higher wages for the servers... by the customers. Fnbs

Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨iamascaryvampire@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world⁩

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b202caa7-bc67-4e3b-86d7-6cf85de87307.jpeg

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, you 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.

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wesker@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
So it’s a mandatory tip, and it’s balso suggested you voluntarily leave a secondary tip.

Tip culture in America is so aggressive.

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- Skyline969@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s getting stupid in Canada too despite our laws being different (as in, you cannot make less than minimum wage if you work in a place that allows tips).
  
  I got my oil changed a few months ago and the machine prompted me for a tip. For what? The mechanic did their job, I paid for said job. Transaction concluded.
  
  I tried Crumbl cookies for the first (and last, holy crap overpriced) time. Got asked for a tip. For what? I got six cookies in a box and then had to leave the store because there’s no seating to eat them there. The person who helped me took my order. That’s it. Another employee put six cookies in a box and put them on a counter and said my number. Not a lot of wiggle room to go “above and beyond.”
  
  What’s next? A tip at the grocery store for the cashier scanning my groceries? A tip at the drive-thru?
  
  Here’s a tip. Don’t work for an employer who doesn’t pay you what you’re worth.
  
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  - Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I booked a hotel online the other day and was asked if I want to leave a tip… A tip for what? I didn’t even interact with a human. Just clicked a few buttons on a website. Am I tipping the web developer?? Lol
    
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  - Astroturfed@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Starbucks baristas doesn’t even “make” the coffee. They use superautomatic espresso machines. Starbucks coffee sucks ass.
    
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  - nan@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    In the US you generally cannot make less than minimum wage, the employer can directly pay you less as long as your full compensation (pay + tips) are at least minimum wage, if not they are supposed to pay more.
    
    I think the explosion of tip questions is due to the card processors figuring out there was an untapped area where they could pressure people to tip and skim off a percentage of that.
    
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  - NathanielThomas@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    What’s next? A tip at the grocery store for the cashier scanning my groceries?
    
    Nope, a tip at a self-checkout.
    
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- LetMeEatCake@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.
  
  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.
  
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  - Jackolantern@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Why don’t the restaurants just pay actual living wage then?
    
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  - VioletRing@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Found their website. They use a lot of flowery words, but I think you sum it up pretty well.
    
    https://www.jonandvinnys.com/service-charge
    
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  - Vorticity@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨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.
    
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  - Letstakealook@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨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.
    
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  - Fridayj@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨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.
    
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  - zerofk@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    So what’s to stop them from setting all prices to 1 cent and having the rest as service fee?
    
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- SpezBroughtMeHere@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  How is this any different than just raising the price of everything by 18%? But you see service charge and a percentage and its an outrage.
  
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  - IGuessThisIsForNSFW@yiffit.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If you raise the price of everything by 18% the prices on the menu will be 18% higher, possibly discouraging people from eating there. If you add it at the end people will still choose to eat there at least once. It is practically the same as raising prices, just a lot more dishonest.
    
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  - Squirrel@thelemmy.club ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Because raising the price of everything lets you know ahead of time that you are paying more. I’m fine with a price hike if it means servers get better pay, but hiding it like this is scummy and borderline fraudulent.
    
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  - Guy_Fieris_Hair@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    They are trying to tell you to not ask for a livable wage.
    
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  - lunarul@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It does make sense to increase all menu prices in order to pay higher wages, but it’s a sleazy dishonest practice to hide that increase from the customers until it’s too late.
    
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- DONTBANTHISACCOUNT@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Like when dealerships can sell cars above MSRP ... SMH
  
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- FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Owner wants to get his cut, server wants to put gas in their car. We’re a country of 350 attempted unique make it rich stories and it’s a goddamn mess.
  
  We need UBI and jobs programs aka Trek after WW3…but I fear we may have to fight the war to get it
  
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- Random_user@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Listen to this scam.
  I stopped at a Starbucks kiosk to get my kid a juice box the other day. When I paid for it by card the card machine prompted for a tip, 25%, 20%, and 15%. Here’s the kicker, 25% was selected by default! You actually have to use button on the machine to move through the selections to get to NONE. To top it off the lady behind the counter casually said, “Oh you’re using a card? Just press the green accept button when the menu comes up.” which would have selected the 25 option.
  
