Went to a breakfast spot in Chicago a month ago and receive my bill with gratuity automatically added in. With option for additional tip. As a server I absolutely love this! I don’t understand why more restaurants don’t do this or go this route. It wasn’t a super high-end restaurant by any means just a normal breakfast spot.
Happy hour ends at 8pm, after 8 pm we have automatic gratuity at 20%. Three ladies come in at 730pm, I tell them about the happy hour they weren't even aware of. Say I'll be right with them to take their order. After water is served I tell them about the gratuity and that I'll come back at 755pm to take any final HH orders and bring the check before 8pm (took initial orders at 735pm). 755pm they order a bunch of food to go, cool, no problem. Gave great service, got 4% tip. I was hoping for at least 15%... never disclosing that again.
So our party of 8 just finished lunch at a semi upscale restaurant located inside a casino-resort hotel. The person who waited on us, Chuck, was horrible. It may have been skin-color related (I have nothing concrete; anecdotal experience), perhaps we didn't look like your stereotypical "filthy-loaded" clientele. He was curt, rude and just overall unfriendly. In stark contrast, he was extremely cheerful and polite to another group of diners situated close to our table. I didn't pay too much attention to my thoughts until 3 other people in my group shared their observations.
I was in charge of food expenses and thought, hey, everyone has a bad day sometimes. We'll do the right thing and give him 15% gratuity for his troubles.
I sat near a corner and naturally left the cash gratuity close to where I was sitting. As I left our table, Chuck approached me in a very accosting manner saying, "Here in America, people normally OPT to tip their food server!" Apparently Chuck couldn't see the wad of cash neatly placed in front of where I was sitting.
I faked an Asian accent and said, "Ah optional, you say? If it's not mandatory, then we'll just OPT not to".
I took the cash off the table and walked away. I then went directly to the bar and tipped the cash to the bartender on duty who mixed our cocktails.
Decided to move to Miami like everyone else in the northeast and I was surprised to learn that about 9 out of 10 bars/restaurants have 18-20% included on the bill. It's listed on the receipt and in the section to sign there's a line labeled "additional tip" in case anyone wants to add. Now, I've realized most people who visit don't know this so they tip on top but at the bar I work at we tell people "gratuity is included" or we circle the 18% in the receipt.
No one has complained about it in the 3 months I've been working here. One guy gave me $50 extra on top of their $600 tab cause I told him the tip was included. He said not everyone tells him it's included. That was nice.
No getting stiffed ever is great and now I'm not sure why the whole country doesn't do this. No one has ever said I don't agree to the 18% and it's honestly a great feeling knowing I'm getting paid for every drink I serve.
So.... Why don't we do this everywhere? This is absolutely better than some of those no tipping establishments that I've seen in New York where the company just pays the employees a bit extra.
It's great when you're in the weeds and you think about how you're getting 18% of the money that's being made.
(On mobile apologies for any format mistakes)
We have a manager at our restaurant who isn’t exactly the best. He’s a nice guy and whenever there’s a small problem I’m fine going to him for it, HOWEVER, I’ve learned never to go to him when a party is complaining about their gratuity.
I’ve heard of him taking off the auto grat for parties before whenever the customer has complained. I never saw it happen until it happened to me. I had a party of 12, they chose to reserve the party room so instead of getting a section with separate tables I got that. They were my only “table” for 2 hours. It was a bunch of teenagers, an older sister, and the mother of the bday girl.
At the end of their dinner I start handing out checks, it’s really not that much since they didn’t order a lot. Each teens ticket had about 4 dollars added to it, some less, and the the mother (she added the bday girl and the older sister to her ticket) had 14 dollars added to hers. Over all the grat was 40 something dollars.
I leave for a tad to give them all time to get out their form of payment, I come back after maybe 2 minutes. The older sister calls me over and goes “y’all make 2 dollars an hour?” So I tell her yes, confused as to why she’s asking. The mom then says “so what’s with this 20% tip added? I was gonna tip you but to put like 4 dollars on each of the kids tickets and 14 on mine isn’t right”
So I give her the whole “for parties over 6 blah blah blah” discussion and she asks to see our manager. The manager that was there that night was the one known for taking off the auto grat. He goes up to them asks what the problem is. He even asks them if my service was good, and they said my service was good AND THAT THEY LIKED ME LOL. But that they would leave their own tip.
