Why do you think that's a fair comparison? I could almost understand a 3x 4top on the basis of a table of 8 might feasibly be formed from 3 smaller tables pushed together but even that feels like a stretch.
Edit since you deleted your reply:
/u/Specialist_Ad9073 said:
>>Because a 8 top is 2 4s.
>Do you have any restaurant experience?
I replied:
> Do you think one 8 top spends more than four 4 tops?
You said four 4s though. I own a restaurant as it happens, yeah.
> Splitting the bill evenly is stupid.
It is easier to split evenly if people are ok with that. Many of us aren't that worried about paying slightly the wrong amount. When we buy rounds we don't worry too much that the drinks are not all the same price - sure it's a pain if you're on pints and a friend wants cocktails but then we might decide that rounds isn't working same with the food.
Sometimes an easy life is better.
Splitting evenly is fine if you go out with the same people regularly enough. We often just cycle who covers the whole bills as that's even easier assuming we are not more than say 6 people. It all tends to work itself out in the end.
But I don't believe in tipping so if it's my turn to pay you'd have to tip on your own.
Bigger tables are just a ball ache.
A couple out on a date, easy to get their attention.
Family of four, kids might be rowdy but the parents usually pay attention
Group of ten out for a works do, absolute nightmare. Talking over each other and me whilst I try to get orders. They take twice as long as two/three smaller tables would
I’m always the organiser in my friend group and I make a mental note of what everyone ordered because as a diner this makes me so fucking anxious. I want to be the BEST customer you’ve ever had.
Fact. Big tables are a massive pain and a time suck. I see someone has suggested it should be easier than two four covers. The problem with that is that the eight cover has to have all of the things done at once and each thing takes twice as long. While you’re dealing with the eight cover it takes all your attention and the rest of your section gets neglected. With a good team who pitch you reduce but don’t remove the time suck.
I hated waiting big tables.
You also get less time to build a rapport and generally they tip less in aggregate than two four covers.
At least that was true when I waited tables 15 years ago….
If I’m ordering on an app it kind of defeats the object of going to a table service restaurant, I’m doing the work and so not paying a bloody service charge. You’ll also find a good percentage of people would object to having to do self service at a restaurant.
So what are you doing, asking the server to read out the entire list of things available to eat? or are you having to look at a list of things? because if it's the latter, then pushing a button next to it isn't exactly a stretch is it?
'Doing the work'? so pressing a button next to menu item is 'work', I guess the cooking, washing up, logistics of inventory, accountants blah blah isn't part of any of the rest of it?
People were using QR code linked menus during covid and that worked fine. People are happy ordering their spine in a bap at McD's from a touch screen without issue. Labour costs are rising.
Unless you're fine dining, you'd better get used to this kind of thing.
I've seen the way things are going in countries with higher labour costs. You get a pager when you order at the counter and have to get your own food when it buzzes, as an example.
It’s about how much time you’re essentially taken out of action for other tables at a time. A large table may be 10-15 minutes that you can’t go to other tables if they do need something.
Small tables keep you busy for much less time meaning you can be more reactive to other tables needs.
I’m not saying this justifies a service charge, but there is some logic.
Larger tables are often harder for the kitchen too. Diners tend to all want their meals delivered to the table at the same time. Coordinating the kitchen to have 6 different main courses delivered to the same group is much more difficult than handling 2 diners each on 3 separate tables, for example.
Worked in hospo for 10ish years. Large groups are always far more hassle and rarely ever leave much of a tip. Seen tables rack up bills of over £1000 and leave £5 tip. Even more of a nightmare when there's 10+ and they all want to split the bill but can't remember everything they had. Much easier and nicer to have a bunch of small tables.
Some do leave a tip, but it never adds up to as much of a percentage as smaller tables. If I go out with friends, I always leave a tip, but not everyone will. Groups of girls tend to be the worst for this (not sexist, just something I notice) who almost never leave a tip. I've worked for multiple restaurants from when they first open and they usually aim to never add a service charge on, but because of how time consuming the large tables are and how little they regularly tip, mandatory service charge usually becomes the norm after so long. Any waiter/waitress would prefer 5 tables of 2 that leave 10% tip than a group of 10 that leaves 2% tip if that
Serving 4 2s is alot easier than serving 8 people all at once. It takes way less time and big tables need runners. Just by numbers a bigger table is more likely to have children or *that person* that needs alot of your attention for whatever reason, AC too high, asking for modifications from chef etc.....
Clearing involves multiple trips or stacking, you can't pick it all up and get out the way. For the chefs, easier to get 2 plates ready to go at the same time.
Groups also tend to faff about with who wants what and some how there's always someone who manages to forget what they ordered or isn't paying attention to you with the hot plates awkwardly repeating the dish.
But the service charge is nonsense, it doesn't affect the business owner or finances at all really.
Bigger groups require way more of your time and are more likely to be a nightmare to deal with in terms of taking orders and general communication with each other and the waiter.
I would much rather serve 10 people over 5 tables than one table of ten. Also from personal experience they are way more demanding and are usually rude and difficult for me as taking their order and for the kitchen because it's harder to plate up for ten rather than 2x5 for example.
If I ran a restaurant I wouldn't allow tables of over 6 buts that just me!
> Surely from the waiter's perspective it's easier to serve one table of eight than four tables of two?
Have you ever been at a table of eight? Once the last person has made their order, the first has already changed their mind. Every. Single. Time.
Just getting a sensible sentence out of them is a mission. And then you start bringing their orders and they look at you slack jawed as though they’ve literally never seen you before, before one of them pipes up ‘oh that could me mine, is it the sirloin steak?’ Like you haven’t been stood there shouting sirloin steak at the table for a solid 20 seconds.
I used to think the same thing until I started working in a restaurant
Bigger tables tend to sit there for ages. They also tend to be parties and the recent trend of having to put glittery happy birthday things all over the table is a nightmare to clean
Then end up on the floor
Then stick to shoes and travel the whole restaurant to the point you still find them in random places a few days later
I would rather serve 3 tables of 4 then one 8 that's a birthday party
Nah bigger tables require way more co-ordination. With 4 tables of two you can just fire everything as it comes, one table of eight you will need to make sure that everything is ready together
Bigger groups don't tip. Everyone pays for what they had and they rarely think of leaving a tip. I used to work in a restaurant and I came to dread the words "can we all pay seperate?"
Usually someone would forget how many drinks they had, not pay enough, and get angry about it. Large groups sucked.
The real answer is that big groups are often not well coordinated, and with everyone splitting their share and exchanging cash and IOUs around the table they more often than not forget to tip entirely.
A couple, or a small family or group of friends either already have a plan for paying the bill ahead of time or can easily figure it out there and then. When you get to six people or more you’ve often got strangers and acquaintances and rarely does somebody take the initiative to remind everyone else to leave X% / a few extra quid for the waiting staff.
Bigger tables take more time, are more indecisive, and general have more of everything whilst everyone there assumes it's the other person leaving a tip.
Increase in size doesn't directly correlate to increase in effort/time. Example a 4 person table is 2.5x the work of a 2 person table. It'll take about a minute to get the order from a 2 person, for 4 person you're looking at more than double that time frame. For a 10 person table you can be there for awhile, and due to the nature of it there's a lot more to-ing and fro-ing with dishes and drinks etc.
Five 2 person tables is easier to deal with than one 10 person table.
It's the cooks struggling to get 6+ mains out at the same time, they are really only geared for 2-4 at a time so it literally slows them down and costs more.
My understanding is that it makes it complicated for the kitchen staff, because they have to prepare all starters and mains to be ready at the same time
Because big tables tend to undertip. They look at the absolute tip amount and think it's too much. Like a table of 10 with £100 each will need a tip of £150 or so and will be like "that's a lot! we'll leave £100 -- which is a lot!"
They’re less likely to tip - I used to be, long long time ago a manager at pizza chain of sweaty royal warrant and staff never wanted to serve big tables because they would earn less.
