europe; or so I heard ))
How is this any different than just raising the price of everything by 18%? But you see service charge and a percentage and its an outrage.
If you raise the price of everything by 18% the prices on the menu will be 18% higher, possibly discouraging people from eating there. If you add it at the end people will still choose to eat there at least once. It is practically the same as raising prices, just a lot more dishonest.
Also illegal. It’s called bait and switch. Advertise one price, provide the service, then change the price. What if you went to get $50 in gas, and after you put the nozzle back the price suddenly changed to $59. Unless there’s a very visible sign saying it would happen before you started pumping, it’s illegal.
Because raising the price of everything lets you know ahead of time that you are paying more. I’m fine with a price hike if it means servers get better pay, but hiding it like this is scummy and borderline fraudulent.
It isn’t hidden. They tell you upfront there is an 18% charge, however they rely on people ignoring that or psychologically not caring and only looking at the item price.
It’s getting stupid in Canada too despite our laws being different (as in, you cannot make less than minimum wage if you work in a place that allows tips).
I got my oil changed a few months ago and the machine prompted me for a tip. For what? The mechanic did their job, I paid for said job. Transaction concluded.
I tried Crumbl cookies for the first (and last, holy crap overpriced) time. Got asked for a tip. For what? I got six cookies in a box and then had to leave the store because there’s no seating to eat them there. The person who helped me took my order. That’s it. Another employee put six cookies in a box and put them on a counter and said my number. Not a lot of wiggle room to go “above and beyond.”
What’s next? A tip at the grocery store for the cashier scanning my groceries? A tip at the drive-thru?
Here’s a tip. Don’t work for an employer who doesn’t pay you what you’re worth.
EDIT: Actually, the tip at the drive-thru is already a thing. Starbucks prompts for a tip at the drive-thru. For what? The barista took my order and made my coffee. I drove up to a window, took it, and fucked off.
I booked a hotel online the other day and was asked if I want to leave a tip… A tip for what? I didn’t even interact with a human. Just clicked a few buttons on a website. Am I tipping the web developer?? Lol
As a developer, I never get tips. Even on my open-source stuff, I have a “tip jar” PayPal link on the very bottom of my readme files. Never asked, never required. Know how much I’ve made in tips over the years? Exactly $0.
Starbucks barista doesn’t even “make” the coffee. They use superautomatic espresso machines. Starbucks coffee sucks ass.
In the US you generally cannot make less than minimum wage, the employer can directly pay you less as long as your full compensation (pay + tips) are at least minimum wage, if not they are supposed to pay more.
I think the explosion of tip questions is due to the card processors figuring out there was an untapped area where they could pressure people to tip and skim off a percentage of that.
That’s the thing here - the employer must pay you the same regardless of tips. Tips are always a bonus, not part of your wage.
Listen to this scam.
I stopped at a Starbucks kiosk to get my kid a juice box the other day. When I paid for it by card the card machine prompted for a tip, 25%, 20%, and 15%. Here’s the kicker, 25% was selected by default! You actually have to use button on the machine to move through the selections to get to NONE. To top it off the lady behind the counter casually said, “Oh you’re using a card? Just press the green accept button when the menu comes up.” which would have selected the 25 option.
Did you pay $16.95 for lettuce? Tf kinda restaurant did you go to?
I’ll be the one to stoop to a name and shame. From the receipt, that’s Jon & Vinny’s Brentwood. Thanks—will now be sure to avoid going there.
i went to the one in Fairfax. i should have known something was up. when my wife (who wanted to go, she doesn’t speak english so she was just looking at the pictures) showed me this place, i saw that their rating wasn’t as good as i thought it would be. but since i was driving i didn’t check. now i know why.
Jon and Vinny’s is such great food too, it’s a shame that they pull this shit. Last time I went, I just rounded up to the nearest $ and paid with cash. I’m not tipping on top of an 18% auto gratuity. I would say they should just raise their prices, but that place is already very expensive…
It’s great if they include it in the bill, it gets rid of the tipping culture. If they still ask you for tips then tell them to GTFO
They should then adjust their prices by 18% on all items and not have this bullshit on the receipt. Let the customer choose when ordering how much they are willing to spend instead of this. It will make the process much clearer and avoid confrontation. Bad judgement on the owners.
I bet legally, the establishment owners aren’t required to give “service charges” to their staff the same way they are required to give 100% of the tips…
This is some shady shit, IMO.
Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer (so I don’t know WTF I am talking about), so if someone here that knows the law could comment on “service charges” vs. “tips” in this context, I would love to know.
The word that should be there is “gratuity.” I’m quite sure you’re right, and I know there are horrible owners for sure, but I would have to think it would be impossible for a restaurant nice enough to charge $22.50 for a mini plate of pasta to retain good servers if they did that. Restaurant owners who operate fancy high-priced places would have more sense than to alienate their salespeople.
It’s LA, so I assume there are plenty of douchy “haute cuisine” wannabe places that charge $50 for a handful of steamed rice served in a styrofoam coffee cup under the name “Riz Derelicte” or some stupid shit like that.
Makes me think 🤔 if I went to a grocery store and they charged me a membership like Costco without actually disclosing it… Sounds like fraud if they don’t disclose this service charge / fee at the very beginning… They should have it plastered big all over the place because looks like most of us wouldn’t expect something like this…
“Restraunt” food is expensive as it is IMHO, even fast food isn’t a great deal unless you buy with a coupon or some 2 burgers deal 🤝… Otherwise it’s not worth it… Not to me anyways … :/
If only I could simply use a coupon to get a decent price from a fast food place. Nah, instead they all demand that you install a datamining app to maybe get you prices that would’ve been the regular price just a few years ago.
Looks like a couple of their employees are suing over exactly that.
Jesus. They try to be altruistic and say that tip culture isn’t fair (and it’s not), but you know the altruistic thing would be to… Not have tipping then! I’m in Seattle and there are tons of restaurants like this that have a fee, but then tipping is genuinely not allowed, they don’t accept them. Everyone gets a fair wage.
That 18% is definitely not going to the staff.
And for the owners, here’s an idea, why not just make the menu items 18% more expensive and remove the fee altogether?? And if that means your food is too expensive… Literally yes. Why does your food cost that much?
Tyvm for finding this article!!
" The announcement and change in billing language comes after a Los Angeles Times article published on June 21 about the class-action lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against Joint Venture Restaurant Group Inc., which owns Jon & Vinny’s. The workers claim that the company denied them tips and therefore shortchanged them on their take-home pay because of confusion resulting from the 18% service fee.
California’s gratuity law requires that tips be remitted in full to non-managerial service staff. "
SMH … What a bunch of assholes; screwed their customers and then their staff…
Hope they get fucked / hope justice is served
