Service charges; resort fees; "surcharge" add-ons: A new state law requiring price transparency is set to take effect in July. Until now, no one knew how it would apply to restaurants.
Need this nationwide. I hate having fees added on to the price of what I’m ordering.
It really depends on the country. France and Belgium, as you wrote. Germany, they expect a tip and look at you angry if you don’t. Italy, they add a service charge at the end that is nowhete advertised. Turkey, they invent a random price at the end, complaints only taken if you’re local. (I’m slightly exaggerating)
It’s common place in London to include a 12.5% service charge on the bill now. But it’s not mandatory. You can literally just be like “please remove the service charge”.
It’s kind of interesting because as an American it’s like I get to witness the invention of service charges in real time. If you hear employee complaints or warnings from people online they’ll say “the restaurant puts it into a common pool and only pays the employees a small portion of it” or “if you want to tip the staff, remove the charge and leave them cash” or “the business isn’t legally required to share any of the service charge with the employee”.
It’s like you get to see the UK go through all the bad phases of tipping culture before we get to the version we have in the US while everyone knows the winning move is to just not start down the tipping path in the first place.
Maybe I’m being overly cautious but the way the economies of the UK and Canada are incrementally becoming privatized, especially healthcare, is particularly disturbing. The populace must riot before it’s too late
I agree. I don’t know if we really need to go as far as rioting to say “stop putting ergvie charge on my bill, and please stop defending the NHS”, but yeah it is definitely concerning the way everything has gone since I moved here a dozen years ago.
Most restaurants where I live have a 20% service fee that is unknown until you get the check. I simply don’t go out to eat anymore. Half the restaurants have closed and the other half are mostly empty. Servers even sued for rights to the 20% but restaurant owners stepped in and took it. The 1% are insidious with their creep into your pockets to take every dime, then your inheritance, then into debt.
I was just in a smaller city in Germany and flew back to the US after that. I look German and speak German. When paying with card, Germany felt exactly like the US. At every restaurant, the tip request automatically came up within the thing used to process your card, just like in the US.
It really depends on the country. France and Belgium, as you wrote. Germany, they expect a tip and look at you angry if you don’t. Italy, they add a service charge at the end that is nowhete advertised. Turkey, they invent a random price at the end, complaints only taken if you’re local. (I’m slightly exaggerating)
In Germany it’s typical to do so just to make the change easier, you might catch an angry glance by making them make small change.
Italy will list a coperto or servizio on the menu.
It’s common place in London to include a 12.5% service charge on the bill now. But it’s not mandatory. You can literally just be like “please remove the service charge”.
It’s kind of interesting because as an American it’s like I get to witness the invention of service charges in real time. If you hear employee complaints or warnings from people online they’ll say “the restaurant puts it into a common pool and only pays the employees a small portion of it” or “if you want to tip the staff, remove the charge and leave them cash” or “the business isn’t legally required to share any of the service charge with the employee”.
It’s like you get to see the UK go through all the bad phases of tipping culture before we get to the version we have in the US while everyone knows the winning move is to just not start down the tipping path in the first place.
Maybe I’m being overly cautious but the way the economies of the UK and Canada are incrementally becoming privatized, especially healthcare, is particularly disturbing. The populace must riot before it’s too late
I agree. I don’t know if we really need to go as far as rioting to say “stop putting ergvie charge on my bill, and please stop defending the NHS”, but yeah it is definitely concerning the way everything has gone since I moved here a dozen years ago.
Healthcare is worth rioting
Most restaurants where I live have a 20% service fee that is unknown until you get the check. I simply don’t go out to eat anymore. Half the restaurants have closed and the other half are mostly empty. Servers even sued for rights to the 20% but restaurant owners stepped in and took it. The 1% are insidious with their creep into your pockets to take every dime, then your inheritance, then into debt.
I was just in a smaller city in Germany and flew back to the US after that. I look German and speak German. When paying with card, Germany felt exactly like the US. At every restaurant, the tip request automatically came up within the thing used to process your card, just like in the US.
It’s called the Pane & Coperto (or just Coperto Fee) and typically amounts to a cover charge to enter, regardless of what you order.
Honestly not the worst way to run a restaurant, given that every table costs some baseline amount of labor and resources to tend.
It should just be included in the price. Not hidden as well as they can. It is just used scam tourists by lowering base price but increasing coperto
In Belgium and in France tips are expected but they are a bonus, not to have a living wage though.