Oh boy, the unlawfulness of USA. This would be clearly illegal in EU, as misleading pricing.
Even if stated there’s an 18% extra fee, I’m pretty sure it would be illegal to state prices exclusively without it.
I would simply refuse to pay that fee if it was here, and report them to authorities.I don’t think so, as long as the fee is made clear before getting the bill (e.g. indicated on the menus and signs outside). It’s definitely legal in Europe, assuming you were warned beforehand. It’s very common in some European countries (while entirely nonexistent in others).
In countries where tipping isn’t traditionally acceptable (like in places where it’s associated with bribing), service surcharge often replace the tipping. Charging a service surcharge and then suggesting a tip is ridiculous though.
I simply wouldn’t tip after that surcharge, but then again I’m European.
In America, the restaurant would have to post this on the menu. Thus we have fine-print on our menus. God bless the USA.
It’s nice to hear the EU doesn’t let that crap slide.
There is no “EU” culture about any of this. Every country has its own culture and acceptable ideas. All I know is that you have to be made aware of any surcharges before they’re applied, but I’m pretty sure things work exactly the same in America.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d find random hospitality surcharges when you walk into a random restaurant in Amsterdam or Paris. What are you going to do, sue the restaurant? Call the cops? As much as I like living here, it’s not like this is some kind of utopia where scummy businesses don’t exist and where the government always enforces customer protection laws everywhere.
You’re probably right. But judging from other comments in sounded like a small note on the front cover of a menu saying ‘there will be a flat rate surcharge’ would not be adequate.
Obviously, this is a horrible way for me to collect legal advice, but would a fine-print note on a menu fly? (interpret ‘fly’ however, I’m clearly naïve here.)
Scummy businesses sure exist but you would never see this in Amsterdam or Paris. I’m pretty sure there are laws that whatever price is shown is the final price.
Where is this common? I know you often see it in scummy tourist traps, but besides that I’ve not seen something like it.
Where is this common?
I believe you most often see this in scummy tourist traps.
I’ve only come across it in ex-Soviet European countries, but every country is different of course. Tourist traps also like adding fees and surcharges but I don’t think they do it for the same reason.
I remember something about tipping bring associated with bribes getting mentioned in a documentary I watched years ago, but i can’t even begin to remember what documentary that was, let alone find a link to it.
Need a tip at the bottom - it’s a LOT of hard work to process those mandatory service charges!
$16.25 for a kids size pasta dish?
The $5.00 glass of lemonade is ridiculous. Water and a small scoop of powdered flavoring/sweetener costs them about a quarter.
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I feel like I have seen multiple receipts from this same place, likely posted by the same person, because I remember noting $16 Kids Shells on some other thread months ago.
Seems odd. They should really stop going.
Image Transcription: Text and Image
A receipt from a restaurant. A white circle was marked up on the photo and inside reads the text
18% Service Charge (18.00%)
$17.22
The full receipt text shown is as follows.
Ordered: 11/11/23 6:31 PM
GARLIC BREAD $4.90
2 KIDS SHELLS $32.50
FUSILLI $20.75
CANNOLI $11.00
LEMONADE $6.00
DRIP COFFEE $4.50
2 DRAFT BEER $12.00
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE $4.00
18% Service Charge (18.00%)
$17.22
Subtotal $112.87
Tax $10.73
Total $123.60
Cash -$123.60
Amount Due $0.00
------------------------------------------
Suggested Tip:
8%: (Tip $7.65 Total $131.25)
10%: (Tip $9.56 Total $133.16)
12%: (Tip $11.48 Total $135.08)
15%: (Tip $14.35 Total $137.95)
Tip percentages are based on the check price before discounts and taxes.
The service charge is not a tip or gratuity, and is an added fee controlled by the restaurant that helps facilitate a higher living base wage for all of our employees. Please scan the QR code at the top of the receipt for additional information, or speak with a manager.
Really. What’s the new base wage? And if there’s better wage, the tip should be commensurately reduced.
[The service charge is] an added fee controlled by the restaurant that helps facilitate a higher living base wage
Great! I don’t need to tip because they already pay their employees a fair wage.
Because reprinting the menu is too expensive. 😢
Printing a menu means they can’t constantly alter the price. Did I say alter? I should have said raise.
Basically, they just raised their prices by 18% and blamed it on the greedy, useless employees. I don’t know why businesses bother selflessly “creating jobs” if they are so much trouble. Shouldn’t those be the first things to cut to make their business more efficient under capitalism? Stop doing charity work and run the business yourself.
