Restaurants that practice double tipping

peteraj

I only leave a tip, and then in cash, when service has been exceptional. I expect good service in restaurants, and feel that the prices they charge cover food and service - if they did not then how could the restaurant stay open?
If service is exceptional then the staff deserve a tip, and then I will leave cash for them personally, nobody tips me because I do my job well and i am in a service industry of sorts but I would soon lose my job if i did it badly

Celtic

Why is it that staff should only be expected to work for tips only ?
Would anyone else do it
Food is one of the most profitable areas where big money is made .
Company owners should pay staff not try and shame customers into footing the bill !

bj-sailaway

Celtic wrote:

Why is it that staff should only be expected to work for tips only ?
Would anyone else do it
Food is one of the most profitable areas where big money is made .
Company owners should pay staff not try and shame customers into footing the bill !

It is always the least well off that suffer from large corporations taking advantage like this. Whitbread do it all the time, it is usually young mums who can't afford childcare who go waitressing when their other half gets home. If a Restaurant says they have no vacancies, but you can work for tips, what would you do if you really needed cash? Most of the women I knew who worked for tips only had husbands on low paid jobs and young children, they also did tend to give the best service!

Mark7799

How can anyone employ someone on the basis of 'tips only' and avoid prosecution under minimum wage rules?

Poppy9

peteraj wrote:

We also stayed at the Holiday Inn Maidenhead over Christmas and although we did not buy much food / drink while there I was shocked to see when my wife bought a coffee that they had added 25p on as a seperate 10% service charge. From that time on every time we bought anything and signed for it we crossed out the service charge - I would encourage everyone else to do this too, particulary when service is far from exceptional and staff struggle to understand what their English guests are saying

How can they justify £2.50 for a cup of coffee:mad:

bj-sailaway

Mark7799 wrote:

How can anyone employ someone on the basis of 'tips only' and avoid prosecution under minimum wage rules?

Well, firstly, they'd probably be on sticky ground if they aren't declaring their tips for cash, secondly, if they are declaring their tips, the tips will probably average the minimum wage, if it is still £5 per hour?

megsykins

I have mixed feelings about this. Personally, I will tip about 10% for good service and leave a specific extra tip FOR THE CHEFS of equal or more. This is cos, even though I'm a waitress, I hate the fact that the chefs get no acknowledgement whatsoever. Head chefs are lucky to be on more than £16k - £18k a year and they work 60-70+ hrs a week and they're the ones who make the food. When you're relaxed and finishing a meal at 10.30 pm, the chefs will probably have been there since 9am preparing your meal and will still be there. Yet the part-time glorified plate-carriers get the tips.

If there's a service charge, I will pay it but won't usually leave an additional tip unless it's been great service. My restaurant don't charge for service, but I've worked in places that do, and it is there to bump up abysmal wages. I know staff who've left jobs because restaurants have abandoned service charges. Also, 90% of places don't put tips through the books, so they're not taxed. People paid 'tips only' are usually part-timers and rarely would be earning enough to pay tax though.

Ironically, the one-night-a-week 17 year old waitress will probably be on better pay ph than the managers in many places. The catering trade is notoriously badly paid anyway and cos managers are paid salary, they end up working split shifts and very long hours (like kitchen staff), but will get the same tips as the waitress (if they're split). At 11pm when it's dying down, the part-timers will get sent home, but the managers will be there for another 3 hrs cashing up and cleaning down. In places where the tips aren't split the managers can even lose out cos they don't tend to be waiting on tables the same, often they're 'floating', covering the whole floor and don't have their 'own' section and tables. I do think people should keep their own tips, makes them worth working had for, but equally as I'm usually on the bar I certainly benefit from the fact that I get a share of the restaurant tips!

And these CC machines with 'tip' section, I've never come across these, maybe I eat in the wrong places! Ironically at work we sometimes have to void transactions as on our machine the customer cannot change the amount after it has been confirmed by the member of staff and we're told not to ask if they'd like to tip as it's rude and looks bad.

bj-sailaway

Get your point about the chefs etc, but they are always guaranteed their wages, the waitress can get sent home, as you said, or cancelled for a quiet evening - then they earn nothing at all, especially at this time of year. It's a bit swings and roundabouts, an all round very harsh trade to be in though.

BARGAINHUNTER!

Went to Florida once and went to a popular (with the English) restaurant. At the end of the meal we were given our bill, and the waitress had written on how much of a tip to leave! I was shocked at first, as when in America eating out in restaurants everyone is expected to leave 10-15% tip and I always did, but I had it explained to me that waitresses in America are on a very low wage, and some are not on any wage at all (just working for tips) and the English were notorious for not leaving tips, so this was just the waitresses way of ensuring that she got her tip! I asked what would happen if we had received bad service and I was told that in this case you would leave just 1 cent on the table, to show that you hadn't forgotten to tip, but the value of the tip showed your disatisfaction! I was unaware that anyone in this country was working just for tips - this can't be right - how on earth does the tax and National Insurance get dealt with - it would be like working cash in hand!

Also, do any of you tip at the hairdressers and how much do you usually tip? I always tip a few pounds, as they do spend a long time but other people provide me with a service but I dont tip them eg a beautician. Should I tip them too?

Sarahsaver

Celtic wrote:

Why is it that staff should only be expected to work for tips only ?
Would anyone else do it
Food is one of the most profitable areas where big money is made .
Company owners should pay staff not try and shame customers into footing the bill !

People in the hospitality trade are often paid a poor wage. I worked in a cocktail bar/nightclub. We got minimum wage. Tips had to go in a jar and were regularly shared out among all staff (totally unfair) I got a fiver for singing happy birthday to a customer and it had to go in the pot. Boss justified the low wages because people often try to take advantage, and I certainly saw it, people sneaking off a few drings of an evening, expecting to be able to let their friends in for free, give friends free drinks etc. expecting more than one drink at the end of the night, eating all the bar snacks.
From the bosses' point of view they have already 'paid' by giving staff 'special' rates on drinks and so on, and by having lots of food and drink go 'walkies'.
I think that tipping in restaurants should be up to the individual, and if someone wants a better paid job they should try and find one rather than relying on tips.
We do not tip cinema ushers anymore do we, and i dont often tip taxi drivers now either.
No-one gave me a tip when I was a teacher :rolleyes: