Automatic Gratuity Disaster
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In one form or another, it’s a phrase that appears on menus all over America…”An 18% gratuity will be added to parties of eight and over”. I understand the thinking from the restaurant point of view, and I also understand that it represents a disaster waiting to happen.
A friend (a chef/owner) just sampled the new French bistro in town, and secured an outdoor table for his party of seven that included six adults and a two-year-old. At some point during the meal, an unexpected guest sat down and enjoyed a glass of wine.
My friend is capable of being critical and basically was disappointed in almost everything – particularly the food, and “shocked” would be a better word than “disappointed”. He suggested that his wine (which included four bottles) was overpriced (over $44.00 per bottle; $11.00 in the State Store). His real problem was in the service, which was basically handled by busboys. He claimed that he saw his waiter twice – when they ordered, and when he presented the bill.
A bill of approximately seven hundred dollars included an automatic $140.00 gratuity. His immediate question was somewhat understandable. He asked the server to explain why he should pay him $140.00 when the waiter was hardly involved. The waiter suggested that it was their policy, and that it appeared right on the menu.
The real issue was in the restaurant determining the number in his party (the child and the unexpected guest). My guess is that the issue would have been almost non-existent had they not added the automatic gratuity.
Say what you will about tipping in America because it’s not perfect, but the guest controls the amount of the tip, and I see this as a decided advantage over the European system of automatically adding the tip to the check. And in fairness to my friend, he insisted that he was not in the habit of being difficult in a restaurant, especially when it involved the wait staff… “I’m in the business, and I understand the system – in my mind, this one went way over the line”.
Two managers got involved, and they were unable to solve the problem. My friend paid the bill and left. I don’t think we’ll see him back in this particular spot anytime soon. It’s a disaster that should never have happened! In terms of the concept called “word of mouth”, this one is working in the wrong direction.
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Comments
Solve the problem quickly by removing the the auto gratuity. Make him smile, let him decide the gratuity. The problem in the first place was the sever implementing the gratuity (this is obvious). Management can train an individual in do’s and don’t, then tell staff they expect them to be an adult an act responsible. But the fact is expecting that will only cause mishaps. Management must keep a close eye on their staff to insure the service is implemented exactly the way it is intended. Absence of an authority figure is when thing go wrong. People tend to do as little as possible as long as they can get away with it. There must be some
one in control at all times on the floor in order to execute the service required by the business. Excellent service equals money for both severs and business owners. Acceptable service equals less money for both and unacceptable service, well you get the idea.
Thank you,
Tyra
I am a restaurant owner and my restaurant has been in my family for over 80 years. We have never added a gratuity to a check automatically for a certain number of guests. It’s bad for business…period. When I go to a restaurant and see this on the menu it tells me that the service is not that good and it usually isn’t. When you have to add this to your menu it shows you have no trust in your servers.
I really don’t understand why this issue and issues like it are made to be more complicated than they really are.
A tip is for service rendered – period. It is either below expectations, at expectations or exceeds expectations. You get compensated accordingly.
This will have nothing to do with how long I’ve been “in the business” and as such I should be more able to “feel your pain” for the “victimization” you feel from your choosing to be in this industry at your position. You will get tipped based only on how well you conduct my experience.
“Being in the business” is also no reason to subsidize poor and sometimes downright rude behavior. And whether or not the service was “usually” good or not or that some good or bad incident happened once to a cousin’s friend 15 years ago is irrelevant.
An auto-gratuity is not a legally mandated payment demand for the guest - policy or not - Massachusetts or not - 18% or not. The only legal requirement is that if your house has an auto-gratuity policy, that you must enforce it consistently on all check sizes you post the notice about.
Provide my guests and I with a stellar experience and I’ll tip appropriately - and I’ll be the one who defines appropriately!
Amateurs continue to whine about this “problem” while pros just continue to provide outstanding service and make really great money.
While I too agree that the tip is not solely the server’s, (the bussers and bartenders get a chunk) it is important to keep in mind the premise of the initial post. Adding an automatic gratuity has BIG risks. In my years 10 years as a server and my subsequent 22 years as an owner I cannot recall an inordinate number of times when a server did not do better than the 18% add-on would have netted. This is a business of numbers and all servers everywhere would be better off to keep their attention focused on the guest rather than the tip. Judging a week’s pay by the party or by the shift is unfair and unwise. Dividing the tips by the number of hours worked at the end of the week is the only way to access what you make. Win some, lose some… it’s all part of the game.