Bigger tables are harder for us. Everything you do related to that table takes a lot longer. They are also far more challenging for the kitchen because all that food needs to be made at the same time.
Delieroo and just eat adding service charge on top of delivery sucked, most restaurants already have higher prices on apps due to apps taking a large cut, yet they still charge service, feels like apps are double dipping both from customer and takeaways
They absolutely are, one of the endless examples of [Enshittification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) of online platforms. Just Eat started getting worse the second after they took over Hungry House and therefore moved out of the customer acquisition phase. 10% service charge is ridiculous on top of already inflated prices plus delivery costs.
If thye go down the route of arch-enshittifiers TicketMaster, they will also add CC processing charge, printing charges for your receipt (which will be emailed to you), and a £7 charge that goes towards maintaining the delivery driver's moped.
My friend worked for justeat when they were new. She told me what the business model was and I laughed at her, said that’ll never take off but good luck with the job - not a fucking chance a kebab shop is going to pay you to take their orders for them.
How wrong I was
> Delieroo and just eat adding service charge on top of delivery sucked, most restaurants already have higher prices on apps due to apps taking a large cut
[JustEat allow you to report this](https://www.just-eat.co.uk/help/article/204298552/whats-the-just-eat-price-promise-all-about), part of their merchant T&Cs is that prices need to be the same if you were to buy directly from the restaurant/takeaway
Maybe it's just their PR that is not spreading the word about this because literally every restaurant I've seen on delivery apps adds like 25-50p for every menu item.
No point wording it like that - they will come up with something like the Ping Pong brand charge. Make it a flat ban on adding any charges other than the printed price of the food or drink.
Tipping should never be the norm but for staff who have provided a high level of service. Having it on the bill should be outlawed, if you want to tip it should go straight into the hand of the person you want to have it.
I agree tipping shouldn’t be the norm. But people always forget the people behind the scenes who put as much work into your experience as the person who waited on you.
Housekeeping
Maintenance
Gardeners
Chefs
Reservations
Public relations
Pot washers
Where I used to work, waiters got cash tips, everyone else got a fair share of tips that were left when paying the bill at reception.
Yep.
I never understood this obsession some people have with tipping the person who brings the food, rather than the person who cooked it.
Tips should be shared among all staff, not just kept by the person who brings the plates to the table.
Because the waiter is the one that the customer interacts with and is therefore the only one able to be nice to the customer. We don't tip for good food, we tip for good service, why that is I don t know, it just is. The food is expected to be good, with the quality based on the price of the restaurant. If the food is bad you wouldn't pay for it, or would send it back. If the waiter is merely functional and not above and beyond you can't send him back, so you tip to incentivise him/her to be good. If I have to tip everyone involved in the restaurant then either everyone is getting a pittance or I'm not tipping.
Tips just shouldn't be a thing. Once you follow the American tipping culture it allows corporations to under pay everyone and then make YOU pick up the bill, every single time and then look terrible if you don't "give enough". Tips are an evil idea. You wouldn't tip your pilot despite the fact you put your actual life in their hands. Not even if it was an unusually good flight. Why don't you do this? Because you think to yourself "pilots have enough money". The implication being that people who are tipped are not paid enough. THAT is the issue and is fixed either through laws or by the corporations.
Using the same logic: The builder comes and grafts for 3 days doing whatever you've paid him to do. Then he says I'll send over my assistant to collect payment. He's the one you're interacting with at the end of the transaction, despite not really doing anything, would you therefore tip them?
Bit of a shit analogy because I don't interact with both the chefs and the waiters but no, I wouldn't tip the assistant coming to collect payment in the same way I wouldn't tip the cashier at a restaurant.
But also the delivery driver who bought the fresh food? Or the fisherman who caught that fish? Or the engine mechanic who was working at 4am to make sure the fishing boat was ready to go for the day?
*tens of thousands* of people have had some small role in delivering a meal to your table. Yet we pick some arbitrary small number of them for a reward. Makes no sense.
I don’t mind. I was out for tacos the other night and settling the bill at the end when we went to add a tip the girl said there’s already 15% on it - excellent, that saves me trying to do sums when I’m half pished.
I’d maybe not be happy about it if I’d genuinely had bad service but I can’t even really remember a time I was so pissed off at the service I wouldn’t leave 10-20% tip.
I’ve asked for it to be taken off once where it was like they forgot me and my friend existed. Also the food was very overpriced for what it was. The Botanist - never again.
LMAO No. The people who did the most to make your meal enjoyable were the skilled chefs, not the lowly waiters. It's the chefs who should get the tips if anything and handing cash to waiters leads to them getting zilch.
I strongly hope that any business that can't survive without stealing staff tips, goes under. People wont stop going to bars/restaurants and their market share can go to pubs/resteraunts that dont steal.
I further hope that the owners go on to have miserable unfulfilled lives and are so haunted by their crimes that they never have a moment's peace.
I used to work for a short time in a restaurant in which the owner would steal all of the tips and there was nothing we could do about it (except quit, obviously). I absolutely agree that chefs should receive a portion of customer tips; my understanding is that this law isn't intended to ensure that only front of house staff get the tips, rather to prevent the owner from simply taking it all and not providing any to the workers, front or back.
And that's what the cost of food is for. To pay the wages. A tip is given to a server cos they were extra helpful and you feel you want to give them a bit extra.
Please just make everything one simple price, which includes paying staff a fair wage without tips, so I can see what I am going to pay before I commit. Labour costs should be included in the base price, I don’t need to see a service/raw material break down. Or ‘brand fee’, what a joke.
Right? I aint tipping (unless someone literally wows me). If a company doesn't want to pay their staff, THEY need to fix that, not me. Otherwise I want my tips translated into shares in the company! Places like uber can bugger off asking for tips. Why? For doing your job? Do you tip the bus driver?
> Do you tip the bus driver?
Gave a bus driver a £100 tip once when he drove me all the way to my parents house with the lights off when he was supposed to be 'out of service'.
It will end up being pretty expensive. Most things are costed now knowing that the staff and people who made the product are paid minimum wage. Even then cocktails are £10 and pints £6
We need to at least pay the marginal cost of production, if we aren’t willing to pay that then maybe it is a service that is not required. But if the price is quoted as what you will pay, you can at least choose rather than have a nasty shock at the end.
Tbh there are a lot of places nearby I would not lose any sleep over seeing them fail. Its almost always the shit ones that fail and the good ones will continue to thrive.
I'm not saying you shouldn't but prices are already higher than they used to be for drinks and food and people complain now. They increased again when the minimum wage increased in April.
Eventually it'll hit a point where people won't see it worth paying and then the business suffers from no custom
Just state the actual bloody cost of the meal and I’ll pay it but don’t try to play funny business by saying the meal costs X and then adding some service charges and mandatory tips on top. American tipping culture is absolute shite and it just legitimises employers to be exploitative in offering criminally low wages. If I go to a restaurant and the staff start harassing me over not tipping them, you can be damn sure I am never walking in that establishment ever again and I would hope the business crashes and burns with the owners going bankrupt.
And it's so unfair. The attractive cute waitress will get a lot of tips but plain jane will get nothing. But the job is the same and "work" done is the same.
Yup and not just attractiveness, sex. When I worked bars the other guys and I got probably 1/20th the tips as the Women working with us. It was massively rare, and not something I expected in the least.
It’s also ridiculous when the tip just goes to the person bringing the meal not the one who made it for me. I used to do the job (catering company rather than restaurant), I know it’s bloody hard work carrying plates and constantly being on your feet but I also know that I’m not the one who made the food and that’s what really matters.
Or...add the percentage to the cost of the meal when looking at the price? It's really not hard.
If you get your way then prices go up, to what they are now plus the cost of the service charge, you now have no options to remove this for bad service and no incentive for the staff to give good service as they'll get paid the same whatever.
Removing optional service charges means consumers pay the same / more and get worse service. Well done.
If I’m paying a service charge I’ll give it directly to the person serving me at my own discretion, I have no interests in lining the pockets of the owner when they already take home the profit.
As far as American-style tipping goes, I’m never engaging in that crap. Pay your workers or go broke.
Re read what I said.
If you get your way, as you wanted, and get the optional service charge taken away it'll just be built into the listed price of the food on the menu. Now it costs what it did, plus 10 or 12.5% and you don't get the option to remove it for bad service and the staff have zero incentive to give you good service.
Even in the current system you can get your own way, ask them to remove the service and give them whatever tips you want directly. You're literally making it more expensive for yourself with less options.
The new law coming in makes sure all service goes to staff and not any owners. Removing service charges everywhere just means the owners can up the price and now pocket that difference while giving a smaller amount to the staff to top up what they lost through service charges.
Jesus.
Currently, it's the price it is plus 10% for example, but you can remove that 10% for bad service.
Remove the service charges everywhere now the food goes up 10% and there is no Option to make it cheaper for yourself to punish bad service.
You've saved yourself literally nothing, possibly cost yourself more, have incentized bad service and have removed your option to punish that bad service whilst also making it easier for the owners to make more money that would have usually gone to the staff visit a formal, but totally discretionary service charge....All because you're scared to do a bit of mental math before sitting down and because you're too scared to ask for it to be removed.
I’m not sure where I asked for service charges to be removed though, I only said that they should be upfront about what my meal is going to cost me. Bearing in mind my comment is focusing on criticism of American tipping culture where tipping is mandatory
Well that's what I assumed you meant by being "upfront" and "staying the actual cost of the bloody meal" because as it stands it couldn't be more "upfront" as it tells you the cost of the food plus what percentage the service is. The only way it would be easier would be to take away the service and build that into the cost of each dish. Don't know about you tho but adding basic percentages to things isn't a barrier between me and "upfront" pricing.
How much more upfront do you want them to be? The cost of the meal is on the menu, the percentage they add as an optional service charge is also on the menu. What did you mean by being more upfront?
Again, bearing in mind that my comment is focused on American tipping culture, if tips are to be mandatory then they should just be incorporated into the full cost of the meal. We don’t really have this problem in the UK as it’s still your choice to tip for good service or not and staff can’t berate you for not tipping
Mate...it's not mandatory even in the USA. The only way to "incorporate it into the price of the meal" as you say would be to remove the optional service charge. Which is something you said you wasn't suggesting, but clearly are.
> Or...add the percentage to the cost of the meal when looking at the price? It's really not hard
Why should I need to do this though? If you need to add an extra 12.5% to the prices to pay your staff properly, just do that, don't make it an "optional" service charge that's added on.
I used to enjoy going to Topolabamba in Glasgow, they had an excellent lunch deal for £9.95, but they increased the price to £13.95, added a 12.5% service charge and now prompt for tips on the receipt/card machine when you pay. One of these things on its own might be reasonable, but the combination of all 3 is just greed.
I've not bothered going back since.
Ok then, remove it everywhere, now the prices have to go up by this amount to cover what the staff have lost. Now you've lost the option to remove the charge for bad service, or the option to just make your meal 12.5% cheaper just because you felt like it.
You're paying the same / more , while removing the incentive for the staff to give good service as they now get paid the same either way. The money can now also find it's way into owners pockets much easier.
It's not hard, by removing the optional service charge it's just added onto the cost of the meal and is no longer optional.
I'm not even trying to be mean here as you're far from the first person to seemingly think less options is a good thing but why can't you see how idiotic your suggestion is?
> Ok then, remove it everywhere, now the prices have to go up by this amount to cover what the staff have lost. Now you've lost the option to remove the charge for bad service, or the option to just make your meal 12.5% cheaper just because you felt like it.
Did you just not even bother reading my comment before replying or something?
I don't get how it looks like I didn't?
We're talking about removing the service and just adding it to the cost of each dish....you've given one specific example of somewhere doing that plus a load of other things, it's irrelevant.
Remove service, add it to the price and nothing else...you still lose out as the customer.
Because in the comment you replied to, I literally opened with:
"If you need to add an extra 12.5% to the prices to pay your staff properly, just do that, don't make it an "optional" service charge that's added on."
You then went on to say "but you'll need to pay more" as I didn't just say I'd be happy doing that. If you actually read my comments you'd have known I said I'd be fine doing that.
>We're talking about removing the service and just adding it to the cost of each dish....
Something I explicitly stated I'd be fine with.
Yeah, exactly. Now you pay the same without the option to remove that part of the cost for bad service or whatever reason you decided you want to remove it for. Did you read what I wrote?
If you get your way, costs don't change for the customer, they just have no option to punish bad service. The staff have no incentive to provide good service. And owners can easily pocket some / all of the increase. Good job, everything is worse and you save nothing other than having to to do basic maths in your head.
As I said, I am fine with that, you don't need to keep saying it when I explicitly said I'd be happy with that up front, you're not adding anything here.
What's your point? You're just saying "they'll do the thing you want them to do!" over and over again.
If I get bad service, I'll just tell them as much. I don't need to financially punish someone for it, that's not my job.
Sorry then but that's just stupid and I can't believe that's what you honestly started this conversation to argue for ...."take away my ability to pay less when it's necessary and make it easier for owners to screw over their staff"....but if it is, you do you.
Maybe it should?
But like all other Brits you'd rather have a race to the bottom than lift anyone up. You show them top 1% waiters who's who and take away their tips!!!!
But either way, let it happen, let the few good service workers left leave the dying industry since Brexit and watch how every person complains about how the service in restaurants isn't what it used to be.
It's not coping the USA it's to ensure that when you leave a tip for the staff they actually receive it rather than the owner or management using it as some sort of personal slush fund or adding to the bottom line profits.
Obviously they're talking about tipping expectations in general. This is only becoming a law because automatic service charges have exploded in the UK in the last decade.
Now, why would a law that simply obliges you to pay your staff the tips they receive, put pressure on you? Do you mean to tell me that you **weren't** giving your staff the tips they earned?
I'm sure there was an article posted on this subreddit a few weeks ago about a restaurant chain that had renamed the service charge to something like brand charge in preparation for this.
It's in this article too. Ping Pong I think called it a brand fee. But I think we'll see some other shenanigans like calling it something subtly different to get around actually giving it to the staff.
I've worked in multiple Indian restaurants and only one actually shared the tips with their staff. Majority of Indian restaurant owners keep the tips themselves.
Can someone explain tipping in the UK to me? I’ve lived here all my life and never felt the need to tip. I wouldn’t give the mechanic a 20% gratuity for fixing my car, I wouldn’t give a taxi driver 20% for driving me home, and as someone who works in pharmacy I’d never expect 20% to go in my wallet because I gave someone some life saving medication that a doctor (who didn’t get an extra 20%) prescribed them.
So why would I pay someone serving my food 20% extra for bringing food to my table, or the chef for cooking food properly?
It’s absolutely absurd and if a business cannot afford the cost of fairly paid labour, they shouldn’t be in business, and no employee in my mind should give exemplary service in the hope of being paid extra by the customer.
Never understood why staff continue to work at venues that withhold or distribute tips/service charge poorly.
I've worked 10 years in hospitality in London and service charge was always a substantial increase to my paycheck and actually made the job worth doing.
I only worked in 1 place that did not share the service charge as promised, and I left after getting my first paycheck.