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  - wesker@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Super shady!
    
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- PixxlMan@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s not a tip. They’ve literally just increased the prices without showing and lying about it on the menu.
  
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DoomBot5@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
All the arguments about tipping here are missing the point. The restaurant owner just came up with a bullshit way of raising the prices without showing larger numbers on the menu. That should honestly be illegal.

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- mac@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  A lottt of restaurants in socal do this, unfortunately. I’ve never seen it this high, though.
  
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- valkyre09@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  maybe it’s to allow take-away at a lower price, like a dine in vs eat out charge.
  
  Very rare, I’m from Ireland & have only seen it once in a Chinese restaurant. They were very clear about it in the menu though so it wasn’t a sticker shock price
  
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  - dept@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    we have that in Egypt. normally like 15% service charge when eating in the restaurant but nothing when taking out.
    
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  - CmdrShepard@lemmy.one ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ve seen some restaurants adding a take-out fee recently. It’s fucking insane.
    
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- ponfriend@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It soon will be. news.bloomberglaw.com/…/prepare-for-renewed-ftc-r…
  
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  - DoomBot5@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Reading the article, I’m not feeling too encouraged that this will actually impact small restaurants. From the article it sounds like the FTC is just going after large corporations.
    
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Etterra@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The thing is, by paying for food we should be paying the employees - that’s how salaries work. But in an effort to out-compete each other in the razor-thin margin business that is most restaurants, they don’t want their menu prices to go up, because that discourages customer spending. So many restaurants use underhanded tactics to screw customers instead. Hidden menu prices, sneaky service fees, and begging for point-of-sale tips at places where they’re not getting paid shitty server salaries (like fast food).

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- superkret@feddit.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  But for some reason, those menu prices still aren’t lower than for example in Germany where service charge isn’t a thing and tips are “round up so I don’t get small change back”.
  
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  - Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Probably because in our atmosphere we more readily criticize bosses taking 90%+ off the top, while in the US it’s entirely normal that any increase in prices goes entirely into the manager pockets and the servers continue to be paid just enough to physically survive so they can show up for work again.
    
    And sure, it happens a lot over here, too. But to a lesser degree, and not as readily. The base climate is different.
    
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  - glimpseintotheshit@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I disagree. Those prices are pretty typical for most (proper) german restaurants and i would even say some of it is on the more affordable side. Also, while tipping culture isn’t what it is in the US, giving less than 10% will make the waiter almost certainly hate you.
    
    That’s no excuse for that outrageous “service fee”, of course.
    
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- feifei@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Best to cook at home
  
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chop@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’ll be the one to stoop to a name and shame. From the receipt, that’s Jon & Vinny’s Brentwood. Thanks—will now be sure to avoid going there.

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- iamascaryvampire@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  i went to the one in Fairfax. i should have known something was up. when my wife (who wanted to go, she doesn’t speak english so she was just looking at the pictures) showed me this place, i saw that their rating wasn’t as good as i thought it would be. but since i was driving i didn’t check. now i know why.
  
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- BillMurray@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Jon and Vinny’s is such great food too, it’s a shame that they pull this shit. Last time I went, I just rounded up to the nearest $ and paid with cash. I’m not tipping on top of an 18% auto gratuity. I would say they should just raise their prices, but that place is already very expensive…
  
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- vincenttwice@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  For anyone in/traveling to Seattle, “Conversation” is a restaurant by Pike Place, and they add 20%.
  
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CrayonRosary@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
All wages are paid by customers. Where do you think the money to pay them comes from? Heaven?

The underhanded and sneaky part is that the menu prices are a lie. If they want to pay a decent wage to their employees, good on them, but they should just raise all menu prices by 18% instead of surprising you later.

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- BigDiction@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Kids pasta shells are already $16.25. I don’t think they can raise them any more.
  
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  - MNByChoice@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Of course they can raise prices higher.
    
    Sadly, there have been studies (too lazy to find a link) that indicate being sneaky like this, instead of raising prices, leads to a better reaction from customers.
    
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- Kinglink@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You nailed it. It’s artificially deflated prices, and dishonest…
  
  Would be the last time I visited them.
  
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- DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Upvoted, but just want to say that the payment usually goes customer -> owner -> employee. Don’t let the owners trick anyone into thinking that someone other than themerlves are responsible for paying employees.
  
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  - CrayonRosary@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Why though? Why does that asshole get to decide how much the cook makes, and his much the server makes? Why do I get no say in it? After all, they’re making and serving food for me, not the owner. I should be allowed to negotiate with the cook and the server and write up a contract we all agree to. The owner gets a cut, too, for providing the space, and paying for the ingredients, but the cook and server pay him out of the money they make. Don’t forget the dishwasher. He rents the dishes to the cook.
    
    I realized this sounds very silly and weird, but that’s exactly how contracting works. You directly pay who you interact with for the work they are offering, and if their work requires good or services from other people, they pay them.
    
    Why not run a restaurant like a hair salon where a cook rents a time slot and a part of the kitchen. And the server is like hiring a private courier.
    
    Again, its silly. I’m just saying… The whole customer -> owner -> employee relationship you seem to hold sacred is totally arbitrary. It’s a system some men with capital invented thousands of years ago. Why is it necessarily good?
    
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Arsenal4ever@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Corporations invented Jaywalking to pass the problem of death by vehicle from the manufacturer to the victim. Corporations invented the concept of Litterbug to shift blame from the makers of trash to the disposers of trash. Corporations invented the concept of the personal carbon footprint to shift the blame from the makers of carbon to the users of carbon.

This is just the same thing. Corporations are good at this.

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- Melco@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  [deleted]
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  - jarfil@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Corporations:
    
    Reduce… no, we don’t want them to buy less!
    
    Reuse… still not good enough.
    
    Buy more and Recycle… now this, we can support. Add a recycling charge to it for good measure.
    
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  - NathanielThomas@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It would be fucking awesome if it ended up in the landfill.
    
    It ends up on pristine beautiful south Pacific island beaches.
    
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- FlowVoid@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Trash has been around far longer than corporations, and people have taken responsibility for their trash long before corporations existed.
  
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  - Arsenal4ever@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Okay, thank you for setting me straight.
    
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Heavybell@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If the service charge is always there then just raise prices by 18% and stop misleading people ffs…

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- WoahWoah@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  [deleted]
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  - bobo@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Because the price on the menu then appears lower than what the customer actually pays. It’s completely misleading.
    
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  - new_acct_who_dis@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Because no one agreed to pay that when they were ordering. Imagine being a on budget for a night out and getting this extra charge outta nowhere
    
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  - IdleSheep@lemdro.id ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Imagine you only have 10 dollars on you and buy a 9.99 item off the menu because of it, only to discover at the register there’s a 20% service fee. Not very a very pleasant customer experience, is it?
    
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  - atticus88th@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Also it costs far too much for the owner to reprint all those menus with higher prices. And to update all the food delivery apps… fuhgeddaboudit
    
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krebstar@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What a joke. Just raise your prices and put it on the menu. I would refuse to pay that. That was not listed anywhere before you ordered.

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- qwertyWarlord@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Those prices are already wack, holy cow
  
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  - ChicoSuave@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It’s California pricing with added 9% inflation.
    
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- some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  That was not listed anywhere before you ordered.
  
  I don’t know why this logic hadn’t occurred to me until you said it. Strikingly obvious argument for raising prices on the menu.
  
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  - aesthelete@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    They aren’t doing that because nobody can do the math in their head to figure out what the actual cost of the menu items will be. Much better (for them) to hit you up with a charge at the end and blindside you with percentage surcharges.
    
    It’s alarmingly frequent in California and should be fucking illegal.
    
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crwcomposer@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I thought the point of paying servers a living wage was to make tipping unnecessary.

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- SCB@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This line of thinking is just making serving a less attractive job for millions of people to save yourself a small amount of money.
  
