Found their website. They use a lot of flowery words, but I think you sum it up pretty well.
Comment on higher wages for the servers... by the customers. Fnbs
LetMeEatCake@lemmy.world 10 months agoService 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.
They’re largely 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.
VioletRing@kbin.social 10 months ago
DONTBANTHISACCOUNT@kbin.social 10 months 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 "
Vorticity@lemmy.world 10 months 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.
NathanielThomas@lemmy.world 10 months ago
But then you can’t list gasoline for $1.99.99 a litre
Letstakealook@lemm.ee 10 months 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.
Fridayj@sh.itjust.works 10 months 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.
zerofk@lemm.ee 10 months ago
So what’s to stop them from setting all prices to 1 cent and having the rest as service fee?
theneverfox@pawb.social 10 months ago
There are restaurants who don’t show you the price, so nothing I guess
Jackolantern@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Why don’t the restaurants just pay actual living wage then?
DONTBANTHISACCOUNT@kbin.social 10 months 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
flips table
ediculous@feddit.nl 10 months ago
Someone needs to ban this account.
DONTBANTHISACCOUNT@kbin.social 10 months ago
No no no no... Someone needs to unban free speech; at the very least on the ethernet
Ya kno what I mean ?
redlink64@reddthat.com 10 months 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 10 months ago
Put a banner outside saying "no gratuity necessary, the price you see is the price you pay!" and watch what happens.
FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 10 months 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.
Can’t hear them crying over a V8 exhaust right?
LetMeEatCake@lemmy.world 10 months 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 10 months 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.
LetMeEatCake@lemmy.world 10 months 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.
Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social 10 months 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 10 months 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
KevonLooney@lemm.ee 10 months 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 10 months 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 10 months 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.
TheMauveAvenger@lemmy.world 10 months 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.
outdated_belated@lemmy.sdf.org 10 months ago
Because liberal mystification with fancy-sounding concepts made to make you feel dumb do you don’t realize it’s just creative surplus labor value expropriation