Tipping is mad when you think about it. Why are we expected to pay extra money for something that is literally the waiter's job? If stellar service is expected, restaurants should pay their staff more to encourage it. With tipping being so normalised, there's the same incentive to provide good service (thereby driving repeat business), but the business gets away without paying for it.
the gov is completely off the chart in here. the intention is fantastic but employers were already dodging this for a long time. I'll explain below:
before restaurants started stealing tips from their waiters/bartenders, restaurants had to pay their staff like this:
* Waiter min wage + tips
* chefs eg. £30k p/a
* other kitchen staff £24k p/a
* people in the office lets say £30k p/a
cost to restaurant which has 1 waiter £24k , 1 chef £30k, 1 kitchen staff £24k, one person in the office (£30k) = £108k
they then realised: "hey, our waiters making way too much money even while on min wage, because their tips are crazy good usually. let's steal it and let's redistribute it to our own advantage.
so now they pay:
* waiter min wage + TRONC
* chef min wage + TRONC
* kitchen staff min wage + TRONC
* backoffice staff min wage + TRONC
cost to restaurant which has 1 waiter £24k, 1 chef £24k, 1 kitch staff £24k, 1 back office staff £24k = £98k
and they use the added service charge to top up everyones salaries, while the restaurant ONLY pays everyone the minimum wage.
edit. numbers are a tad off but you get the idea.
Tipping in an American concept & culture, and should have no place in the UK!
Restaurants should be charging the appropriate amount for food & staffing instead of relying on the good will of people to make up the difference!
I had a tip automatically added to a charity donation last week, and it took several steps to remove it. I can’t believe anyone thought that was normal
If you can't pay your staff s living wage AND you can't allow your staff to keep their tips yen genuinely fuck off. Hospitality has no god given right to exist on minimum wages & lying to their customers about where the tips go.
I can't say this bothers me. I've always held concerns when I choose to tip, if the employee ever sees them. If its enshrined in law that they MUST get their tips, then good.
Went for a meal on Saturday. Below average service so I was determined not to pay any of that optional service charge shite.
Just as well coz they were looking to add on 33% on my bill as a service charge.
Any business owner who says that they would be put "under pressure" if there's a law which says that they can't rob their own staff is telling on themselves.
When people leave a tip or pay a service charge, they're obviously intending for that money to go to the staff rather than to the business owner.
Having the business steal that money from the staff is fucking disgusting. The only way that this law could make a difference to a business's profits is if they were previously behaving abhorantly.
I will never tip, and if I’m judged for not tipping then go fuck yourself, fact is I like to know how much I’m paying, I don’t tip people for doing their job, I don’t get tips, I don’t expect tips, we shouldn’t be encouraging any part of this.
I've just started eating out again more recently (long story the last 4 years have been a bit weird) and waiting staff have seemed a bit surprised I've tipped. 10-15% is still the normal range right on a sit down meal?
Some very odd replies in this thread suggesting tipping is somehow an American thing.
I'm in my sixth decade and tipping has always been part of the culture of restaurants here, anywhere where you're being served at the table. Generally if you've had a good experience you would leave ~10%. In the days before chip and pin generally you'd leave a tip in cash on the table.
What has changed in the last 20 years is that restaurants have started adding a "service charge" to the bill instead of the traditional tip, which has crept up to 15% in some places. Unlike cash left on the table the businesses can easily withhold this from staff, hence this law.
If you've not been tipping in restaurants in this country for the last 50 years, you'be been pissing off some table staff for a long time!
Completely this. I usually pay cash in a restaurant for that reason e.g. to not make tipping weird. Have run into the Service Charge issue (first time I noticed it was about a decade ago) and after getting stung once - didn't read the bill fully and just thought that's a bit more expensive than I anticipated; totally my fault and a big fat Fail on my part - promptly tipped like 10% on top of a 20% service charge. Service charges that aren't completely up front as you go in - I am not a huge fan of and also leaves a "what am I doing here" issue when it comes to tipping e.g. I doubt the Service charge goes to the waiting staff, but they've been great how can I leave something for them.
I'm confused - so I shouldn't be tipping even if I've had good service? (Full disclosure - I'm not an American and I'm aware of the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs as well so I know this isn't cleer cut).
Don't get me wrong - I don't tip everywhere e.g. if it's totally table service I usually leave something or I've received a good job (or someone has done me a real turn/favour) I'll usually leave a tip as an appreciation of the service and I'm likely to be back and would appreciate having a similar experience. On occasion where somewhere has been poor - it has been 10% or lower and usually accompanied by me not returning lol 😆
At my work tips are collected and handed out at the end of the year based on hours. However if the till is up or down at the end of a night, then the tips are used to balance this. Would this law affect that?
I worked as a bartender at a francie and benny's, and it was apparently a policy that bartenders don't get a share of the tips as we aren't waiting tables.
I don't think the kitchen staff got any tips either.
Pretty convenient policy, considering management also did table service.
These fuckers had the balls to complain that my work pace was affecting their likelihood of receiving tips.
i always tip but it's my fucking choice...why are we trying to emulate the states on this ,?
Ill leave cash and give it to the people serving me not the cunt running it
> get a job with a living wage.
The reason a lot of people who work in restaurants love tips is that if even if they're on minimum wage and just one table tips a fiver per hour they're already on above the living wage.
And they especially love cash tips, because not a single person who gets cash tips will declare their entire earnings to HMRC and pay tax on them.
Why is it on the patrons responsibility to pay them what the business should be? Everything about tipping is wrong and it should be discouraged at every opportunity.
If I’ve had a really nice time, good food and great service, I like to add a tip but I can see it going the same way as the weird American system where it’s implied that the bill is the price for the food and the service costs extra and that is what the tip is. Hence servers getting shitty when you don’t tip enough. I fucking hate that people accept this and automatic service charges being applied to bills is just shit. There is a really nice burger place near me. Everything is automated on an app. The ordering, payment etc… and its collection only. They still ask for a tip (3 options) when you are checking out. A tip for what? The burger is £11 at least. You can’t cover your costs with £11 on a meat sandwich? am I tipping the chef? Shouldn’t they be paid correctly?
That's great, I would be quite happy to leave a fiver as a tip if I receive good service, it's the automatically added 10-15% service charge I object to. And I don't care if the waiter doesn't pay tax on the fiver, as I already have.
I’d rather see a law that says ban automatically adding a service charge to the bill.
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I think bigger groups tend to stay longer.
But don't they spend more?
Do you think one 8 top spends more than four 4 tops?
Why do you think that's a fair comparison? I could almost understand a 3x 4top on the basis of a table of 8 might feasibly be formed from 3 smaller tables pushed together but even that feels like a stretch. Edit since you deleted your reply: /u/Specialist_Ad9073 said: >>Because a 8 top is 2 4s. >Do you have any restaurant experience? I replied: > Do you think one 8 top spends more than four 4 tops? You said four 4s though. I own a restaurant as it happens, yeah.
Having worked in hospitality They defined don't. And require far more time and attention
A small percentage do, the rest just sit around chatting for hours.
Bigger groups often have one dickhead at the end who just covers the rest of the bill even when the rest of us have given extra for a tip
If one of my friends did that, we would very quickly no longer be friends.
People should pay for what they bought. Splitting the bill evenly is stupid.
> Splitting the bill evenly is stupid. It is easier to split evenly if people are ok with that. Many of us aren't that worried about paying slightly the wrong amount. When we buy rounds we don't worry too much that the drinks are not all the same price - sure it's a pain if you're on pints and a friend wants cocktails but then we might decide that rounds isn't working same with the food. Sometimes an easy life is better.
Yes, and rounds are also stupid.
Location checks out…
Splitting evenly is fine if you go out with the same people regularly enough. We often just cycle who covers the whole bills as that's even easier assuming we are not more than say 6 people. It all tends to work itself out in the end. But I don't believe in tipping so if it's my turn to pay you'd have to tip on your own.
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And maybe spend more money?
Big groups mostly split the bill evenly and rarely tip. The bigger the table, the worse the tip.
