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

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, 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. [deleted a word so it wasn’t a grammatical horror to read]

Lazerbeams2 ,

Did you pay $16.95 for lettuce? Tf kinda restaurant did you go to?

beckie_lane ,

A nice one. :)

iamascaryvampire OP ,

think of it as a very expensive salad. it was good but… not $17 good.

Lazerbeams2 ,

Idk, I don’t even pay that much for kosher food and the smallest and cheapest kosher burger I’ve ever seen cost $5 with $10 being closer to the average

wesker ,
@wesker@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

So it’s a mandatory tip, and it’s also suggested you voluntarily leave a secondary tip.

Tip culture in America is so aggressive.

LetMeEatCake ,

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.

These are going to be 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.

Jackolantern ,

Why don’t the restaurants just pay actual living wage then?

DONTBANTHISACCOUNT , (edited )

THIS^

pay them , what You want to ... And increase the price on your menu ... BUT DO NOT STICK 😞 YOUR CUSTOMER WITH A HIDDEN FEE ...
Especially when we(customers) HAVE to pay tip 😉 ... {{ Like 'TF was the person who came up with the hidden fee even thinking... 😞🤔 ? }}

flips table

ediculous ,

Someone needs to ban this account.

KevonLooney ,

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 ,

How come other countries can do it? Why not ours?

I posted because I want to drive discussions which lemmy sorely needs

MeetInPotatoes ,

Different cultures, minimum wage laws, and tax laws; bottom line.

TheMauveAvenger ,

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.

AnonTwo ,

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.

wjrii ,
@wjrii@kbin.social avatar

Part of the reason there's less pressure to change it than you might imagine is that we now have a hundred years of cultural inertia working on, yes, the customers and restaurants, but also on the waitstaff labor pool. At this point, the Americans who seek work as waiters are generally the ones who feel they work with the system and even turn it to their advantage. It's far from all, of course, but the "best" servers at most restaurants probably feel like they're going to make more working the customers than negotiating with their bosses.

So, you've got restaurants keeping their list-prices low and a built-in workforce motivator, customers who expect friendly service and accept that they're culturally responsible for the staff's pay, and servers who stay at the job because they feel like they'll make more than the restaurant would be willing to pay as a "fair" wage (and they're probably right). Now, it's full-on bizarre that we have taken an entry level service job and made it an exercise in theatrical entrepreneurship, and it says some unsettling things about the underlying social order in the US, but I'm not sure that at the nuts-and-bolts level, it's as broken as the people like to imagine.

LetMeEatCake ,

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 ,

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 ,

… 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.

MeetInPotatoes ,

I hear this repeated so often and it ignores one glaringly obvious fact, servers aren’t the ones making any decisions…literally anywhere. They are the absolute bottom rung of decision-making. It is most definitely the restaurants that are just fine paying as little as possible. Servers do love mandatory gratuity however. Working a party of 10 when only one person tips on their own meal can mess up your whole night.

WhipperSnapper ,
@WhipperSnapper@lemmy.ml avatar

Point to your credit here: it’s illegal in this state to pay less than minimum wage whether the employee is tipped or not. ALL workers make at least $15.74/hr here, except for 14 and 15 year olds who can be paid 80% of minimum wage.

FordBeeblebrox ,

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 and drive past my starving workers in style.

Can’t hear them crying over a V8 exhaust right?

Aesthesiaphilia ,

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 ,

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

redlink64 ,

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 ,
@GizmoLion@kbin.social avatar

Put a banner outside saying "no gratuity necessary, the price you see is the price you pay!" and watch what happens.

MeetInPotatoes ,

I worked in restaurants for years and this is the correct answer. I also die a little inside at how many posts say to pay servers a living wage but then balk at the idea of paying extra for the meal. Where else would the money come from??! As you said, if they raise menu prices, their competition will undercut and do this. It would also affect takeout prices where tips are usually lower. People hate tipping and want a magic solution where waiters make more but also nobody’s charged more.

MeetInPotatoes ,

They would still have to add that living wage cost to the food prices. Hidden or not hidden only makes a difference in how surprised you are, not the cost.

outdated_belated ,

Because liberal mystification with fancy-sounding concepts made to make you feel dumb so you don’t realize it’s just creative surplus labor value expropriation

Letstakealook ,

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.

Lodra ,
@Lodra@programming.dev avatar

Ya… That doesn’t seem realistic to me. Very few people will “direct their anger” toward someone with power over them. There’s always risk in a addressing issues with your employer because they can make your life worse. They can fire you, reduce your income or working hours, become inflexible with scheduling and demands, remove benefits, etc. No, it doesn’t always go this way and there are plenty of fine employers. But even if you have a reasonable employer and are free to raise concerns, there’s still risk and confrontation.

And what about alternate employers? Restaurant staff can go find a better employer, right? Except, job searches are very difficult and it’s near impossible to identify a good employer from a bad one while interviewing. Very real chance that you make a change and end up with more problems.

Don’t get me wrong. These hidden fees are 100% bs. It’s just not the employee’s responsibility to fix things. They usually have zero power in these situations. “Be good to the customer or I won’t get a tip. Be good to the employer or I won’t be scheduled to work.”

Letstakealook ,

It’s not my responsibility to tip on top of a hidden 18% fee as the customer, either. That’s the point I was making. Waitstaff love to direct their anger at customers, as if it’s the customers fault. The employee does have the power to organize, campaign, and vote for politicians who could enact policy to make their situation better. Instead, they just bitch about customers somehow being terrible people because their employer doesn’t pay them a living wage.

VioletRing ,

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

DONTBANTHISACCOUNT ,

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 ,

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 ,

But then you can’t list gasoline for $1.99.99 a litre

zerofk ,

So what’s to stop them from setting all prices to 1 cent and having the rest as service fee?

theneverfox ,

There are restaurants who don’t show you the price, so nothing I guess

Fridayj ,

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.

