Need this nationwide. I hate having fees added on to the price of what I’m ordering.
Only fees that are entirely optional — like leaving a tip for staff — can be left out of the posted price.
Wrong move. They should have outlawed tipping too. No more hiring for shit wages and leaving adequate compensation up to chance. Bump up the menu price and pay your staff an enticing salary.
Not disagreeing, just providing a counterpoint.
Take your basic non super fancy restaurant, dinner for two with appetizers, entrees, desserts, a two rounds of drinks will probably be $100ish. And that table of two will be there for an hour. Assuming server gets 20% tip average, that’s $20 for the table. An average server will have four tables in their sections. That means if the restaurant is full, they are making $80 an hour in tips. They will get to keep 60% to 80% of that, the rest going in a tip pool that benefits kitchen staff, bussers, barbacks, etc. But they’ll still be making pretty good money.
Of course if the restaurant is empty or they only have one or two tables with people seated, they are making less.
The problem comes that if you get rid of this system, there’s a lot of financial risk for the restaurant owner. Currently they don’t have to pay the server or the staff very much, most of their compensation comes from tips, meaning there is less risk to them keeping the restaurant fully staffed if it’s not going to be busy. If you pay all these people are constant hourly, now there is risk on the restaurant owner in terms of staffing. Bring on too many staff when it’s quiet and they will lose a bundle. Don’t bring on enough staff when it’s busy and those people don’t have a financial incentive to bust their ass. It also becomes solely their job to ensure quality, because the server that spends half the time on their phone in the back room is making the same money as the server who is attentive to their tables. It also means less risk for hiring an inexperienced server, because if the server does a bad job they just won’t make good tips.
All that said, I agree something has to change. I think perhaps one answer would be a law requiring that each restaurant put 15% of gross receipts into a virtual tip pool. That way they aren’t paying through the nose to staff and empty restaurant, there would be a line item on the check like ‘automatic gratuity paid the staff $whatever on this check, further tipping is optional’.
dinner for two with appetizers, entrees, desserts,
Why on earth would someone go out for dinner, have two starters, and then jump to dessert? 😂
Just in case this isn’t a joke, then this is probably a country difference. In America, “entree” is synonymous with “main course”. I know, I know. That’s not what entree means. But the fact remains.
Where im from ive never heard of that, entree is usually a starter snack to hold you over till the food is done. But this could also be a regional thing still.
It’s specifically the US that calls main courses entrees. No clue why.
Probably an imperial vs metric thing.
Ive never heard of that, and Im from SoCal. Shouldve made it clear im from the US but yeah never heard of folks calling an entree the full meal.
I am from Texas and have lived in several states in the eastern half of the US. “Entree” on a menu has always been the main dish in my experience. You also frequently see it used that way on recipe websites. This is the first I’ve heard that entree has a different meaning elsewhere. Merriam Webster has a bit of background info on how that came to be.
there’s a lot of financial risk for the restaurant owner
Risk for the business owner, what a concept. The workers aren’t there to defray risks for an owner, they’re doing a job. If the restaurant founder wants to push risk to their employees, make it a coop, then they can share in the profits as well as the risk.
Well if the risk is that they are paying $300 an hour in unnecessary labor, that’s a risk that would put almost any restaurant under. Perhaps a better answer would be a commission-based system, just build a 20% commission into the price of the food rather than making it a mandatory tip or a line item on the receipt. Problem is that makes marketing harder because you have to explain why your food is 20% more expensive than the competition and try to get people to understand that their bill will actually be the same or less. It also doesn’t necessarily incentivize the employee to provide better service. And while I conceptually agree that should be the responsibility of the manager, in practice it’s difficult. I’m not sure what the solution is. I agree there needs to be one.
Do it like in Europe. Prices are all inclusive, any kind of tip is just a thank you for outstanding service, and not a necessity so the waitress won’t starve.
It is a sales business with service, like buying clothes. Can you imagine having to tip the salesperson in a boutique?