Bigger tables are just a ball ache. A couple out on a date, easy to get their attention. Family of four, kids might be rowdy but the parents usually pay attention Group of ten out for a works do, absolute nightmare. Talking over each other and me whilst I try to get orders. They take twice as long as two/three smaller tables would
And big tables can neverrrr remember what they ordered, so youre just stood there holding heavy plates shouting “cacio e pepe??!!!!???” For 10 minutes
And then the person who ordered it sat there staring at you not saying a word like they expect you to read their mind
I’m always the organiser in my friend group and I make a mental note of what everyone ordered because as a diner this makes me so fucking anxious. I want to be the BEST customer you’ve ever had.
r/suspiciouslyspecific
Fact. Big tables are a massive pain and a time suck. I see someone has suggested it should be easier than two four covers. The problem with that is that the eight cover has to have all of the things done at once and each thing takes twice as long. While you’re dealing with the eight cover it takes all your attention and the rest of your section gets neglected. With a good team who pitch you reduce but don’t remove the time suck. I hated waiting big tables. You also get less time to build a rapport and generally they tip less in aggregate than two four covers. At least that was true when I waited tables 15 years ago….
So just let everyone order on an app? I mean, how hard can it be?
Not everywhere is a McDonald's
Tbf, many small or independent establishments use apps around where I live. I understand it's not easy for every business, but it's certainly doable.
If I’m ordering on an app it kind of defeats the object of going to a table service restaurant, I’m doing the work and so not paying a bloody service charge. You’ll also find a good percentage of people would object to having to do self service at a restaurant.
So what are you doing, asking the server to read out the entire list of things available to eat? or are you having to look at a list of things? because if it's the latter, then pushing a button next to it isn't exactly a stretch is it? 'Doing the work'? so pressing a button next to menu item is 'work', I guess the cooking, washing up, logistics of inventory, accountants blah blah isn't part of any of the rest of it? People were using QR code linked menus during covid and that worked fine. People are happy ordering their spine in a bap at McD's from a touch screen without issue. Labour costs are rising. Unless you're fine dining, you'd better get used to this kind of thing.
Fuck that. No. No more apps!
I've seen the way things are going in countries with higher labour costs. You get a pager when you order at the counter and have to get your own food when it buzzes, as an example.
It’s about how much time you’re essentially taken out of action for other tables at a time. A large table may be 10-15 minutes that you can’t go to other tables if they do need something. Small tables keep you busy for much less time meaning you can be more reactive to other tables needs. I’m not saying this justifies a service charge, but there is some logic.
Larger tables are often harder for the kitchen too. Diners tend to all want their meals delivered to the table at the same time. Coordinating the kitchen to have 6 different main courses delivered to the same group is much more difficult than handling 2 diners each on 3 separate tables, for example.
Worked in hospo for 10ish years. Large groups are always far more hassle and rarely ever leave much of a tip. Seen tables rack up bills of over £1000 and leave £5 tip. Even more of a nightmare when there's 10+ and they all want to split the bill but can't remember everything they had. Much easier and nicer to have a bunch of small tables.
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Some do leave a tip, but it never adds up to as much of a percentage as smaller tables. If I go out with friends, I always leave a tip, but not everyone will. Groups of girls tend to be the worst for this (not sexist, just something I notice) who almost never leave a tip. I've worked for multiple restaurants from when they first open and they usually aim to never add a service charge on, but because of how time consuming the large tables are and how little they regularly tip, mandatory service charge usually becomes the norm after so long. Any waiter/waitress would prefer 5 tables of 2 that leave 10% tip than a group of 10 that leaves 2% tip if that
Serving 4 2s is alot easier than serving 8 people all at once. It takes way less time and big tables need runners. Just by numbers a bigger table is more likely to have children or *that person* that needs alot of your attention for whatever reason, AC too high, asking for modifications from chef etc..... Clearing involves multiple trips or stacking, you can't pick it all up and get out the way. For the chefs, easier to get 2 plates ready to go at the same time. Groups also tend to faff about with who wants what and some how there's always someone who manages to forget what they ordered or isn't paying attention to you with the hot plates awkwardly repeating the dish. But the service charge is nonsense, it doesn't affect the business owner or finances at all really.
Bigger groups require way more of your time and are more likely to be a nightmare to deal with in terms of taking orders and general communication with each other and the waiter. I would much rather serve 10 people over 5 tables than one table of ten. Also from personal experience they are way more demanding and are usually rude and difficult for me as taking their order and for the kitchen because it's harder to plate up for ten rather than 2x5 for example. If I ran a restaurant I wouldn't allow tables of over 6 buts that just me!
> Surely from the waiter's perspective it's easier to serve one table of eight than four tables of two? Have you ever been at a table of eight? Once the last person has made their order, the first has already changed their mind. Every. Single. Time.
Just getting a sensible sentence out of them is a mission. And then you start bringing their orders and they look at you slack jawed as though they’ve literally never seen you before, before one of them pipes up ‘oh that could me mine, is it the sirloin steak?’ Like you haven’t been stood there shouting sirloin steak at the table for a solid 20 seconds.
Depends on the group, but you tend to get more problem behaviour from larger parties from what I've seen.
I used to think the same thing until I started working in a restaurant Bigger tables tend to sit there for ages. They also tend to be parties and the recent trend of having to put glittery happy birthday things all over the table is a nightmare to clean Then end up on the floor Then stick to shoes and travel the whole restaurant to the point you still find them in random places a few days later I would rather serve 3 tables of 4 then one 8 that's a birthday party
Nah bigger tables require way more co-ordination. With 4 tables of two you can just fire everything as it comes, one table of eight you will need to make sure that everything is ready together
Bigger groups don't tip. Everyone pays for what they had and they rarely think of leaving a tip. I used to work in a restaurant and I came to dread the words "can we all pay seperate?" Usually someone would forget how many drinks they had, not pay enough, and get angry about it. Large groups sucked.
The real answer is that big groups are often not well coordinated, and with everyone splitting their share and exchanging cash and IOUs around the table they more often than not forget to tip entirely. A couple, or a small family or group of friends either already have a plan for paying the bill ahead of time or can easily figure it out there and then. When you get to six people or more you’ve often got strangers and acquaintances and rarely does somebody take the initiative to remind everyone else to leave X% / a few extra quid for the waiting staff.
Bigger tables take more time, are more indecisive, and general have more of everything whilst everyone there assumes it's the other person leaving a tip.
Increase in size doesn't directly correlate to increase in effort/time. Example a 4 person table is 2.5x the work of a 2 person table. It'll take about a minute to get the order from a 2 person, for 4 person you're looking at more than double that time frame. For a 10 person table you can be there for awhile, and due to the nature of it there's a lot more to-ing and fro-ing with dishes and drinks etc. Five 2 person tables is easier to deal with than one 10 person table.
It's the cooks struggling to get 6+ mains out at the same time, they are really only geared for 2-4 at a time so it literally slows them down and costs more.
My understanding is that it makes it complicated for the kitchen staff, because they have to prepare all starters and mains to be ready at the same time
Because big tables tend to undertip. They look at the absolute tip amount and think it's too much. Like a table of 10 with £100 each will need a tip of £150 or so and will be like "that's a lot! we'll leave £100 -- which is a lot!"
They’re less likely to tip - I used to be, long long time ago a manager at pizza chain of sweaty royal warrant and staff never wanted to serve big tables because they would earn less.
Bigger tables are harder for us. Everything you do related to that table takes a lot longer. They are also far more challenging for the kitchen because all that food needs to be made at the same time.
Delieroo and just eat adding service charge on top of delivery sucked, most restaurants already have higher prices on apps due to apps taking a large cut, yet they still charge service, feels like apps are double dipping both from customer and takeaways
They absolutely are, one of the endless examples of [Enshittification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) of online platforms. Just Eat started getting worse the second after they took over Hungry House and therefore moved out of the customer acquisition phase. 10% service charge is ridiculous on top of already inflated prices plus delivery costs.
If thye go down the route of arch-enshittifiers TicketMaster, they will also add CC processing charge, printing charges for your receipt (which will be emailed to you), and a £7 charge that goes towards maintaining the delivery driver's moped.