FordBeeblebrox ,

Owner wants to get his cut, server wants to put gas in their car. We’re a country of 350 million 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

DONTBANTHISACCOUNT ,

Reminds me of how dealerships can sell cars above the MSRP ... SMH

(( They do it in US but not in Europe; or so I heard ))

WhipperSnapper ,
@WhipperSnapper@lemmy.ml avatar

The S in MSRP is “suggested”, so I don’t see any technical problem with it. I think we need a separate term if it’s meant to be a locked price point across sellers.

SpezBroughtMeHere ,

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.

IGuessThisIsForNSFW ,

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.

irotsoma ,
@irotsoma@lemmy.world avatar

Also illegal. It’s called bait and switch. Advertise one price, provide the service, then change the price. What if you went to get $50 in gas, and after you put the nozzle back the price suddenly changed to $59. Unless there’s a very visible sign saying it would happen before you started pumping, it’s illegal.

IGuessThisIsForNSFW ,

I’m sure that they have a sign by the front stating that they do this. Probably on the menu as well. I doubt that most people are doing the math themselves and are more likely to see a $10 menu item and think it’s $10 + tax and fees. Basically the extra fees are an afterthought.

Guy_Fieris_Hair ,

They are trying to tell you to not ask for a livable wage.

Squirrel ,
@Squirrel@thelemmy.club avatar

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.

nan ,
@nan@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It isn’t hidden. They tell you upfront there is an 18% charge, however they rely on people ignoring that or psychologically not caring and only looking at the item price.

CoderKat , (edited )

I wonder how many people would see the warning and assume it just means an 18% auto gratuity? Because that’s very common and the amount is exactly what many auto gratuities have (or at least had when I last was in the US, which was several years ago). Because if I saw something saying there was an 18% service fee, that’s what I’d assume. I would not think there’d be a tip on top of that.

That said, the US custom of not including the final price (including taxes) in the posted prices is a shitty, toxic practice and should be illegal.

nan ,
@nan@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I saw elsewhere that workers are suing this restaurant over this specifically. If they are doing a service charge like this it should not be revenue generating to the restaurant.

lunarul ,

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.

Skyline969 ,
@Skyline969@lemmy.world avatar

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.

EDIT: Actually, the tip at the drive-thru is already a thing. Starbucks prompts for a tip at the drive-thru. For what? The barista took my order and made my coffee. I drove up to a window, took it, and fucked off.

Mog_fanatic ,

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

Skyline969 ,
@Skyline969@lemmy.world avatar

As a developer, I never get tips. Even on my open-source stuff, I have a “tip jar” PayPal link on the very bottom of my readme files. Never asked, never required. Know how much I’ve made in tips over the years? Exactly $0.

betterdeadthanreddit ,

Have you tried walking into your software’s users’ homes to clear away empty plates and refill their water?

gamer ,

I know it feels gross, but asking is how you get people to do things. This is true for pretty much everything. That’s why mobile apps have a popup asking people to leave a rating, and Apple even has a standardized API for showing that popup since it’s so common.

So you should try something similar for you projects. Come up with an (ideally non-intrusive) ask that feels like a personal request rather than just a link dumped somewhere in a readme.

And if you feel bad about it, just remember that getting people to pay for OSS is a win for the whole ecosystem!

tony ,

I’ve definitely tipped developers (through the ‘buy me a coffee’ site, or occasionally patreon). But I’m unusual I think…

jballs , (edited )
@jballs@sh.itjust.works avatar

I got prompted for a tip from an online pharmacy last week. So we’re apparently tipping on medicine now.

Astroturfed , (edited )

Starbucks barista doesn’t even “make” the coffee. They use superautomatic espresso machines. Starbucks coffee sucks ass.

TheBat ,
@TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

Does it suck because of or despite the machines?

Astroturfed ,

Superautomatic machines make inferior espresso shots objectively. For various mechanical reasons they will never make espresso as well as non-automatic machine.

That being said, I own one at my house. It’s very convenient and it’s passable espresso (when using decent beans, Starbucks burns their espresso beans and that’s the main reason it sucks). However, if I’m paying $5+ for a couple shots of espresso in whatever form I’m expecting it to be made right. Not worse than my mid range home machine makes with a couple button taps.

NathanielThomas ,

It clearly doesn’t suck or there wouldn’t be one on every street corner in North America.

But I’m sure you’re right about the automation. They don’t want variability in your experience. They want a coffee in Texas to taste the same as a coffee in Iqaluit.

Astroturfed ,

Yup, taste like burnt ass garbage beans, coast to coast.

nan ,
@nan@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

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.

Skyline969 ,
@Skyline969@lemmy.world avatar

That’s the thing here - the employer must pay you the same regardless of tips. Tips are always a bonus, not part of your wage.

Enigma ,

I think you misunderstood. In some states, you will be paid below minimum wage if you make enough in tips. IIRC there was a story a number of years ago about servers in Tennessee (?) only making $2.15/hr. It was legal because they made enough in tips to cover the other $5.10/hr that the restaurant is supposed to pay. So instead of the tips being extra cash on top of pay, the restaurants were literally having the customers subsidize the majority of their pay.

Skyline969 ,
@Skyline969@lemmy.world avatar

I understand that, but I’m talking about Canada. In Canada if you’re paid $13, $18, hell $50 an hour, it doesn’t matter whether or not you make tips. Your employer must pay you your full hourly wage no matter what.

NathanielThomas ,

What’s next? A tip at the grocery store for the cashier scanning my groceries?

Nope, a tip at a self-checkout.

Random_user ,

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.

wesker ,
@wesker@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Super shady!

PixxlMan ,

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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