Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Greed

I agree 100% I find it quite objectionable and will never return to an establishment that has that practice. I also never add tips to the credit card payment but give something the waiter in cash, but only if the service and the food is good.

I blame the Americans for starting the idea that large tips should be paid. My brother, who has become more American than someone born there, lauds the system as he says it guarantees good service.

PS. You won't find me at Le Gavroche in any case. I don't believe any meal is worth £212 plus "service charge" no matter how good the food or the service.

I can't condone paying chefs lower than the minimum wage if the hours they work and the pay is imposed but I still have absolutely no problem at all in the service charge being treated as general revenue if front of house staff are paid well for their professionalism

I've never expected service staff to directly benefit from a service charge added to a bill other than it adding to the general revenue and helping a restaurant to pay decent fixed wages whether a restaurant is busy or quiet

Tips are different

hear, hear.

I always give a Tip to the Waiter/Waitress after a good meal

Last week it was

"" Dont eat yellow Snow""

It's bordering on the obscene to charge and or be prepared to pay this kind of money.

We always tip if the service is good even for a breakfast when the occasion arises.

Back on thread, yes Giles I think you would have a good many signatories on here.

On a slightish thread drift, the American cruise lines encounter the same problems when operating out of Southampton and other none US areas that dont have a "compulsory" tipping culture.

I tend to pay the daily tipping rate, but there is invariably a long queue of people at guest services on the first day of the cruise requesting a removal of the $13 pp per day gratuity.

Why to pay a service charge in a restaurant?
Isn't it part of the deal that a restaurant SERVES food?
Tipping is something different.

The American Cruise lines are just appalling -- I spent a week on a Princess Lines boat and they pay their(mostly far eastern) staff a pittance and expect the customer to supplement this by their $13 per day bit. Whereas they say this is shared with the staff, the staff member I spoke to on Princess Lines said the majority goes to the senior people and the service staff see very little. They move the staff around frequently so they don't get organised to do anything about it.

I will NEVER darken their door again!!

Tip the person. There's some great staff out there working really hard for poor wages.

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?