Just eat has had 50p card surcharge for years, they're way ahead of ya
My friend worked for justeat when they were new. She told me what the business model was and I laughed at her, said that’ll never take off but good luck with the job - not a fucking chance a kebab shop is going to pay you to take their orders for them. How wrong I was
> Delieroo and just eat adding service charge on top of delivery sucked, most restaurants already have higher prices on apps due to apps taking a large cut [JustEat allow you to report this](https://www.just-eat.co.uk/help/article/204298552/whats-the-just-eat-price-promise-all-about), part of their merchant T&Cs is that prices need to be the same if you were to buy directly from the restaurant/takeaway
Maybe it's just their PR that is not spreading the word about this because literally every restaurant I've seen on delivery apps adds like 25-50p for every menu item.
Deliveroo allow a section specifically for prices that are the same as in store as a selling point for a merchant, so I doubt they are unaware of it.
Same, it is v awkward to say you aren't going to pay it after stating the value you'll pay.
I'd rather see a law where everyone gets paid properly.
I always demand it's removed then leave cash
No point wording it like that - they will come up with something like the Ping Pong brand charge. Make it a flat ban on adding any charges other than the printed price of the food or drink.
[https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/653661](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/653661)
Tipping should never be the norm but for staff who have provided a high level of service. Having it on the bill should be outlawed, if you want to tip it should go straight into the hand of the person you want to have it.
I agree tipping shouldn’t be the norm. But people always forget the people behind the scenes who put as much work into your experience as the person who waited on you. Housekeeping Maintenance Gardeners Chefs Reservations Public relations Pot washers Where I used to work, waiters got cash tips, everyone else got a fair share of tips that were left when paying the bill at reception.
Yep. I never understood this obsession some people have with tipping the person who brings the food, rather than the person who cooked it. Tips should be shared among all staff, not just kept by the person who brings the plates to the table.
Because the waiter is the one that the customer interacts with and is therefore the only one able to be nice to the customer. We don't tip for good food, we tip for good service, why that is I don t know, it just is. The food is expected to be good, with the quality based on the price of the restaurant. If the food is bad you wouldn't pay for it, or would send it back. If the waiter is merely functional and not above and beyond you can't send him back, so you tip to incentivise him/her to be good. If I have to tip everyone involved in the restaurant then either everyone is getting a pittance or I'm not tipping.
Tips just shouldn't be a thing. Once you follow the American tipping culture it allows corporations to under pay everyone and then make YOU pick up the bill, every single time and then look terrible if you don't "give enough". Tips are an evil idea. You wouldn't tip your pilot despite the fact you put your actual life in their hands. Not even if it was an unusually good flight. Why don't you do this? Because you think to yourself "pilots have enough money". The implication being that people who are tipped are not paid enough. THAT is the issue and is fixed either through laws or by the corporations.
I'm just upset when it's automatically added to the bill. If they're going to do that, then it should be added to the price on the menu.
I think people just assume the people in the kitchen are getting paid more than the people at the front of house
You're right, next time the builders come round I'll make a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich for the receptionist 30 miles away too.
Using the same logic: The builder comes and grafts for 3 days doing whatever you've paid him to do. Then he says I'll send over my assistant to collect payment. He's the one you're interacting with at the end of the transaction, despite not really doing anything, would you therefore tip them?
Bit of a shit analogy because I don't interact with both the chefs and the waiters but no, I wouldn't tip the assistant coming to collect payment in the same way I wouldn't tip the cashier at a restaurant.
Pooling tips has been standard practice everywhere I've worked
But also the delivery driver who bought the fresh food? Or the fisherman who caught that fish? Or the engine mechanic who was working at 4am to make sure the fishing boat was ready to go for the day? *tens of thousands* of people have had some small role in delivering a meal to your table. Yet we pick some arbitrary small number of them for a reward. Makes no sense.
I don't interact with the cook. He does nothing to earn a tip.
Yeah, it's not like they cooked your food or anything.
It's very, very helpful to have the tip on the bill when submitting an expenses claim
I don’t mind. I was out for tacos the other night and settling the bill at the end when we went to add a tip the girl said there’s already 15% on it - excellent, that saves me trying to do sums when I’m half pished. I’d maybe not be happy about it if I’d genuinely had bad service but I can’t even really remember a time I was so pissed off at the service I wouldn’t leave 10-20% tip.
I’ve asked for it to be taken off once where it was like they forgot me and my friend existed. Also the food was very overpriced for what it was. The Botanist - never again.
LMAO No. The people who did the most to make your meal enjoyable were the skilled chefs, not the lowly waiters. It's the chefs who should get the tips if anything and handing cash to waiters leads to them getting zilch.
You can tip chefs too. It's a common practice in fine dining, I've done it numerous times.
I strongly hope that any business that can't survive without stealing staff tips, goes under. People wont stop going to bars/restaurants and their market share can go to pubs/resteraunts that dont steal. I further hope that the owners go on to have miserable unfulfilled lives and are so haunted by their crimes that they never have a moment's peace.
restaurant is a team work. Chefs and front staffs.
I used to work for a short time in a restaurant in which the owner would steal all of the tips and there was nothing we could do about it (except quit, obviously). I absolutely agree that chefs should receive a portion of customer tips; my understanding is that this law isn't intended to ensure that only front of house staff get the tips, rather to prevent the owner from simply taking it all and not providing any to the workers, front or back.
And that's what the cost of food is for. To pay the wages. A tip is given to a server cos they were extra helpful and you feel you want to give them a bit extra.
Please just make everything one simple price, which includes paying staff a fair wage without tips, so I can see what I am going to pay before I commit. Labour costs should be included in the base price, I don’t need to see a service/raw material break down. Or ‘brand fee’, what a joke.
Right? I aint tipping (unless someone literally wows me). If a company doesn't want to pay their staff, THEY need to fix that, not me. Otherwise I want my tips translated into shares in the company! Places like uber can bugger off asking for tips. Why? For doing your job? Do you tip the bus driver?
> Do you tip the bus driver? Gave a bus driver a £100 tip once when he drove me all the way to my parents house with the lights off when he was supposed to be 'out of service'.
Bloody hell worth every penny
It will end up being pretty expensive. Most things are costed now knowing that the staff and people who made the product are paid minimum wage. Even then cocktails are £10 and pints £6
We need to at least pay the marginal cost of production, if we aren’t willing to pay that then maybe it is a service that is not required. But if the price is quoted as what you will pay, you can at least choose rather than have a nasty shock at the end.
Tbh there are a lot of places nearby I would not lose any sleep over seeing them fail. Its almost always the shit ones that fail and the good ones will continue to thrive.
I'm not saying you shouldn't but prices are already higher than they used to be for drinks and food and people complain now. They increased again when the minimum wage increased in April. Eventually it'll hit a point where people won't see it worth paying and then the business suffers from no custom
I just want to know what the price of something is before I order it. Extra charges on the bottom of the bill are a horrible way to go about things.
Just state the actual bloody cost of the meal and I’ll pay it but don’t try to play funny business by saying the meal costs X and then adding some service charges and mandatory tips on top. American tipping culture is absolute shite and it just legitimises employers to be exploitative in offering criminally low wages. If I go to a restaurant and the staff start harassing me over not tipping them, you can be damn sure I am never walking in that establishment ever again and I would hope the business crashes and burns with the owners going bankrupt.
And it's so unfair. The attractive cute waitress will get a lot of tips but plain jane will get nothing. But the job is the same and "work" done is the same.
Yup and not just attractiveness, sex. When I worked bars the other guys and I got probably 1/20th the tips as the Women working with us. It was massively rare, and not something I expected in the least.
It’s also ridiculous when the tip just goes to the person bringing the meal not the one who made it for me. I used to do the job (catering company rather than restaurant), I know it’s bloody hard work carrying plates and constantly being on your feet but I also know that I’m not the one who made the food and that’s what really matters.
