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]
Let the manager know that you won’t be returning and make sure they understand why, then never return.
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.
Except it’s contingent on people making purchases. If there is a slow day, you work the same amount of hours but earn less because your pay isn’t tied to how many hours you worked, but how many sales were made. By doing it this way, it takes the risk of running business off the owners shoulders and puts it on the workers instead.
What i meant is that, in a theoretical mathematically sound world, to support higher wages, you need higher prices. The service charge shouldn’t be put as a ‘bonus salary’ - basically the ‘service charge’ in most countries is included in the price of the food, and is paid out as the hourly wage to staff.
Wait a minute, are you suggesting restaurants are just normal businesses that can be run like any other? Because that’s heresy. Restaurants are Special, because Reasons.
This is the opposite of transparent. When I order food, I’m agreeing the pay the listed price for the item I ordered. Adding 18% on top of that when it comes time to pay is hiding that fee.
If they want to charge more, they should raise their prices
Well yeah, that was my point.
Americans for some reason love this 'low low price of x$ (+tax +tip +service charge +fuck you charge) thing. Here in Switzerland, it’s all in the price. Menu says 40 bucks, you pay 40 bucks. Tips are very voluntary and usually just a “round up” -> total is 57 - let’s make it 60.
My wife works in a restaurant and gets around 3.7k a month - the tips she gets add up to around 300-700, depending on the month. In the store she works, tips get handled as a pool where everyone gets their monthly share depending on hours worked (serving staff and kitchen) - so total tips x person hours / total hours by everyone.
It’s still a low wage (I make around than double her wage, but then again I’m an electrical engineer), but it is very livable - I lived on a lower wage alone comfortably when I was studying and only working 50%
Name and shame. Fuck this place.
Also “kids shells” for $22? Please tell me this is not macaroni and cheese.
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.
Gem lettuce for $22? Wtf is the US smoking?
Just Los Angeles things 🤷♂️
the most concerning part for me is the “LA woman” charge… is that just a restaurant?
It’s almost certainly a Mac & Cheese variant. Stuff like this is why I heavily research restaurant prices before going out.
This is bonkers. Just include it in the price… I would definitely refuse it and have done it one time, when it was not clearly stated in the menu that service will be added. The waiter claimed it is “a standard fee”. No, it’s not and should never be.
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.
Glad to see they’re paying a living wage and the tip went back to being an optional gratuity instead of something the server depends on to make their rent.
Those prices are about what I’d expect to pay at a restaurant here in Finland too, maybe a little more here but somehow they’re able to pay a living wage to the staff from that without extra “service charge” or tips.
You can also afford to buy a house. Finland best country
You do have to live next to Russia though…
It’s a non issue, Finns won the winter war and were greatly outnumbered lol
I’m sure it’s like every other country where a house out in the country is cheap but Helsinki is unaffordable.
In canada, I make good money but will never afford a house except butt fuck nowhere Saskatchewan or Manitoba
My wife and I are actually hoping to permenantly relocate to Finland after many years of pondering. I am in IT so even Helsinki is affordable but we want to live in Vaasa
It’s the same here in Germany except for the cheap house in the country part.
Yeah don’t let that dude fool you, there are not really any first world countries where house in the country is cheap
What do you mean? A house in the city is almost always more expensive than a house in a rural area, in every country
Yeah that’s not what I meant, more like there are not many first world countries with affordable housing in any sense (like Germany and Canada)
I want a cheap house overlooking Neuschwanstein Schloss, bitte
It’s all relative but housing in Germany is pretty cheap as a percentage of income compared to most western countries
Munich called and wants your claim laughed at
The place that, despite being by far the most expensive in Germany, has rents half those in London? Lower than Paris but with much higher wages? Thanks for proving my point.
The crazy thing is, Los Angeles’ minimum wage is already 16.78, and restaurants are required to pay servers at least minimum wage in California. None of this lower minimum for tipped workers. So they are adding at least 18% to that, unless the 18% service fee brings their workers up to minimum wage, which is dishonest, but wouldn’t put it past a restaurant to do. After all that, they have the gall to sti ask for a tip!?! It’s beyond bs.
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).
But for some reason, those menu prices still are higher 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”.
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.
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.
Best to cook at home
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.
Still seems mad to me that usalanders don’t have tax included in their advertised prices.
The primary reason is that taxing is done at state, country, and city levels and they all apply different amounts in different areas. The tax can vary just crossing out of a city and into an unincorporated area or between neighboring cities. So rather than having different prices when you provide services for customers in different locations, it’s easier to separate it out.
Like I used to do tech support for small home based businesses mostly, and so I didn’t have a “place of business”. I had three sets of customers, one lived in my city and county, another lived in my city but a different county, and another lived in that second county in a different city.
Originally, I was just charging a set hourly rate and eating the tax cost even though it was a pain to figure out the math. The problem came when with some of those rates, because of rounding, charging that amount for one hour might work ok, but charging that same amount for 2 hours or 3 hours would make it off by one cent and there was no way to reconcile it for the accounting software and tax forms and such. And I didn’t want to charge pennies. So I just made it easy and all new customers I charged tax separately.
That one is annoying but also makes perfect sense when everyone is competing with everyone. The business with honest prices suffers when their nearby competitor doesn’t include it and looks cheaper. The states lose out on revenue if they force businesses to display full prices but the state next door doesn’t, or has better tax rates. They all benefit from confusion.
Where there is not confusion is the border with a state with no sales tax, and all the good shopping is found on one side.
For a real fun US-ism, fuel in the US is charged at fractions of a penny (9/10s). As any Office Space fan can tell you, that adds up.
Fuel in the UK (and most of Europe I believe) is charged in tenths of a penny too.
Is there not a way to make it a nationwide requirement to advertise including tax? I know very little about US economics so there might be a very good reason, I never really thought much about it beyond “huh, that’s weird” to be honest.
I don’t think there is an easy way to make it nationwide, the powers of the federal government include interstate commerce but the sales taxes are at the state or local level.
Yeah, that seems mad. What’s the reason? Why can’t it be set at a national value like the rest of the world? Is it simply historical and too many powerful people’s pockets would get lighter if it were changed? I’m sure there’s a reason, I just can’t see it.
The funniest part of the 10th of a cent scam is that in Canada we don’t even have pennies, we round to the nearest 5.
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Did they charge you 3.75 for being an LA woman? 😂😂
I tip twenty most places. Easy to calculate and fair.
I see this and they have gotten my tip. If you work there and are upset by that, then you need to find another job because the company is stealing your tips no matter what. And I personally won’t return, because it’s never the best restaurants who pull this shit.
Similarly if a company puts automatic gratuity on my bill that’s the tip as well… And usually it’s less than I’d give freely.
If Americans are supposed to tip extra it their choice. If you want to define service charges or something like this, then you’ve made your choice. Greedy fucks trying to hide these extra charges need to stop. I’ll pay more for food on a menu if that’s what it takes but trying to sneak it is bullshit.
More than 10% service charge is unacceptable already where I am. Let alone asking for a tip on top.
How about businesses pay their fucking employees? What a concept