So it gets taken off. All of the teens leave me nothing except for one who through a wad of crumpled of bills in front of me which felt super disrespectful, and the mom left me 10 bucks. So I left there with a little over 20 dollars.
I recently saw him take off a 76 dollar grat for another server and they tipped her 26 dollars, and all he did to make up for it was take 25 off the bill and give it to the server.
I brought it up in conversation with a different manager who’s pretty nice saying that we should have it on our menus (even tho the host and manager tells parties about the grat when they reserve ) and how we shouldn’t take it off. And she told me that legally we have to take it off when they complai
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My friend works at a chain restaurant in Alberta and his employer posted a notice that 2% of any tip paid by a customer on a credit card would be deducted from that tip in order to offset cc fees. Is this legal?
I’ll be renting a “fat” private island villa experience in the $30000+ range for a week and it’s my first time trying this sort of all-inclusive (staff, private chef, boat, helicopter, etc.) travel. The website is clear that the pricing does not include gratuity so now I’m wondering about how to do it appropriately. Do I tip the various individuals or do I try to merge gratuity and have them split it? How much should I aim for?
The villa is in Central America. I assume US tipping culture doesn’t strictly apply there but if most of their guests are from the US and tip accordingly I don’t want to come off as cheap.
I notice a lot of local places are starting to include 5% service fees on top of what they charge for drinks ($14 for Cocktails, $9 for Beers) As well as including gratuity in the bill, and still asking for a tip at the end of the meal. I have been to no less than 2 restaurants (Ball & Chain & Le Chick) and ended up paying more than 20% over the already high prices and I didn't even realize until I checked my receipt the next morning. I wouldn't be surprised if that 18% gratuity isn't even being given to waiters/waitresses.
Be careful out there.
I went for breakfast with a friend at a simple Toronto restaurant and got the cheapest item on the menu (poached eggs on an English muffin and hash browns and tap water) costing $21. With tax and tip (which was calculated on the post tax amount) the total came to $28.48.
When we were seated, we were asked if we are ok with auto gratuity of 20% and I was uncomfortable but said OK, not realizing they have increased their prices so drastically since this meal used to cost about 50% less. To be honest, I should have left once I saw the menu, but didnt want to make make it awkward for my friend.
I know the topic of tipping is often on this sub, and I was wondering if anyone has said ‘no, they aren’t ok with the automatic gratuity’, and what happened next? Were you declined service? Were you given the option to choose your tip amount? Can the restaurant demand a certain tip amount? Tipping is considered customary but optional based on quality of service. Since the food was bland and we were ushered to pay and leave within 20 minutes of the food arriving, I was rather disappointed with the experience overall. TIA.
Adding gratuity infuriates me to no end, because we actually have minimum living wages over here.
To add insult to injury - if this becomes more and more commonplace (as it has been recently), then we're actually going to get shafted more than other certain consumers across the pond, because not only are we paying more for our meals to account for staff minimum living wages paid by the restaurant, but we're then paying another 15% on top!
Yes - I could ask for the gratuity to be taken off, but why is it added on in the first place? Why do I have to be the one who has to look like a twat, asking for something that never should have been added to my bill, taken off?
I hate it.
We are cruising soon and we prepaid them this time. We are dining at the steakhouse and I'm wondering what to budget for additional tipping? What's not included in the prepaid? Thanks in advance!
What is the proper gratuity for a delivery from a dispo?First time getting delivery.
Hello fellow wedding planners! I'm closing in on my wedding date and there's one big item on my to-do list that I'm just not sure how to handle.
How have you approached gratuity for the food/drink staff at the reception venue? I was planning on bringing cash to provide to the head coordinator on the day of, but I'm not sure how much is standard.
My venue included this statement in the contract:
>Suggested gratuity can be a percentage of food and beverage charges or a specific amount per staff member (generally $25.00 - $100.00 per staff)
I will have 8 staff. Is $50-75 per person too little?
I definitely do not want to cheap out and stiff hard working individuals, so thank you in advance for your input :)
Other notes for more context in case it's relevant... I'm in the US, and my wedding will have around 50-60 people, so mid-sized.