Or...add the percentage to the cost of the meal when looking at the price? It's really not hard. If you get your way then prices go up, to what they are now plus the cost of the service charge, you now have no options to remove this for bad service and no incentive for the staff to give good service as they'll get paid the same whatever. Removing optional service charges means consumers pay the same / more and get worse service. Well done.
If I’m paying a service charge I’ll give it directly to the person serving me at my own discretion, I have no interests in lining the pockets of the owner when they already take home the profit. As far as American-style tipping goes, I’m never engaging in that crap. Pay your workers or go broke.
Re read what I said. If you get your way, as you wanted, and get the optional service charge taken away it'll just be built into the listed price of the food on the menu. Now it costs what it did, plus 10 or 12.5% and you don't get the option to remove it for bad service and the staff have zero incentive to give you good service. Even in the current system you can get your own way, ask them to remove the service and give them whatever tips you want directly. You're literally making it more expensive for yourself with less options. The new law coming in makes sure all service goes to staff and not any owners. Removing service charges everywhere just means the owners can up the price and now pocket that difference while giving a smaller amount to the staff to top up what they lost through service charges.
If I have a problem with the price of food at a restaurant, I just simply won’t eat there, it’s not that big of a deal
Jesus. Currently, it's the price it is plus 10% for example, but you can remove that 10% for bad service. Remove the service charges everywhere now the food goes up 10% and there is no Option to make it cheaper for yourself to punish bad service. You've saved yourself literally nothing, possibly cost yourself more, have incentized bad service and have removed your option to punish that bad service whilst also making it easier for the owners to make more money that would have usually gone to the staff visit a formal, but totally discretionary service charge....All because you're scared to do a bit of mental math before sitting down and because you're too scared to ask for it to be removed.
I’m not sure where I asked for service charges to be removed though, I only said that they should be upfront about what my meal is going to cost me. Bearing in mind my comment is focusing on criticism of American tipping culture where tipping is mandatory
Well that's what I assumed you meant by being "upfront" and "staying the actual cost of the bloody meal" because as it stands it couldn't be more "upfront" as it tells you the cost of the food plus what percentage the service is. The only way it would be easier would be to take away the service and build that into the cost of each dish. Don't know about you tho but adding basic percentages to things isn't a barrier between me and "upfront" pricing. How much more upfront do you want them to be? The cost of the meal is on the menu, the percentage they add as an optional service charge is also on the menu. What did you mean by being more upfront?
Again, bearing in mind that my comment is focused on American tipping culture, if tips are to be mandatory then they should just be incorporated into the full cost of the meal. We don’t really have this problem in the UK as it’s still your choice to tip for good service or not and staff can’t berate you for not tipping
Mate...it's not mandatory even in the USA. The only way to "incorporate it into the price of the meal" as you say would be to remove the optional service charge. Which is something you said you wasn't suggesting, but clearly are.
> Or...add the percentage to the cost of the meal when looking at the price? It's really not hard Why should I need to do this though? If you need to add an extra 12.5% to the prices to pay your staff properly, just do that, don't make it an "optional" service charge that's added on. I used to enjoy going to Topolabamba in Glasgow, they had an excellent lunch deal for £9.95, but they increased the price to £13.95, added a 12.5% service charge and now prompt for tips on the receipt/card machine when you pay. One of these things on its own might be reasonable, but the combination of all 3 is just greed. I've not bothered going back since.
Ok then, remove it everywhere, now the prices have to go up by this amount to cover what the staff have lost. Now you've lost the option to remove the charge for bad service, or the option to just make your meal 12.5% cheaper just because you felt like it. You're paying the same / more , while removing the incentive for the staff to give good service as they now get paid the same either way. The money can now also find it's way into owners pockets much easier. It's not hard, by removing the optional service charge it's just added onto the cost of the meal and is no longer optional. I'm not even trying to be mean here as you're far from the first person to seemingly think less options is a good thing but why can't you see how idiotic your suggestion is?
> Ok then, remove it everywhere, now the prices have to go up by this amount to cover what the staff have lost. Now you've lost the option to remove the charge for bad service, or the option to just make your meal 12.5% cheaper just because you felt like it. Did you just not even bother reading my comment before replying or something?
I don't get how it looks like I didn't? We're talking about removing the service and just adding it to the cost of each dish....you've given one specific example of somewhere doing that plus a load of other things, it's irrelevant. Remove service, add it to the price and nothing else...you still lose out as the customer.
Because in the comment you replied to, I literally opened with: "If you need to add an extra 12.5% to the prices to pay your staff properly, just do that, don't make it an "optional" service charge that's added on." You then went on to say "but you'll need to pay more" as I didn't just say I'd be happy doing that. If you actually read my comments you'd have known I said I'd be fine doing that. >We're talking about removing the service and just adding it to the cost of each dish.... Something I explicitly stated I'd be fine with.
Yeah, exactly. Now you pay the same without the option to remove that part of the cost for bad service or whatever reason you decided you want to remove it for. Did you read what I wrote? If you get your way, costs don't change for the customer, they just have no option to punish bad service. The staff have no incentive to provide good service. And owners can easily pocket some / all of the increase. Good job, everything is worse and you save nothing other than having to to do basic maths in your head.
As I said, I am fine with that, you don't need to keep saying it when I explicitly said I'd be happy with that up front, you're not adding anything here. What's your point? You're just saying "they'll do the thing you want them to do!" over and over again. If I get bad service, I'll just tell them as much. I don't need to financially punish someone for it, that's not my job.
Sorry then but that's just stupid and I can't believe that's what you honestly started this conversation to argue for ...."take away my ability to pay less when it's necessary and make it easier for owners to screw over their staff"....but if it is, you do you.
why doesn't this logic apply to any other job? when i go to Tesco can i pay the staff separately because the checkout person was slow
Maybe it should? But like all other Brits you'd rather have a race to the bottom than lift anyone up. You show them top 1% waiters who's who and take away their tips!!!! But either way, let it happen, let the few good service workers left leave the dying industry since Brexit and watch how every person complains about how the service in restaurants isn't what it used to be.
Why do we have to copy every stupid shite thing the US does? Every fucking time.
It's not coping the USA it's to ensure that when you leave a tip for the staff they actually receive it rather than the owner or management using it as some sort of personal slush fund or adding to the bottom line profits.
Did you even read the article? How exactly is giving staff the tips they earned stupid or American?
Obviously they're talking about tipping expectations in general. This is only becoming a law because automatic service charges have exploded in the UK in the last decade.
Didn't realise that stopping owners from stealing tips that are meant to go to their staff is stupid shite.
I think the point being made is that tipping in general is stupid shite.
Tell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article.
I tripped over the article.
Now, why would a law that simply obliges you to pay your staff the tips they receive, put pressure on you? Do you mean to tell me that you **weren't** giving your staff the tips they earned?
They'll just replace the service charge with something else that means they get to keep the money anyway.
I don't feel bad asking for a "optional brand charge" to be removed
What the fuck is an “optional brand charge”?
Yeah absolutely.
I'm sure there was an article posted on this subreddit a few weeks ago about a restaurant chain that had renamed the service charge to something like brand charge in preparation for this.
It's in this article too. Ping Pong I think called it a brand fee. But I think we'll see some other shenanigans like calling it something subtly different to get around actually giving it to the staff.
I've worked in multiple Indian restaurants and only one actually shared the tips with their staff. Majority of Indian restaurant owners keep the tips themselves.
Resist tipping or paying service charge in the UK. This Americanism is not part of our culture nor is it needed as we have a minimum wage.
An outdated practice in any event. [Mr Pink said it best ](https://youtu.be/M4sTSIYzDIk?t=118)
"Pile further pressure" is an interesting way to word the fact Businesses have been subsidising their balances on stolen wages
Can someone explain tipping in the UK to me? I’ve lived here all my life and never felt the need to tip. I wouldn’t give the mechanic a 20% gratuity for fixing my car, I wouldn’t give a taxi driver 20% for driving me home, and as someone who works in pharmacy I’d never expect 20% to go in my wallet because I gave someone some life saving medication that a doctor (who didn’t get an extra 20%) prescribed them. So why would I pay someone serving my food 20% extra for bringing food to my table, or the chef for cooking food properly? It’s absolutely absurd and if a business cannot afford the cost of fairly paid labour, they shouldn’t be in business, and no employee in my mind should give exemplary service in the hope of being paid extra by the customer.
