Tipping question: tip on top of 20% service charge??

August 23, 2023 1:52 PM

#metafilterfundraiser2023 Just had lunch at a Seattle restaurant that added a 20% service charge, which was fine; the menu indicated that that would happen and I have no problem tipping 20%. But the bill had a line for an additional tip, which... seriously? What would you do?

Actually, I just want to get in on this chatty fundraising thing. If people want to answer my question or just vent about tipping, go for it.

posted by mpark to Society & Culture (22 answers total)

I don't know. 5%? Tipping culture has always seemed somewhat opaque to me.
posted by Alensin at 1:57 PM on August 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I added 7% to just such a check last night, but only because I'm a guilty tipper for anyone working in a service industry, despite hating the whole tipping infrastructure in general.
posted by mykescipark at 2:02 PM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I tip in cash on top of those kinds of service charges, but have no set amount. My problem is, I don't know if the "service charge" even goes to my server, or gets stolen by their bosses because of being named a service charge rather than a tip, so I'd rather be safe than sorry. But the opaqueness of it all, ugh.
posted by theatro at 2:10 PM on August 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

Plenty of potential reasons one would want to leave an additional tip on top of a standard 20% - special occasions, unusual requests, above & beyond service, etc. Just because the option is there doesn't imply you are obligated to use it.
posted by niicholas at 2:12 PM on August 23, 2023 [7 favorites]

Yes, I would not feel obliged to add extra there unless there was a particular reason to tip unusually lavishly--small children at the table requiring extra attention/leaving an extra mess, for instance.
posted by praemunire at 2:16 PM on August 23, 2023 [10 favorites]

With the mandatory service charge, tip reverts to the notion that it's something special you do when you are especially pleased with the service, or the cost is tiny to you and you feel generous, or if you ask and got some special accommodation, those sorts of things.

Tipping 'culture' sucks and this is a way to help formalize it and maybe put a little extra money in servers' pockets.

But it still sucks, because it allows the restaurant to skip out on payroll tax and deceptively price menu items below what you have to pay. Really they should pay servers fair hourly wages and mark prices honestly, but that's US capitalism for you.
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:18 PM on August 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

I live in a state that does not allow employers to pay less than the minimum wage using tips to make up for it, and my answer might differ if I like elsewhere. If it's a place I like, I'll add another 10% or so.

But really, I hate the fees and tipping BS and wish people all got fair wages and we also knew how much anything costs when we looked at the menu. Same for all the baggage fees, ticketmaster fees, fuel surcharges, etc. Just tell me how much out the door and let me actually compare.
posted by advicepig at 2:25 PM on August 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

I tipped extra before, when I was in a Pizza Express with a large group from a conference, and someone in the group was an asshole to the waitstaff. I made sure that the cash went directly into the hand of the woman he was having a go at.
posted by quacks like a duck at 2:28 PM on August 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Some anecdata from the service world: A couple places I or friends have worked have had an automatic service charge on groups over a certain size. The bill always still prints with a spot for an additional tip. The reason for this has always been that that's how the POS system comes already set up, and no one has the skillset or gets paid enough to care to figure out how to make that tip line go away in the event of an automatic service charge. Basically, it's less work to just leave it there.
posted by JuliaIglesias at 2:33 PM on August 23, 2023 [9 favorites]

I tip extra unless I have seen on the website/menu/etc that the service charge is intended to stand in for a tip and goes to the workers and I have reason to believe that the owners aren't lying. I might still throw in a little extra anyway, depending on the service charge.
posted by Frowner at 2:41 PM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I do not tip extra in this scenario.
posted by samthemander at 2:56 PM on August 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

More context. A bunch of places have started doing this. I've heard of a lot of it in Austin, eg. several restaurants have letters like this, calling it a Fair Wage surcharge.
I'll grudgingly accept that it may be slightly better for some servers this way, but I also stand by my previous point: they want to get warm fuzzy credit but they won't do the simple right thing and pay higher wages, so that they can dodge taxes and mark prices deceptively.
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:57 PM on August 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

If the place is already charging a service charge then I don't tip extra.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:12 PM on August 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

I don't tip extra, unless a) the server has provided some above-and-beyond service, or b) it's a place where I'm a regular, or hope to become a regular (let's say, somewhere where I go, or could go, at least once a week over at least several months).

Where I am, or hope to be, a regular, I tip ~30%, and if there were a 20% service charge I'd add another 10% on top of that to bring it to 30%.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:26 PM on August 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't tip more in that instance, and would take it to be similar to when tip is automatically added in larger parties.
posted by coffeecat at 4:00 PM on August 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

I consider there to be a difference between 'we are adding 5% on top for ' (which I disapprove of, but you have to work with what you're given) and 'we are adding a 20% service charge to large groups'. The former is not a tip, and I tip on top at the appropriate rate. The latter I would assume is a tip, and I may choose to let it stand unchanged or add more if I think they deserved more (though at 20% it's probably going to stand as is).
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 4:13 PM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

You paid the 20% service charge, which is the tip. As an over-tipper, I would not additionally tip unless something wild happened.
posted by Geckwoistmeinauto at 4:35 PM on August 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Get outta here. I might leave a couple of bucks if thr server was extra accommodating, but otherwise no, they already got as much or more than I would tip.
posted by never.was.and.never.will.be. at 5:08 PM on August 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't tip extra in this scenario.

(And for places with anything like a "fair wage surcharge", I'll tip the waitstaff since it's not their doing, but I won't go back if management is basically choosing to be dishonest the about menu prices.)
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 5:44 PM on August 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Some restaurants add that extra with a note saying it will be removed if asked. If that's the case, I usually ask for it to be removed and then tip.

If the bill says that this is for 'service'; then I leave it as is with no tip.

If they say it is a surcharge for anything else, like wages or inflation etc., and cannot be removed; I make my point to the server that this should be on the menu and/or disclosed beforehand; tip my usual and never go back.
posted by indianbadger1 at 8:02 AM on August 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

The DC Attorney General has issued rules about these kinds of fees requiring that they have to be disclosed in advance to customers before they order, and that the sign or menu has to disclose what the fee will be used for (is it a tip that goes directly to your server, tips or wage supplements for the whole staff, to cover some specific expense like health insurance, or just to add to the general revenue of the restaurant). That guidance is supposed to prevent situations like yours, where you don't know whether the fee is actually going to the server as a tip or not. So if the menu or receipt doesn't make it clear, I'd ask the waiter or the manager whether the fee is their tip, or whether it goes to something else, so you can decide how much to tip with a full understanding of how much, if any, you've tipped already.
posted by decathecting at 2:23 PM on August 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

I asked a server at a place that does this whether they get the service charge money and she said no!
posted by Pax at 7:14 AM on August 26, 2023 [1 favorite]