The Vulcan thread brought up the subject of greed. If we're going to talk about that, how do we all feel about Michel Roux Jr. ?
I've never been happy with the whole business of a unilaterally applied "service charge". A tip should be an expression of a customer's satisfaction with the service provided. When the gratuity is just taken without the client's say-so, regardless of how good or bad their dining experience has been, it's already a bit tasty IMHO. To then fail to pass the charge on to the staff I consider to be borderline fraud; the customer is being charged for something that has not been delivered. It's made even worse when many of those employees are (illegally) not even being paid the basic wage (as is the case at le Gavroche).
I think it's time for a campaign against these service charges. I never, ever, add a tip to a credit card payment as I'm pretty sure that the staff will never see it; I always pay tips in cash, preferably directly to the waiter.
This is a far from simple issue and certainly is country dependant. Its some time since I regularly visited the USA but when I last did, you always tipped because that was the whole of the wage that the waiter was getting.
Here in the UK I never tip - staff are paid at least the minimum wage and I expect the outfit to be run to give a good level of service as standard. SWMBO is not so tight / more easily embarrassed and so always tips 10%. Never on a credit card since there is no mechanism by which that can get to a particular waiter so whats the point of tipping.
Then there is the question of sharing of tips. Do you know if that happens in a particular restaurant and if not what about the dish washer not to mention the maitre d etc?
As for a standard sevice charge I always assume thats simply a way of altering the mix between variable and fixed income on a bill, and nothing to do with the waiting staff.
But in the end, ask yourself why you should tip at a restaurant. Do you tip at the garage? Or Tesco? Or the bank? And why are the waiting staff worth tipping but not the chef?