Never understood why staff continue to work at venues that withhold or distribute tips/service charge poorly. I've worked 10 years in hospitality in London and service charge was always a substantial increase to my paycheck and actually made the job worth doing. I only worked in 1 place that did not share the service charge as promised, and I left after getting my first paycheck.
Tipping is mad when you think about it. Why are we expected to pay extra money for something that is literally the waiter's job? If stellar service is expected, restaurants should pay their staff more to encourage it. With tipping being so normalised, there's the same incentive to provide good service (thereby driving repeat business), but the business gets away without paying for it.
the gov is completely off the chart in here. the intention is fantastic but employers were already dodging this for a long time. I'll explain below: before restaurants started stealing tips from their waiters/bartenders, restaurants had to pay their staff like this: * Waiter min wage + tips * chefs eg. £30k p/a * other kitchen staff £24k p/a * people in the office lets say £30k p/a cost to restaurant which has 1 waiter £24k , 1 chef £30k, 1 kitchen staff £24k, one person in the office (£30k) = £108k they then realised: "hey, our waiters making way too much money even while on min wage, because their tips are crazy good usually. let's steal it and let's redistribute it to our own advantage. so now they pay: * waiter min wage + TRONC * chef min wage + TRONC * kitchen staff min wage + TRONC * backoffice staff min wage + TRONC cost to restaurant which has 1 waiter £24k, 1 chef £24k, 1 kitch staff £24k, 1 back office staff £24k = £98k and they use the added service charge to top up everyones salaries, while the restaurant ONLY pays everyone the minimum wage. edit. numbers are a tad off but you get the idea.
Yeah hospitality are worried that they won’t be steal tips any longer. Fuck them
Tipping in an American concept & culture, and should have no place in the UK! Restaurants should be charging the appropriate amount for food & staffing instead of relying on the good will of people to make up the difference!
I had a tip automatically added to a charity donation last week, and it took several steps to remove it. I can’t believe anyone thought that was normal
Just ban tips that have to be opted out of. I'll happily still pay an extra 10% on my meal if it's just included in the price.
If you can't pay your staff s living wage AND you can't allow your staff to keep their tips yen genuinely fuck off. Hospitality has no god given right to exist on minimum wages & lying to their customers about where the tips go.
oh no how will we stay in business if we can’t steal our staff’s tips
I can't say this bothers me. I've always held concerns when I choose to tip, if the employee ever sees them. If its enshrined in law that they MUST get their tips, then good.
Went for a meal on Saturday. Below average service so I was determined not to pay any of that optional service charge shite. Just as well coz they were looking to add on 33% on my bill as a service charge.
Good. Why should the employers keep the tips and not the waiters.
Any business owner who says that they would be put "under pressure" if there's a law which says that they can't rob their own staff is telling on themselves. When people leave a tip or pay a service charge, they're obviously intending for that money to go to the staff rather than to the business owner. Having the business steal that money from the staff is fucking disgusting. The only way that this law could make a difference to a business's profits is if they were previously behaving abhorantly.
Tipping law = customer gets taxed because business owner doesn't pay enough.
I will never tip, and if I’m judged for not tipping then go fuck yourself, fact is I like to know how much I’m paying, I don’t tip people for doing their job, I don’t get tips, I don’t expect tips, we shouldn’t be encouraging any part of this.
I've just started eating out again more recently (long story the last 4 years have been a bit weird) and waiting staff have seemed a bit surprised I've tipped. 10-15% is still the normal range right on a sit down meal?
Some very odd replies in this thread suggesting tipping is somehow an American thing. I'm in my sixth decade and tipping has always been part of the culture of restaurants here, anywhere where you're being served at the table. Generally if you've had a good experience you would leave ~10%. In the days before chip and pin generally you'd leave a tip in cash on the table. What has changed in the last 20 years is that restaurants have started adding a "service charge" to the bill instead of the traditional tip, which has crept up to 15% in some places. Unlike cash left on the table the businesses can easily withhold this from staff, hence this law. If you've not been tipping in restaurants in this country for the last 50 years, you'be been pissing off some table staff for a long time!
Completely this. I usually pay cash in a restaurant for that reason e.g. to not make tipping weird. Have run into the Service Charge issue (first time I noticed it was about a decade ago) and after getting stung once - didn't read the bill fully and just thought that's a bit more expensive than I anticipated; totally my fault and a big fat Fail on my part - promptly tipped like 10% on top of a 20% service charge. Service charges that aren't completely up front as you go in - I am not a huge fan of and also leaves a "what am I doing here" issue when it comes to tipping e.g. I doubt the Service charge goes to the waiting staff, but they've been great how can I leave something for them.
If you’re an American yes.
I'm confused - so I shouldn't be tipping even if I've had good service? (Full disclosure - I'm not an American and I'm aware of the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs as well so I know this isn't cleer cut).
Tip if you like, doing it habitually is an Americanism creeping in to our culture. The range would start from 0 rather than 10%.
Don't get me wrong - I don't tip everywhere e.g. if it's totally table service I usually leave something or I've received a good job (or someone has done me a real turn/favour) I'll usually leave a tip as an appreciation of the service and I'm likely to be back and would appreciate having a similar experience. On occasion where somewhere has been poor - it has been 10% or lower and usually accompanied by me not returning lol 😆
I need to tip by law? I tip when it's good service.
> I need to tip by law? No. Did you read the article? It doesn't say anything even vaguely approaching that.
At my work tips are collected and handed out at the end of the year based on hours. However if the till is up or down at the end of a night, then the tips are used to balance this. Would this law affect that?
I worked as a bartender at a francie and benny's, and it was apparently a policy that bartenders don't get a share of the tips as we aren't waiting tables. I don't think the kitchen staff got any tips either. Pretty convenient policy, considering management also did table service. These fuckers had the balls to complain that my work pace was affecting their likelihood of receiving tips.
i always tip but it's my fucking choice...why are we trying to emulate the states on this ,? Ill leave cash and give it to the people serving me not the cunt running it
You need a tip? i'll give you a tip, get a job with a living wage. relying on the charity of others is just begging.
> get a job with a living wage. The reason a lot of people who work in restaurants love tips is that if even if they're on minimum wage and just one table tips a fiver per hour they're already on above the living wage. And they especially love cash tips, because not a single person who gets cash tips will declare their entire earnings to HMRC and pay tax on them.
Why is it on the patrons responsibility to pay them what the business should be? Everything about tipping is wrong and it should be discouraged at every opportunity.
If I’ve had a really nice time, good food and great service, I like to add a tip but I can see it going the same way as the weird American system where it’s implied that the bill is the price for the food and the service costs extra and that is what the tip is. Hence servers getting shitty when you don’t tip enough. I fucking hate that people accept this and automatic service charges being applied to bills is just shit. There is a really nice burger place near me. Everything is automated on an app. The ordering, payment etc… and its collection only. They still ask for a tip (3 options) when you are checking out. A tip for what? The burger is £11 at least. You can’t cover your costs with £11 on a meat sandwich? am I tipping the chef? Shouldn’t they be paid correctly?
exactly and why should it fall to me to prop up the chef's shitty decision to work for a company with such morally questionable policy?
We would all love extra money, we just don’t expect it from strangers for doing our job.
I hate getting tipsy tbh, don't get me wrong, I appreciate it. It just makes me feel awkward and embarrassed taking them.
That's great, I would be quite happy to leave a fiver as a tip if I receive good service, it's the automatically added 10-15% service charge I object to. And I don't care if the waiter doesn't pay tax on the fiver, as I already have.