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Skyline969@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Any auto-grat on a bill is an instant big fat 0 on the tip line for me. Fuck double dipping on customers subsidizing shitty wages. It shouldn’t even need to happen once. If the restaurant can’t pay a reasonable wage it shouldn’t be in business.

I would be completely okay with a restaurant charging a bit more for meals if they also had a “do not tip” policy. Wait staff should be expected to do their jobs, the restaurant should be expected to pay their employees. As a customer I should be expected to pay the restaurant, full stop.

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- RedAggroBest@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This isn’t an auto grat tho? This is them saying “You pay more so our employees get better pay, you pay exactly this much more for this effect”. Instead of them just cranking up prices like normal.
  
  Y’all are bitching and moaning about a restaurant being honest instead of just fucking charging more.
  
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- Waldowal@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This isn’t an auto-grat situation though. This is the restaurant increasing their prices by 18%, then blaming it on the staff.
  
  By not tipping, you’re just punishing the wait staff for the restaurant’s shitty behavior. Better to tip normally, then tell the restaurant you won’t be back until they get their heads out of their asses.
  
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- phillaholic@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I wouldn’t go back, but your anger is towards management not the worker. I’d still tip in this situation.
  
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malloc@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Name and shame. Fuck this place.

Also “kids shells” for $22? Please tell me this is not macaroni and cheese.

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- TheSaneWriter@lemmy.thesanewriter.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s almost certainly a Mac & Cheese variant. Stuff like this is why I heavily research restaurant prices before going out.
  
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- baked_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Gem lettuce for $22? Wtf is the US smoking?
  
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- ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Since it is L.A. the markup is because of the volume of people willing/able to pay $22 for a kids Mac and cheese. At that point the tip is just mocking the workers of the restaurant.
  
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squaresinger@feddit.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What is this nonsense? I mean, since the customers are the only source of income for a restaurant, of course the customers pay for the wages.

But why hide that behind obscure markups (that’s all a service charge/tip is)? Why not just price the food 18% higher and drop the service charge?

That way, the restaurant earns the same money, but the customers actually know what they are going to pay and the restaurant visit doesn’t end on a down note when paying.

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uberrice@feddit.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I mean, that’s basically the way it works. Here it’s just ‘transparent’.

Want to pay workers more - food gets more expensive. It’s the same thing with America not adding sales tax to the sticker price. When I get something for 2 bucks in Europe, it’s 2 bucks including the vat. In America, it’s 2 bucks before vat.

But yeah, it’s probably not properly implemented and just a scheme to get more money out of people.

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chrizbie@lemmy.nz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m not in america, in our country when we buy a meal the tax is included, as is the cost of paying staff a living wage and tips are really only given (volunteerily, without prompt) in certain scenarios where service might genuinely be extraordinary.

It’s always been fascinating to me that it could be done any other way and to be honest it sounds incredibly complicated and quite shitty the way america does it, it seems to me like it’s an old fashioned relic from the swashbuckling 1800’s, pay your maiden well and she’ll make sure your mead is always topped up… But in 2023 it seems absurd, prepared food and drink is just a product like anything else, do you tip at Walmart when you buy a TV?

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tapdattl@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Also by making it a service fee instead of a tip, management and the owners are able to tale part of it. Tips legally have to go to the employees, service fees can go into the owner’s pockets.

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Waldowal@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
“We want to charge you more, but we want to make sure you blame our wait staff for it.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if the QR code sends you to a website bitching about “the current administration”.

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ebenixo@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
How about businesses pay their fucking employees? What a concept

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spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A list of L.A. restaurants doing this shit from a Reddit sub:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/…/edit#gid=0

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DharkStare@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why don’t they just raise their prices a bit? Adding a “not” tip to the bill just seems odd.

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krnl386@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I bet legally, the establishment owners aren’t required to give “service charges” to their staff the same way they are required to give 100% of the tips…

This is some shady shit, IMO.

I’m not a lawyer, though, so if someone here that knows the law could comment on “service charges” vs. “tips” in this context, I would love to know.