It really depends on the country. France and Belgium, as you wrote. Germany, they expect a tip and look at you angry if you don’t. Italy, they add a service charge at the end that is nowhete advertised. Turkey, they invent a random price at the end, complaints only taken if you’re local. (I’m slightly exaggerating)
In Germany it’s typical to do so just to make the change easier, you might catch an angry glance by making them make small change.
Italy will list a coperto or servizio on the menu.
I was just in a smaller city in Germany and flew back to the US after that. I look German and speak German. When paying with card, Germany felt exactly like the US. At every restaurant, the tip request automatically came up within the thing used to process your card, just like in the US.
Italy, they add a service charge at the end that is nowhete advertised.
It’s called the Pane & Coperto (or just Coperto Fee) and typically amounts to a cover charge to enter, regardless of what you order.
Honestly not the worst way to run a restaurant, given that every table costs some baseline amount of labor and resources to tend.
“If it’s in the core price of the menu, there will be a pullback” in patrons’ spending, she told NPR shortly before the attorney general released the guidelines. "There are some people, I think, that are hoping that the restaurants will just absorb that cost, because we’ve seen people say, ‘Oh, it’s too expensive with the service charge.’ "
If you add bullshit charges that are not added into the price on the menu, I don’t return ever. So you may lose a couple patrons initially but they’ll be back once they understand that is the general price. You will also get me back since there is no more possibility of bullshit charges.
Oh, so you mean people won’t order your food if they know what the real price is? Well… fuck you
More that sticker shock will keep people from ordering an appetizer with a main meal if everything is $2-3 more expensive than when they last visited
This might be a weird question but when people tip for a good service, what exactly is good service?
If I go to a restaurant I expect them to take my order, bring me the food and when I’m done bring me the check. That’s it. I want nothing else from them. Should I tip them for not spitting in my food or not stumbling and throwing it all over my clothes?
If I go to a restaurant I expect them to take my order, bring me the food and when I’m done bring me the check. That’s it.
I’ve been to a Michelin Star restaurant where a pair of waiters were constantly hovering over your table to clean it and refill drinks and offer provide conversation.
The chef comes by and makes a presentation of every dish (the bananas foster was practically a magic act, the way they assembled the meal and then light it on fire). The staff practically wingman for you, if you’ve got a date. Everyone is beautiful and charming.
But that was something like $300/person just for the table, with 20% gratuity as a fixed fee on the final bill.
There are lots of restaurants that don’t charge through the nose for the meal but offer comparable service. Charming friendly waiters who weedle your favorite food and give excellent recommendations. Staff that sing or make clever jokes or entertain small children or share a cocktail with you at the table. I know a few high end restaurants in Houston that will try to pouch waiters from one another because they’re friends with particularly wealthy regulars.
You see less of that now (at least in the states) because individual waiters are expected to cover more tables, turnover is more important than relationship building, and the quality of food has taken a real nosedive as we replace professional chefs with meals made in microwaves.
Now a tip is much more like a Coperto - a cover charge for seating - than gratuity for exceptional service.
Only fees that are entirely optional — like leaving a tip for staff — can be left out of the posted price.
How do you say you’ve never worked as a server without saying you’ve never worked as a server?
Edit: I think there’s a misunderstanding. I’m commenting on describing tips as “entirely optional.” If you can’t afford to tip, don’t eat at a restaurant. Servers are paid below minimum wage because they receive tips.
Second edit: My bad. NY has a tip allowance, and that’s where I waited. I didn’t know it varied so greatly from state to state. California does, in fact, pay their servers $16 per hour minimum.
https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/minimum-wage-tipped-employees-by-state/
Work a Sunday brunch shift and watch the raft of churchies leave nothing but condescending notes, if anything.
i thought you weren’t meant to use the lord’s name in vain
Restaurants should be forced to pay their workers a living wage, which is how it works in developed countries. And paying below minimum wage should be illegal.
it’s such a fucking joke that they’re allowed to pay like $2/hr because they’ll make it up in tips. just because customers are nice doesn’t mean the employer should get off the hook like that. even the joke federal minimum wage is fuck all, that’s like 1-2 sides at a decent restaurant
My new favorite is a hotel tax I just saw today which conveniently isn’t included in the room rate.