Basically, they just raised their prices by 18% and blamed it on the greedy, useless employees.
No, it’s worse than that.
Look at how the tips are calculated. They use the base bill of 95.60, not the bill after the service charge has been applied.
If they rolled an 18% increase into their prices, the calculated tip would also rise 18%. But it didn’t.
So in addition to effectively raising their prices and blaming their employees for it, they are also stiffing their employees by low-balling their tip calculations.
Actually, what I’m saying was that there shouldn’t be a need for a tip at all. That 18% service charge is for services rendered outside of the production of the product, meaning the server, cashier, etc. In most countries that’s rolled into the cost of the product, not a separate charge. In the US, that’s paid for through tips instead. What they’re doing is trying to double dip. They want to keep the money that normally would go to paying the service staff a wage without raising advertised prices and also have a separate tip to actually pay them.
This is a classic bait and switch where advertised price is not what you actually pay. Doesn’t matter if they put a little sign to cover their legal obligations, it’s still disingenuous to advertise one price and charge another. Tipping and taxes are common knowledge in the US as being added on after, but a service charge in addition to tipping is not and most people will assume that the service charge is a tip and won’t also tip whereas it doesn’t go directly to the service staff like a tip does. So likely in this place, the service staff just gets their $2.13/hr or whatever the tipped minimum is there, and a few dollars here and there in actual tips but doesn’t get any of that 18% unless tips don’t cover the required hourly $5.12 tip credit.
So they need to choose. Raise your prices for more profit and keep tipping, raise your prices to pay your service staff and do away with tipping, or keep your prices lower and risk tipping not covering the minimum wage tip credit.
Probably better than expecting customers to tip voluntarily
Oh wait, they do that too
I hope their customers are exclusively people who support the the below minimum wage for servers law.
I’m honestly surprised the percentage options they offer are so low. In NYC they start at 20%, and usually go 20% 25% 30%. I’ve even seen them start at 22%
I’ve been to a couple places in Denver that do this and obviously it’s bullshit. Just raise the prices! Not 18%, though, they’re 5% and started when everyone felt bad for restaurant workers during Covid. At both of them they had a disclaimer “if you disagree with this charge, we will gladly remove it”… as if that’s a comfortable thing to do to save $4.
I’ve seen this at restaurants serving more than a given number of people. Did you attend a dinner with a large group?
I’ve been seeing it more regardless of group size. I went to a restauraunt alone and they had the audacity to charge a service fee and ask for a fucking tip
I wouldve tipped more than the service charge! So I gave nothing instead
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That is super frustrating. Especially if the “service charge” isn’t really going to pay the staff a living wage. I’d be curious to hear from someone that works in a restaurant that does this whether or not they are actually being paid better after it has been implemented or if it is just cash grab by the individual restaurant owner/operator. Any takers?
Straight up fees like that should not be legal, if they even are in that location.
They should instead just add 18% to every menu item since it applies to everything anyways.
As it is right now advertising their cannoli for $11.00 is a straight up lie since it’s really $12.98. They simply don’t because they want to hide the actual cost and make their menu appear to be cheaper so you cant walk out until after you’ve ordered and eaten.
Also if got a bill with an 18% service charge I would definitely not tip, since tips are supposed to adjust for the low wages anyways.
I actually support phasing tips out for service fees, less dodgy and less influenced by cognitive biases from customers toward certain genders or ethnicities of staff.
Yeah, but phasing out should probably be some form of cross tapering, not a decently sized service charge and the same size “suggested tip” on top.
Roll it into the prices then. Any mandatory fee is a cost of doing business, don’t make it look like your food costs less than it really does. Only taxes should be separate.
It’s a USA thing. Other places often have rules that say the price advertised (on menu, website, in store) is the price the customer pays, all fees and taxes included.
Yeah in Australia restaurants are allowed to have a service fee only if it’s applied on select days (e.g. weekends and public holidays, but not every single day of the week) and they clearly display the conditions of the service fee “at least as prominently as the most prominent price on the menu”. Otherwise, they have to roll in any fees into the main advertised price.
There’s no need for a service fee, just increase the prices of everything by 18% or whatever. It’s more honest that way instead of listing one price and then springing a hidden fee on people at checkout. Part of why this particular example is so dodgy is they seem to be fishing for a service fee and a tip, which just seems like double dipping on hidden fees.
You could go hog wild and include tax in the prices too. Then the price of an item could be the price of an item instead of the start of a maths quiz.
Wild to me that theres a whole country out there that has so much influence over my life (an entire ocean away) and they don’t know how much their meal will be before the cheque comes. Incredible.