Hi, first time posting here! To start off my story with some background info, my restaurant charges an 18% gratuity for tables of 6+. We are also for the most part a small café, so most of our tables are made up of 1s and 2s. Oftentimes when we get larger parties we have to accommodate for them by pushing tables together, opening a certain backroom for them to eat, assigning one server to them etc. This is frustrating as is because it clogs up the waitlist and takes away from the servers, but also because these people usually tip the least. Before the auto gratuity, I’ve gotten tips of <$5 on $150+ tabs or been stiffed. So now that the 18% is mandatory, it would keep us from getting stiffed, right?? WRONG.
One busy Saturday, we got a table of 10. Nothing too unusual, just people being rude and clogging up the waitlist per usual. It was totally made up of old women. Right off the bat, it was a nightmare. Everyone wanted water AND _____, and I had other tables at that point so getting 20 drinks was extremely time consuming and inconvenient. But no worries, stuff happens, just do it, drop em off and get their order. I drop off all of their food eventually and breathe a sigh of relief. It was a bit rough just dealing with such a big table but it wasn’t terrible. Finally, I got their boxes and one lady pulled me to the side. She asked for an apricot pie. “Of course,” I’d said, then I bagged it up for her and brought it over. “No, no, no,” she whispered harshly. “It’s her birthday, we want it served.” This lady wanted me to sing happy birthday, cut up her pie, and serve it on 10 separately microwaved plates. Keep in mind, I was praying for this auto gratuity to come through because I had already been serving primarily them for an hour already and had not made any money. After their pie, I dropped off the check and the news was broken that every single woman wanted their check to be split. At this point I was visibly annoyed trying to figure out who drank what and knowing I would have to make 10 different transactions. That’s when the straw broke the camels back. Every single woman had a coupon. It easily cut the bill by more than half and cut the gratuity with it. When it was all said and done, I’d spent two hours serving with a $10 gratuity to show for it. The women even complained about the tiny gratuity, which just tells me they didn’t plan on leaving anything. Maybe I’m just spoiled, but time is money and I can easily make $30-40 in tips per hour on a
... keep reading on reddit ➡I’m not going into much detail bc I don’t want to dox myself. I had a big party, they ran me, spilt their check more than three ways. They received great service. Tipped only $13 altogether. I would have made WAY more taking 2 and 4top in that time frame. Honestly, I think I’m going to call around tomorrow to several restaurants. Ask to speak to a manager and get right to the point in asking if they do auto grat for parties of 8 or more cuz I’m pissed.
Went to a restaurant with a friend and got food (as one does). Nothing crazy just a basic meal and 2 drinks. I get the check and it says they automatically add 20% gratuity to the check. The first issue was this was not mentioned anywhere in the menu it was just added to the check. The second problem is that underneath the gratuity it still asked for a tip and even gave the suggested percentage.
GTFO! tipping culture is becoming ridiculous
I work for a millionaire who owns a ballroom that frequently does $50,000+ weddings/events. When I inquired about maybe working an event for a cut of that hefty gratuity, I was informed by the service manager that all the waitstaff are from a temp agency making minimum wage and they don’t receive a share of the gratuity. May not be the same everywhere, but since it’s not specified in the contract, the owner can allocate the tip as they see fit (their pockets.)
To give some context to my question, I began working in a city that is a bit of a commute, and with that commute came a very different city coffee culture. One of the elements of this new coffee culture is almost every coffee shop has an automatic 20% gratuity attached to every purchase all of the time.
Personally, I always tip $1 or $2 dollars and I order drinks that range from $2-4, but it does feel a little odd to have 20% automatically put on. It almost feels deceptive. From my perspective the companies are just profit sharing but doing it in a way that lets them put a lower price on the menu.
I really like the idea of automatic gratuity on certain days. For example if a coffee shop is open on a holiday, I'd absolutely put on an automatic gratuity. I'd even scale the automatic gratuity based on the holiday. The weird feeling for me comes from the automatic gratuity always being there.
Hello all.
I work at a higher end Mexican cantina that has a wide selesvtion of tequila and mezcal, along with a full bar. Food is pricey and we have a prime location next to a stadium.