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autumn_rain@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
😥 Horrible. Over $150 for chicken wings and macaroni, and still prompted for a large tip.

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Stronuk@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Frankly the prices to sit in and be served and the prices to get the food and leave should be different. But this should be pre-informed so patrons can make the decision whether to dine-in or take-out.

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HawlSera@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is a fascist tactic to turn people against the servers and shame those who want higher wages

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Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Those prices are about what I’d expect to pay at a restaurant here in Finland too but somehow they’re able to pay a living wage to the staff from that without extra “service charge” or tips.

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maiskanzler@feddit.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Even if all the money does make into into the staff’s pockets, the owner still averts financial risk by making worker pay a function of sales. An employer must have higher business risks than their staff, because otherwise the staff wouldn’t need an employer anyways! This absolutely goes against the high risk - high reward scheme that is common place elsewhere. Want to earn more? Take a risky choice! Just want stable support for your life? Get employed and earn a regular wage.

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ThirdNerd@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Since the receipt says the 18% “helps facilitate a higher living base wage for all our employees”, then that’s already the tip. So I would write the word “ZERO” on the tip line, and never return to that restaurant.

I’ve already stopped going to anywhere that:

Pulls stuff like this, or

Wants me to input a “tip” for fast food (which includes coffee shops - looking at you, Starbucks) and other places that don’t use the traditional waitstaff model for pampering and serving your table, or

Makes me input a tip up front before I get “service” or even product.

All of the above also means I’m eating a lot less garbagey and/or overpriced food-stuffs from restaurants these days. Better health. More money in my pocket. Higher quality food.
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Exusia@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Found it by the “helens shazzy” www.jonandvinnys.com/menu I don’t live in LA so everything I see is based solely on the website.

It seems by their website that fee is ONLY mentioned on the wine page (not sure if that means it’s hidden or exclusive fee to wine buyers) where they also charge a $50 corkage fee (most normal restaurants are 20-40), and also stock rotates “so frequently we can’t maintain an updated list” which seems silly, but maybe stock at all 3 locations changes often enough that this really would would be a pain. The restaurant itself is…all over the place. Italian, and breakfast foods? But also there’s Helen’s Winery attached? And they have “pizza classes” for $650? Idk they have several “sister” type restaurants that are either owned by the same owner or its some kind of franchising thing, but they’re all equally VERY expensive for the food you get. Very upscale. For example [buttermilk pancakes, salted butter, maple syrup 16.25] compared to IHOP “chicken and pancakes” for $14 where you get not just 2 pancakes and butter, but 2 drumsticks.

For those wondering these are indeed all full dishes, in LA where everything costs more. Overall 0/10 I wouldn’t eat here based on all this above, before even being infuriated by the “we pass the bill to you” bullshit

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irotsoma@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There better be a big noticeable sign at the entrance telling you this. Otherwise, this is a bait and switch scam. Advertising one price, giving the service, and then changing the price. You can’t advertise a price and then charge more for it without ensuring that the customer is informed about it. The only exception is tax, since it is something the average person should already expect. Even mandatory gratuity for large parties has to be communicated ahead of time. And this specifically says it’s not gratuity, it’s a charge for the service.

As soon as a customer is served something, it’s too late. You can’t just put it on the bill. Doesn’t matter what they say it’s for either. It’s not your responsibility to pay the servers anymore than it’s your responsibility to separately pay for the ingredients of the food. Unless they want to detail it all out up front. But then you’d see the huge profit margin.

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infyrin@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You know what, I’m going to go the opposite of this. Why in the hell are you dining out and paying THAT much to dine out? Here I am griping because recently I paid $12.83 because a chinese buffet usually charges me $11.76 but then I see receipts like this shit and realize that maybe I am better off.

If I was paying triple digits for food, I’d be making damn sure it had better be the best damn tasting food served to me or I wouldn’t leave until it was served to me.

God, people need to cook more. You can gather so many ingredients for the amount you’re paying and have several weeks of meals for the month.

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scurry@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
When I worked delivery, at multiple places, we did in fact not see a dime of this fee. Got chewed out by customers a couple of times over it though.

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