How do you pay your tips?
When paying for a meal out, there is an increasing tendency for restaurants to summarily add a service charge to the bill, and that then usually gets carded with the whole bill.
If & when you do this, do you ask for the restaurants policy on passing that charge on to their staff? Do you ask if they use it to top up their staffs wage to minimum wage standards (as they are apparently allowed to do)?
An increasing number of restaurants are being exposed for rather sharp (or even deceptive) practices.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/more-restaurants-exposed-for-t…
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jeve - December 11th, 2009
Having worked as a waiter and as a chef in the past I know what crooks restaurant owners are.
So I simply ask for a bill without service charge already added – and say that I wish to to my own amount.
I then pay this amount in cash (often more than the ten percent) which the waiters invariably accept with great pleasure.
unebisoujtaime - December 11th, 2009
Like P-Kasso, I ask for the bill without the service charge and then tip according to the level of service I have received. We already get ripped off by exorbitant 'corkage' charges on bottles of wine in restaurants, so making the assumption that I'm going to pay even more for no real reason is a bit much.
Of course, this is assuming that we have the money to spend on going out these days!
gorecki36 - December 11th, 2009
I just pay the bill. I regard the "service charge" as just part of the cost. If I think the service is good, I leave a tip. If I think the service is poor, I don't and I don't go back.
TerezBaskin - December 11th, 2009
We don't have tipping or service charges in Australia- yet.
SoSimplyMe - December 11th, 2009
It depends on how good my service was. The bills in the States do not come with a gratuity added in the bill (unless you have an unusually large group of people in which case, they add in the gratuity to the bill automatically). I make sure I give my server the tip personally because people over here sometimes will steal your tip straight off the table as they are leaving the restaurant! I have seen it happen numerous times before. If my service was exeplary, I will tip very well because it is very hard to find great service anymore these days. If it is not, I still tip but it will not be as generous.
PhilFranco - December 11th, 2009
As Fan stated, a tip or service charge is rarely added automatically to the bill; but always, the credit card charge slip comes with a blank line labeled "Tip:"; and the diner is then expected to add up the total charge.
At diners and lunch counters, the bill is usually paid in cash. One either hands the waitress a five or ten dollar bill and says "keep the change", or leaves some money at the spot where he dined.
Fast food outlets typically don't expect tips. But there is a slowly growing trend to place a Tips jar near the checkout register. I suspect that the lack of need to leave a tip is one of the reasons for such restaurants being the largest and fastest growing of food outlets.
It has been fascinating to watch the growth in the "standard" for tipping. When I was a boy, a 5% tip was considered adequate. By the time I reached high school, it had gown to 10%. Somewhere around the 1970s, the upscale restaurants were suggesting 15%, and that soon became the widespread expectation everywhere. Since around 1990, many restaurants print on their menus that the suggested gratuity is 16%, and now 18%. Some places "suggest" that 20% and even 25% is "appropriate".
I tip whatever I feel like. I give good tips for good service (alas, increasingly rare these days), and down to zero if service is outrageously bad (as my wife and I experienced last Sunday night, leading to my writing a letter of complaint to the restaurant owner).
Incidentally, in at least US upscale restaurants, the serving person does not receive the entire tip. Cash tips must be turned in to the manager. Those, and all the tips on charge cards, go into a pool. Weekly or monthly the manager allocates a portion of the pool to the chef, the sous chef, the other cooks, the waiters, the bus boys, the matitre d', and perhaps to himself.
ARCCABlog - December 11th, 2009
I don't usually tip unless the service has been very good.
In countries where tipping is common, I find that the bill for the food is reasonable, and I do tip accordingly.
In the UK it's blooming expensive to eat out.
Adding a 10% service charge on top of an already inflated bill is just adding insult to injury, and allows the restaurant operator to continue ripping off the waiters and public simultaneously.
The way I see it, if a restauranteur wants waiters and other staff, they should pay a reasonable wage and not rely on public generosity.
disappearinjon - December 11th, 2009
I always try to have enough cash to tip, even when I'm paying by card. I will ask them to deduct the tip bit if it has been added. As you are under no obligation to pay this bit of the bill anyway if you don't like the service you can ask them to deduct it. I don't trust the tips to go to the staff when it is part of the card payment.