Restaurants: How to avoid paying the 10%+ serivce charge: Save £££'s every year!

grantyboy1

i totally agree that waiters live on their tips... however i disagree with the pre added service charge. I generally , when satisfied with the service, do tip any way however to presume that i want to tip without asking is quite insulting and usually results in the service charge being removed and no tip at all. I believe that the pre added service charge only encourages the waiting staff to become complacent as they are "guarenteed" the tip however if this was removed and we took a step back to the forgoten tradition of providing great service and in return being rewarded with a tip then everybody would win, and just maybe the size of the tip would increase as well!

Kantankrus_Mare

Perhaps because doctors are on bloody good money for what they do and deserevdly so.

Think the restaurant I work in must be a rarity as we split the tips equally between ALL the staff that have worked on that shift from waiting on staff to chefs to washing up staff.

We are a team and if we didnt all work together the customer wouldnt get such an enjoyable experience.

Much as some customers annoy me, food is never ever tampered with though I dont doubt that it happens in some places. :eek:

DSmiffy

Can I just clarify.... is a service charge on a restaurant bill optional and always optional or are there cases where you are expected to pay it or face a right rumpus?

I'm happy to deduct the service charge from the bill and give a direct tip to the waiter who served me if this is the case.
Anyone?

FiscalFox

No. You do not have to pay the service charge. Some restaurants will usually advertise (in small print on their menus) that an 'optional' charge will be cheekily added to your bill. Refuse if this happens!

chi-chi

Phew - this post has generated many replies. Here's my tuppence worth: I worked for many years as a waitress in a very busy restaurant in London. We were paid a small basic of £65 a week to do 5 lunches plus whatever evenings were needed. THE REST OF OUR WAGES WAS MADE ENTIRELY OF TIPS. Customers were asked if they wanted the service charge added to the bill. As they were regular customers, often on a business lunch and had always received good service, they never refused.

Large parties at Christmas are particularly hard work. You can have evening functions until 3am, then back for 8.30am to rearrange the whole restaurant and function room to cater for say, 8-10 parties of 10-25 people. These people are mostly drunk, frequently can't remember what they've ordered, oh and puking in the restuarant (guess who cleans it up) is not unkown, take it from me, you work for that 10%.

Many people seem to imagine that restuarants enjoy whopping on 10% just for the fun of it and then swan off home happy because they have ripped off the customers. Just remember that you are paying the waiting staff's wages. Just for the record, I think it's absolutely justified to remove the 10% if you had rubbish service.

And blimey, if I were on a date with a man who took it off the bill, NOT because the service was poor but because he just didn't want to pay it, I'd think "How tight fisted, that was really sad and embarrassing" and get myself off to the nearest dating site to find a new date pronto.

Confused_Jo

I used to work in a Beefeater and got tips on top of my wages. We gave the chefs "plate money" but they never knew how much we made. It was some where between £15 and £40 extra a night. However, the reason there is a national legally binding MINIMUM wage is so that people do not have to live on their tips. They ususally end up being a tax free bonus.

I tip when the service has been ok to fantastic, it depends on how frazzled the poor soul serving me is. However, for my birthday last year I went to the chain restaurant Ask. They were rude, told me three timex in the space of 2 minutes that we had to order, although we were on time and someone was in the loo.

Everyone agreed, 10 % of £120 was too much to leave for a crappy service and spent in the pub on a round of drinks.!

You only get back what you give!!!

Horasio

I only tip if I get good service

Bad service and having to argue about this issue at the end of a meal spoils the evening

Leave it off and leave it to the customer to decide!!!

Horasio

Whilst on subject of medical staff.

I have been in hospital NHS and had faultless treatment from the nursing staff.

I gave them a £50 tip for their excellent service

moth_in_pocket

that is the tightest thing i have ever heard. ! you are victor meldrew !!!!!! just tip eh?

FiscalFox

Whilst "enforced" tipping itself is a cruddy thing for a restaurant to do; even worse is the blatant social pressure they use to do this. Not many people want to risk causing a scene a refuse to pay for an automatic tip (unlikely). Its guaranteed that someone on most guilty restaurant/franchise managment teams realise this too.

I do tip- but only when the service has been exceptional, and that's sadly rare. Its certainly not my job to pay the waiter's wages- that's their boss; and they charge a 1-200%+ markup on alcohol!