Went to a restaurant in LA today and when I got the check I noticed that it was a bit higher than it should be. Then I noticed this 18% service charge. So… We, as customers, need to help pay for their servers instead of the owners paying their servers a living wage. And on top of that they have suggested tip. I called bs on this. I will bet you that the servers do not see a dime of this 18% service charge. [deleted a word so it wasn’t a grammatical horror to read]

  • LetMeEatCake@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Service charge I would presume is primarily paid out to the non-wait staff at the restaurant. The kitchen in particular.
    Tips go to the wait staff, and they will pay some of that out to other staff (e.g. front staff) depending on how the restaurant works.

    These are going to be separate. The service charge is there so they can increase prices by a tightly controlled amount without needing to fuck up the carefully targeted price points ($8 or $7.99 is a lot better than $9.44). Which is shitty, to be clear: it’s a hidden way to increase prices while still advertising the same price. But it’s not something that replaces or complements the tip, it’s just a shitty price-adjustment.

    A waiter or waitress is still going to be dependent on the actual tip.

      • DONTBANTHISACCOUNT@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        THIS^

        pay them , what You want to … And increase the price on your menu … BUT DO NOT STICK 😞 YOUR CUSTOMER WITH A HIDDEN FEE …
        Especially when we(customers) HAVE to pay tip 😉 … {{ Like 'TF was the person who came up with the hidden fee even thinking… 😞🤔 ? }}

        flips table

      • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If I share the little green pieces of paper, I can afford a used Toyota. If I keep them all to myself, I can buy a new Cadillac and drive past my starving workers in style.

        Can’t hear them crying over a V8 exhaust right?

      • LetMeEatCake@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Because they’re allowed not to do so. The answer is shitty yet simple.

        Someone not tipping won’t change that either; all that will do is stiff a worker. This needs to be fixed by changing labor laws.

        • Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s entirely bullshit. A restaurant can absolutely pay a living wage and not do tips. Plenty of restaurants do it.

          The simple fact is that servers don’t want that. They make more in tips.

          • MeetInPotatoes@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            I hear this repeated so often and it ignores one glaringly obvious fact, servers aren’t the ones making any decisions…literally anywhere. They are the absolute bottom rung of decision-making. It is most definitely the restaurants that are just fine paying as little as possible. Servers do love mandatory gratuity however. Working a party of 10 when only one person tips on their own meal can mess up your whole night.

          • LetMeEatCake@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            … I didn’t say they can’t do so. I said they’re allowed not to. Since it’s allowed, that’s what they do.

          • WhipperSnapper@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Point to your credit here: it’s illegal in this state to pay less than minimum wage whether the employee is tipped or not. ALL workers make at least $15.74/hr here, except for 14 and 15 year olds who can be paid 80% of minimum wage.

      • redlink64@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        That’s a good question, and the easy answer is ‘they should.’ As the commenter above you mentioned, they use it as a tactic to advertise the same (competitive to other local restaurants) price people are used to. A more transparent way of doing business would be raising the price of the menu items to compensate staff fairly. The restaurant owners/management fear that if they do this it would drive away customers who believe the food is overpriced and look to their competitors. It’s easy to say, ‘just pay the staff a fair wage,’ but not quite as easy in practice. Most restaurants are small businesses just barely scraping by. The OP is right to be annoyed, but as always, context and a basic understanding of a situation’s underlying principles make the easy answer difficult to implement.

        • GizmoLion@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Put a banner outside saying “no gratuity necessary, the price you see is the price you pay!” and watch what happens.

        • MeetInPotatoes@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I worked in restaurants for years and this is the correct answer. I also die a little inside at how many posts say to pay servers a living wage but then balk at the idea of paying extra for the meal. Where else would the money come from??! As you said, if they raise menu prices, their competition will undercut and do this. It would also affect takeout prices where tips are usually lower. People hate tipping and want a magic solution where waiters make more but also nobody’s charged more.

      • Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Because then they’d have to raise prices.

        Especially nowadays with so many people looking up menu prices online before going somewhere, it’s a way to present your prices as lower than they actually are.

        • DONTBANTHISACCOUNT@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          It sounds like a hidden fee to me… Which is like lying to someone … anyways at least that’s what it looks like to me if not Fraud

      • outdated_belated@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        Because liberal mystification with fancy-sounding concepts made to make you feel dumb so you don’t realize it’s just creative surplus labor value expropriation

      • MeetInPotatoes@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        They would still have to add that living wage cost to the food prices. Hidden or not hidden only makes a difference in how surprised you are, not the cost.

      • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Because that’s not how it works in America. You know this. Don’t ask a question; it’s stupid. Declare your intention that it should be changed, and propose a way to do it.

        If you actually care more than posting online, you can start a restaurant.

        • Jackolantern@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          How come other countries can do it? Why not ours?

          I posted because I want to drive discussions which lemmy sorely needs

          • AnonTwo@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            I feel like there’s been plenty of discussion. Everyone knows it’s a problem.

            It continues to happen because there’s no pressure to change it. Just discussions that fall into the abyss of the internet at this point, repeating things everyone already knows.

            • wjrii@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Part of the reason there’s less pressure to change it than you might imagine is that we now have a hundred years of cultural inertia working on, yes, the customers and restaurants, but also on the waitstaff labor pool. At this point, the Americans who seek work as waiters are generally the ones who feel they work with the system and even turn it to their advantage. It’s far from all, of course, but the “best” servers at most restaurants probably feel like they’re going to make more working the customers than negotiating with their bosses.

              So, you’ve got restaurants keeping their list-prices low and a built-in workforce motivator, customers who expect friendly service and accept that they’re culturally responsible for the staff’s pay, and servers who stay at the job because they feel like they’ll make more than the restaurant would be willing to pay as a “fair” wage (and they’re probably right). Now, it’s full-on bizarre that we have taken an entry level service job and made it an exercise in theatrical entrepreneurship, and it says some unsettling things about the underlying social order in the US, but I’m not sure that at the nuts-and-bolts level, it’s as broken as the people like to imagine.

          • TheMauveAvenger@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Is that really what Lemmy needs? Discussion on a topic that’s been hashed out a million times before? It would be more productive to talk about the weather than to keep circling the drain on this shit ad nauseam.

    • vortic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Biden was in the news saying he wants to get rid of hidden fees. I was surprised that restaraunts weren’t on the list of industries being targeted. This kind of fee should be illegal. It should be required to be a part of the up-front price.

      Hell, I feel the same about sales tax. It should be baked in to the price you see on the shelf or menu.

      • DONTBANTHISACCOUNT@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Lol. this makes me want to stand in front of their restraunt with a protest sign saying " this restraunt likes to charge hidden fees "

    • Letstakealook@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Or they can get a less shitty employer. I see a hidden “service” fee, that’s the tip, take it to up with the owner, I’m not responsible for this. Restaurant staff really need to start directing their anger and efforts at their employer instead of customers.

      • Lodra@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Ya… That doesn’t seem realistic to me. Very few people will “direct their anger” toward someone with power over them. There’s always risk in a addressing issues with your employer because they can make your life worse. They can fire you, reduce your income or working hours, become inflexible with scheduling and demands, remove benefits, etc. No, it doesn’t always go this way and there are plenty of fine employers. But even if you have a reasonable employer and are free to raise concerns, there’s still risk and confrontation.

        And what about alternate employers? Restaurant staff can go find a better employer, right? Except, job searches are very difficult and it’s near impossible to identify a good employer from a bad one while interviewing. Very real chance that you make a change and end up with more problems.

        Don’t get me wrong. These hidden fees are 100% bs. It’s just not the employee’s responsibility to fix things. They usually have zero power in these situations. “Be good to the customer or I won’t get a tip. Be good to the employer or I won’t be scheduled to work.”

        • Letstakealook@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          It’s not my responsibility to tip on top of a hidden 18% fee as the customer, either. That’s the point I was making. Waitstaff love to direct their anger at customers, as if it’s the customers fault. The employee does have the power to organize, campaign, and vote for politicians who could enact policy to make their situation better. Instead, they just bitch about customers somehow being terrible people because their employer doesn’t pay them a living wage.

    • zerofk@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      So what’s to stop them from setting all prices to 1 cent and having the rest as service fee?

    • Fridayj@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Thank you for posting this you are correct the fee goes to the restaurant and they use the money to pay the back of house. In my experience it is just so the restaurant can provide the same wages as before to back of house but not out of the restaurants pocket. This tends to result in people tipping less so the server directly makes less money. There is also often no accounting/oversight into how the restaurant uses the fee. If I recall correctly the city of Los Angeles is looking into the legality of how these fees are presented to the customer and the fact there is no oversight.