It’s important to require disclosure of the service fee. In my experience usually listed at the bottom of the menu. I know at least in some instances there are crowdsourced master lists of restaurants with hidden fees, and enforcement of disclosure requirements seems to have stepped up.
Why have a service fee at all then?
Just raise the prices and use the extra income to pay the employees better if that’s really your intention.
People won’t get upset about the tip on top of it if you don’t already have a “service charge” sectioned off in the receipt.
It’s so that they can deceitfully advertise prices which are lower than the real price.
I believe this is totally illegal in the EU (because they’re obligated to list prices and all charges, fully, upfront and that even includes taxes) but I guess that in the US there are States were it’s either not illegal or has never been challenge in court.
I the s legal most places in the US, some big cities like New York City have outlawed it.
I had a service charge like that added in Rome once. It is most likely illegal, but Rome is a pretty lawless place as it is where everybody tries to scam you all the time, so I didn’t bother spending time arguing it and getting all worked up about a couple of euros during my holiday, just avoided the place thereafter. I know that’s probably what they’re counting on …
In my country (in the EU) usually if a service charge is added on top of the order, it’s because that particular place doesn’t accept tips.
That would be illegal in the EU country where I live (Belgium). Here the rule is that the advertised price must always include any mandatory charges, like VAT and service charges, so that advertised price = price the consumer would have to pay.
Source: https://economie.fgov.be/nl/themas/verkoop/prijsbeleid/prijsaanduiding
Translation:
Price indication
Companies offering goods or services must indicate the price in writing in a legible, visible and unambiguous manner.
The price is the total price to be paid by the consumer, including VAT and all other taxes or services that the consumer is obliged to pay extra. These prices are stated at least in euros.
That would be illegal in the EU country where I live (Belgium).
Further evidence that America isn’t a legal country.
Oh yes, the “coperto” or cover charge. Restaurants that are worth going to will tell you upfront about whether they charge you that and how much. Tourist traps will just put a small, sign somewhere on the premises that informs you of their ass-pull fee.
I went to a small café in Venice and had a cup of coffee for 4€. They charged me a fixed 14€ coperto.
I just read about coperto here, and I don’t think that was it. I’m pretty sure it said “Servizio” on the bill, and it was a percentage on top of the price of what we ordered.
Coperto is perfectly legal and the norm everywhere. It would be clearly mentioned on the menu, typically at the bottom of every page and it is around a couple bucks per person. It’s for the bread and bread sticks you get on the table, water and electricity to wash cutlery and plates you use, and to pay for serving stuff and rent. Why not included in the price of that pizza you might ask? Because I might order that pizza to take away and not use all of the above.
Some touristy places take advantage of it, doesn’t make sense for a coffee in Venice (though I’m not surprised). A couple of bucks that op was charged at a restaurant in Rome on the other hand, 100% expected everywhere in Italy.
Source, am from there.
Just raise the prices
They’re already selling lemonade for $6. The sky is clearly the limit.
Look at how the tips were calculated. They were based on a bill of $95.65, the price of the meal before the service fee.
This service fee allowed them to increase the price of the meal by 18% without increasing the calculated tip by 18%.
They are stiffing their employees.
Edit: A $100 check would have an expected, 15% tip of $15. A $118 check would have an expected 15% tip of $17.70. What they are doing lets them calculate a 15%, $15 tip on a $118 bill. They are “stealing” $2.70 worth of tips on every $100 worth of sales.
Alternative option: the service fee is the tip because there’s no way I’m paying more than what’s on that bill.
That just fucks over the waitstaff without harming the business at all.
Best option is to walk out as soon as you see notice of a service fee. It should be printed on the menu or a sign posted on entry.
In many jurisdictions it’s not legal to charge this fee unless it’s advertised when ordering such as on the menu or posted signage.
$18.25 for a kids meal, $6 for lemonade is ridiculous. Don’t walk, run away!
The real crime here is $125 for bread and pasta…
$16.25 for each “kids shells”
And almost $5 for drip coffee
And yet only $6 for a beer
Edit: downvotes from dim bulbs who can’t divide 12 by 2
I was gonna say “The real crime is $11 for a fucking cannoli”. I could get two, large, freshly made cannolis in downtown NYC for about $7.
You can also get a slice for $3. It’s about supply and demand.
Edit: downvotes from hermits who don’t understand that things cost different prices in different places
You could get a slice for $1, it won’t be fancy and served with a fresh cannoli though (they served both, a slice was like $4 and it was huge)
