Mandatory Gratuity
There are few things in life that piss me off more than when the check comes after a nice meal and right there hidden between the chicken enchiladas and the extra side of guac is “15% Gratuity”, hoping not to be noticed.
Ryan and I are very generous tippers actually. As a for instance, we went for lunch today to one of our favorite places, Red White and Brew (plug!), and our waitress Amy was so good that we gave her what amounted to about a 25% tip. We’ve noticed that there’s really no such thing as great service anymore, so if we have stellar service we always ask to see the manager and thank them for having their servers go the extra mile.
However, tonight we met my parents and a couple they’ve been friends with for about 20 years for dinner (and if you can do simple math you know that’s 6 people total). When the check arrived, there it was. Gratuity added in. For a party of 6! The bill was $93.68 and when the waiter came to ask us if we needed any change (translation: how much of this will be left over for a tip for me?) my dad (who has never been known to keep quiet when there’s a point to be made) brazenly told him that no, no change was needed and that his $93.68 in exact change was right there clanging on the tip tray.
And if I was vindictive, I’d tell you exactly what the restaurant was that we ate at.
yeah, that pisses me off too. and i’m speaking as one who worked as a server. that’s like a hidden tax. the whole point of a gratuity is that it’s not supposed to be required. i would be curious to see if the automatic gratuity is strictly legal or not. especially since i’m sure that most servers aren’t going to automatically add that amount to their income taxes
Interesting–isn’t the whole idea of tipping to reward good service and punish bad service? So what motivation does a server have to be decent if he/she is going to get the same tip either way?
Yes! I’m a generous tipper too… NAd wne they try to hide a gratuity on the receipt it angers me…
I have been known to complain to management about the practice…
And if I think the waiter is rubber stamping it, I tip that basic 15% and nothing more…. Unless the sevice stucks and then I will tip less…. But that it VERY rare.
Cheers,
Mr. H.K.
Postcards from Hell’s Kitchen
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I think adding the tip in is very tacky. I am a very good tipper but I want to make the choice of how much to give. I was in a restaurant recently and I left a very big tip. Only after I left the restaurant did I look at the credit card receipt and I noticed they had already added in a 15% tip, which meant I left over 35% in tip. I was furious!
Did you enjoy the food? I really like Mexico City cuisine. I’ve eaten there once before. Sorry you didn’t have the best experience!
mmmmm… I love Red, White nad Brew. I am hungry!
Girl you crack me up….plsss no!! dont be vindictive by telling us the resteraunt
ROFL but on a serious note…I totally agree. That is so not cool!! And I ditto the other comments, and yes…I was a server before as well, and I NEVER had the gratuity added automatically…I always had to work my tail off to earn that buck. grrrrrrrrrr
roger that. even though i’ve only been there because it’s billy’s favorite place, i’ll never go there again. thank you for reminding me that filliberto’s is the last place for great mexican food!
Did you know that tip stands for To Insure Promptness?
Your dogs are cute! Glad you had a good time camping. Where do you go? We went camping twice in AZ, once on Clear Creek and the second time on Fossil Creek. Did you hear about the drug bust near Fossil Creek? Officials are claiming it to be the largest bust in the U.S to date. I don’t know if you saw that movie with Leo DiCaprio… I think it’s called The Island or something but there are these fields of pot plants growing with men and machine guns. Apparently there were a few men with machine guns roaming the fields where these pot plants were growing. Right here. CRAAAZZYYY!
Also there was the story of the guy in Upstate New York who refused to pay the %15 grat who got hauled off to jail and was made to pay it. He claimed that their service was horrible and the waitress did not deserve the tip. That is kinda suck doncha’ think?
Aurgh, mandatory tipping really pisses me off…. we refused to pay it once, and left no tip in its sted, where we normally would have left 10%ish. Paltry, but better than the 0% we got (we did have to arm-twist the management to take the tip off).
Funny thing, I had a bad restaurant experience Monday night, too. Sometimes I wonder why people enter the "service industry" if they have no intention of serving.
As a waiter, I can assure you that Mandatory Gratuity is God’s gift to the restauraunt business. So many times I have a table that just doesn’t leave a tip — not because my service is bad, but because they’re cheap asses.
gratuities in europe are factored into the price of the menu items, so the servers will be paid a flat wage .. if the point of restaurants charging mandatory gratuities is meant to increase server wages, then raise the prices of the items — otherwise, it’s simply a case of psychological pricing & fine print, like all the MSRP & other surcharges when you’re buying a car . .
as a side note, service at european restaurants where gratuities are "built in" tend to be half-assed, or so i hear .. where tipping is very very optional — tip for good service, no tip for poor to mediocre service ..
So I just got off work, waitressing, and I barely eeeeeked out 15% of my gross sales. Why? Because of the table of 14 I had, who basically sucked the life out of me, I could not take any other tables from the time they sat down (which they did in drips and drabs over a 30 minute span), until their food was delivered. They had several rounds of pricey drinks, beer and wine, two separate rounds of appetizers, large meals, and two desserts. Their bill came to $260, where upon they handed me the check and said "thank you, you were fantastic, we’ll be sure to ask for you the next time we come in". That, in my experience is the kiss of death. And sure enough, they left me a $37 tip. That is 12.5%. Not even 15%. Had there been the mandatory gratuity for parties over 8, I would have been at least satisifed at 15%. I’m about to draft a firm but bitchy letter to our corporate office to once again suggest that for our sake and sanity, they add in gratuity for large parties. In my opinion, a customer is always welcome to dispute it if they feel the amount was not warranted or deserved, but in this case, I went above and beyond for these people and they pretty much spit in my face.
Rant over.
While I appreciate that most of you hate the added gratuity, as a waitress, we do this for self preservation. I am glad to hear so many people who understand how to tip. You would be amazed at how many people don’t. For far too many people, $9 on a $90 check is an acceptable tip to leave. We tip out 4% of our SALES to the bartender, hostess and bussers. So if you leave a 10% tip, what you really leave for the waitress is 6%. We add that gratuity to make sure we get SOMETHING. That something is better than nothing. If you really hate it, tell your server up front, please don’t add a gratuity.
I see both sides. I have been both customer and server. I have given what I think was incredible service and have been undertipped, and I have received horrible service and have had to pay the mandatory gratuity. It would seem to me that the solution would be an industry-wide practice that, if the customer had reasonable and valid claim as to why service was poor and the tip should not be 15 or 18 percent or whatever, then the manager should rubber stamp it and hold the server accountable to the complaint. This would motivate all of us who serve to do that 15-18% job.
I lived in Europe for 4 years, ate out every night and I received
great service. Unlike the US, the wait staff in German resturants pays the resturant for the food
at the end of the night. The wait staff prepares the bill and the difference between
the menu price and resturant charge is their salary. This is a great system, The more people
served the more money made. Traditional tipping in Germany was round up to the
next Mark add a Mark. At the time the dollar was equal to 1.7 Marks.