We have implemented an auto gratuity of 20% for groups larger than six. It saves our asses. People are cheap and would OT want to tip 20% on $500+ tabs, especially when people rack up $1,000 tabs. Waiting them is a bitch but we do our best because we’ll still have four other two tops and two other large parties going all at once. We run our own drinks, help out our food runner, and pre buss down to the wood.
They’ve decided to take it away. One morning sever that NEVER works with the night crew told a manager that she makes more with no auto gratuity. No shit it’s the morning NO one is heavily drinking and eating. Their tabs aren’t ridiculous why wouldn’t they tip a little extra?!
Rest of the team is so pissed off because there’s nights where we make $400-600 from auto gratuity ALONE.
This place is my only source of income and if we lose auto gratuity I will have to pick up another job again.
I’m so frustrated with it all.
We are holding a meeting with management and HR next Wednesday and we’re going to give them HELL.
How could I approach this meeting? F you have any advice that’d be great.
I work as both a host and server and I have a question for my fellow servers. Most menus point out the fact that there is an added gratuity if they have a party above x people, however, one of my servers had a nice table but when the bill came, they were nasty about the added gratuity and wanted it to be taken off and that they “didn’t know” even though it was written on our menu. They threatened to call the cops because we can’t force them to pay the gratuity and it’s “stealing” and “illegal”. So the question is, do you take it off or still enforce it because it is written on the menu?
We are located in Florida so if anyone can tell me the legalities of it because I think the same family comes in because I recognize the same three people from the party.
If a restaurant automatically adds gratuity to your bill, do you tip your server in addition to that?
I've resigned from my company where I worked for the past 7 years, I've put in my required 1 month notice and my last day was Nov 14,2021. We've had more than a couple salary delays this year, never was a problem before, which triggered my decision to resign aside from the fact that I'm living away from my family. It's been a couple of weeks now and my company still hasn't given me my gratuity/end of service pay + the outstanding salary. My company's chairman is of royal/sheikh title. Finance dept is saying it's his approval to release the money that they're waiting on. What are my options?? Please help. thank you. And now a new month approaching I have to pay another month's rent and I'm really anxious to go to UK to be with my family for the holidays.. thank you very much.
I work in Abu Dhabi. Posting here because it seems to be a more active subreddit than r/abudhabi
I have a special hatred in my heart for Tupperware. I'm a dog groomer and years ago would groom a very poorly behaved, matted to the gills Cockapoo for an older lady. At pickup, she would reach into her bag like she was fishing me out a tip and instead would hand me a Tupperware catalog as a "tip" and expect me to thank her. The last time she did it, I just left it sitting on the counter and walked away. I don't expect a gratuity, however it's always appreciated. But I would rather you hand me a literal penny or absolutely nothing rather than trick me like that over and over. And every time I expected a different outcome, which I guess was my own stupidity. I always remember her as the Tupperware Whore.
Along with this, I've received MLM "samples" as tips and Christmas gifts. One Sparks Energy Drink lady tried to bribe me with a $5 tip so I would order from her website? I would rather have nothing. Literally nothing. Luckily, since moving areas and progressing in the field, I haven't dealt with this in many years, but I often think of the service workers who get worse than stiffed with "tips" like these.
Basically the title question, I’m not sure if this verbiage in my Hair and Make Up artists price sheet means I don’t need to tip at all or if I am still expected to tip, just maybe less than normal?
For a little more info, they aren’t cheep but also not crazy pricy. They are traveling to the venue with another artist and charging a small fee for their travel- and then they will have 2 assistants with them that cost $100 extra each. So four people total will be doing hair and make up for 7-8 of us in about 4.5 hrs at the venue. Not sure if this matters or not.
Side note: I hate American tipping culture! I want to pay people what they want and deserve, I just wish they would be direct about what they want so there’s no guessing/anxiety.
Thanks in advance!
Hello everyone.
Probably a stupid question but I figured I would ask here and look dumb before asking the venue and risk coming off as rude.
So it's an all inclusive venue. On the estimate it has two items that state "Food/Gratuity/Tax Total" and "Beverage/Gratuity/Tax Total" both of them add up to about $4000. Now do I need to still tip the staff for set-up, tip the coordinator, the musician, etc.?
I appreciate your help!! Thanks in advance!
But some will say, “Even takeout involves some amount of service, and we should tip those employees for their service.” I say it is the owners responsibility to compensate their workers a respectful wage.
