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Thread: Restaurant Tipping Questions

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    Featured Member The_Oceans's Avatar
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    Default Restaurant Tipping Questions

    So I'm playing tour guide for my parents & nephew for a couple of weeks. We're in London for a couple of days, and my mom & I have traded off paying for meals, souvenirs, admissions to museums, etc.

    A couple of times I've paid for dinner and run into some non-standard situations:

    1. So we have the little "tourist pack" that includes discounts for restaurants & attractions. We go to a restaurant and have a voucher that gives us a 20% discount off the total bill. When you leave a tip for the server, do you tip based on the original total (pre-discount), or the net total (post discount). EXAMPLE: Original bill is for $100, with a 20% discount the net bill is $80. Assuming you leave a 15% tip, do you leave $15 (based on $100 pre-discount), or $12 (based on $80 post-discount)?
    2. We go to another restaurant, which adds a service charge based on the total bill, or for large parties. Let's say the service charge is 10%, and you'd leave a 15% tip. If the original bill was $100, which with the service charge is $110, do you leave $15 (based on $100 pre-service charge), $16.50 (based on $110 post-service charge), or $5 (since they've already added $10 for the service charge)?
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    Featured Member snoopy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Restaurant Tipping Questions

    i didn't know that about service fees? wtf? that's shitty unfair.

    i agree with tipping based upon the original undiscounted bill. it's not fair to the servers to get stiffed because of the discount.

    but i always thought the 'service fee' was the gratuity in those applicable situations. fug.

    hi, lj!

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    Default Re: Restaurant Tipping Questions

    The first question is up to you but I personally would tip based off the orginal bill so basically the 20% that is taken off I would end up adding back on for the tip providing that the service was decent. The only time I tip less than 20% is if the waiter/waitress messes something up that is within their own power to fix.

    What is the service charge for? Who obtains the money for it? Usually in parties of 6 or more the "tip"/charge is automatically added to the bill. If the waitress/waiter gets the charge for their tip then you would add on money to make it total the amount you wish to tip.

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    Default Re: Restaurant Tipping Questions

    Why not ask the server: "Is this service fee your tip, or something else?"

  5. #5
    MsQwerty
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    Default Re: Restaurant Tipping Questions

    London England? I wouldnt worry too much. Maybe things have changed since I lived over there but I dont think anyone would be splitting hairs over the 3 quid difference, Im fairly sure a fair amount of the British population that would tip less than that or not at all.

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    Default Re: Restaurant Tipping Questions

    Quote Originally Posted by Lady Jade View Post
    Having been both a server and a manager, I can tell you that most (if not all) of that "service charge" money goes to the restaurant. Large parties take up more room and take more time than smaller groups, so it's their way of recouping the possible loss of other patronage because of not having available tables and the inconvenience of having to do so much at one time (getting all the food and drinks out at the same time and whatnot). The restaurants couldn't care less about how much money the staff takes home, especially chain restaurants!

    Unless it is specifically an added gratuity (that's the key word here, "service charge" is something different), you can be pretty well guaranteed that the server won't see a dime of it.

    Also, I worked at one restaurant that actually took money out of my tips if the customer paid the whole amount by credit card. I'd heard that some places make you wait to get credit card tips, but I was shocked that they took 5% out of my tip for "fees". Seriously, WTF? I always leave my tips in cash now, just in case.
    Wow. That is a really good thing to know LJ, I didn't know that at all!

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    Senior Member Joy to the world's Avatar
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    Default Re: Restaurant Tipping Questions

    im curious where this was with the service charge and all......I've waited tables at alot of places and the charge for large parties were grauitity (sp?) that when to the waiter (all of it) and there was not a surcharge for any credit cards
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    Default Re: Restaurant Tipping Questions

    I wouldn't worry about it too much, we don't have the same sort of politics concerning tipping that you do in the US, I think service staff here might earn a bit more here than in the UK too, we have a minimum wage here which is about a fiver an hour which applies to all industries.

    I usually tip somewhere in the region of 10-15 % but I wouldn't split hairs on exactly how much to tip, when I was waitressing I barely noticed who tipped what. Its not uncommon for people here not to tip at all, especially for moderate to poor service, that fact that your leaving anything will be appreciated.



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    Featured Member The_Oceans's Avatar
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    Default Re: Restaurant Tipping Questions

    Thanks all for your responses...I'll post what I actually did, but anyone else with opinions please feel free to chime in.

    In scenario 1, I ended up tipping the amount of the Value Added Tax (which in the UK is 17.5 percent) on the discounted amount.

    In scenario 2, the service charge (which came out to 12.5%) was indicated on the bill as "discretionary", so I added 10% of the total (including the service charge) as a tip. NOTE: This was before LJ indicated the difference between a "service charge" and a "gratuity" in this application.

    Another wrinkle (probably unique to the UK) we discovered today at a tapas bar...my mom paid for dinner on her credit card, and when we asked to put the tip on the CC, the server indicated that when we do that, the money goes to the restaurant, not to the server. We ended up tipping him in cash based on the original bill total, because he was able to get a couple of soft drinks (about £5 worth) for my nephew knocked off the bill; there was a thing in the menu that said "kids soft drinks are free with an accompanying adult buying four more more tapas", but technically we didn't qualify because we purchased a family meal.

    And MsQ & PK are right...the Brits are not a tipping culture. My mom left a fiver for a server at a cafe in my town - he came OUTSIDE to personally thank my mom for the tip (which was only 10% of the bill).
    "Women, not girls, rule my world" - Prince

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