As a former server, bartender, manager and now restaurant owner I have a few thoughts on auto-grat. My first waiting job was with a Marriott property where the guest paid an 18% service charge on everything…their hotel room, food and beverage, golf… They were told that tipping was not necessary at any outlet and we were informed that if caught soliciting a tip we would be fired. I cannot believe I ever took the job but did and work my tail off for 3 years before the policy was changed to the traditional system. I did make $8/hr but I knew I could make 3 times that in a tipped situation. What I witnessed and what later changed the system was incentive. What incentive did I or any other server have to give anything other than average service, like the cooks my pay was the same whether the food or service was good or not. I know that there were times, hungover or tired, that I did not give quality service but I would like to believe that I exceeded my guests expectations. The policy at my place is if a party of 8 or more would like separate checks then the server has the option of adding the grat. If a party of 100 comes in and is willing to put everthing on one bill then they determine the tip. My reasoning is that separating checks for large parties is time consuming for the server and the guests never seem to understand that and will take it out on the server. I give the guest the option which they seem to appreciate. What I have never understood is why 10 or 12 friends can’t take turns picking up the check, nothing is more aggrivating than customers bickering over a glass of tea or side of fries that they didn’t have but is on their check. And of course, if a guest ever told me that they did not recieve service worthy of the auto-grat, I will take it off and my staff knows that.
Jason Newsom
Big Daddy’s Grill
I work in Canada (British Columbia) and am aware that for most banquets/functions menus/sheets note that a gratuity will be added to the bill. In our dining room there was a dispute between management and staff over gratuity sharing. One day I walked in the dining room and the chef showed me the front of new menus that were printed up. I said, “Cool, very nice cover!” Then my eye caught the wording at the bottom … 10% gratuity automatically added to each bill. My only response was a hearty laugh! That was management’s solution to keep track of gratuities and establish a tip pool. I’ve worked as a server for 20 years. (I should add that our dining room is a unionized establishment and we work for an hourly wage with benefits) The fact is not every one tips. I love what I do for a living and it reflects in my service. I consider it a privilege to serve! The tippers and non-tippers will both receive the same level of service from me. I find it annoying those that seem to think they are hot shot servers and barely do the basics of service, believe they are entitled to a gratuity and complain when they are left without. I have to commend the servers that do their job and go beyond (ie: taking up the slack for other servers that are visibly slacking off - hung over, personal chit-chat sessions, just standing around) in addition to taking care of their own sections. I eat out twice a day at the minimum of five days a week. We have over 50 eating establishments to choose from in a town of 13000. I make sure I visit restaurants and servers that truly care about the work and their business. In addition to a generous gratuity, I make sure I recommend the server and the business to everyone I know.
Obviously a question of underpayed staff. I mean pay accordingly.
As an European I do not think that the US system is of % gratuity is the way. For us it is “impossible to understand” the fuzz about it. Pay the people a honest salary and they get the tips from customers (if satisfied) with service. 140 $ for tips!!! Come on… Even discuss who gets more or less …. Only in America ;)..don’t get mad.. have no intention to harm you 
Regards
The NRA lobbies against every minimum wage hike, they lobby against raising the minimum for tipped employees. This only helps fast food propagate while making foodservice careers into jokes for sitcom ridicule. Most restaurant business plans are built around low prices - made possible by LOW WAGES. Some would say that the consumer wins, I don’t think so. Wouldn’t the consumer have a consistently better experience when served by true professionals rather than transitional, part time & teen age employees?
I have worked in restaurants since 1973, owning one for past 22 years. Though I have been successful I wish I had chosen another path.
Finally - Too many customers think its 1970 or that a restaurant is a slave house for people too dumb to have “real jobs”. So yes we have a mandatory gratuity. It’s often a point of contention (I hate this) but it does help solve the problem.
I have my own opinions about “auto-grat” on parties, including a big one involving the server actually working if they’re going to get a tip automatically. Servers who do nothing just because they’re automatically getting tipped due to the gratuity make me want to scream.
When I take parties that have gratuities, I tend to work as hard as I can for them, including upselling to get the grat higher, and making sure everyone stays happy on the off chance that the host might leave a bit of extra on top of the gratuity, moving it from 18-20%.
I’ve noticed the “auto-grat” problem coming up a lot in discussion lately, and it’s led me to start studying the laws (at least as of a few hours ago) in order to provide my readers with the proper information in regards to proper procedures with gratuity, including: is it legal to put a gratuity on a party without verbally informing the guest, if the guest doesn’t want to pay the gratuity despite the level of service being high should the management be forced to remove it from the bill, etc.
If you’ve got any information on the topic of tipping laws, either from the restaurant or consumer side, please feel free to e-mail me the source. If you know of the proper websites that I should visit in order to find the various laws involved that would be awesome.
Thanks for your time,
The thing that has to be understood that usually the server doesn’t recieve all this money. A cut is given to busboys and all other tipped employees and if the business choses they can pocket a lot of the tip. Which often ends up happening. So maybe if you offer to pay the server in cash a decent tip they would be happy. I know I would. It is better than the business getting half of my tip.
This article makes me sick. The guest in question has no idea as to how the restaurant is run and how tips are split up. We as servers consider his type one of those nitpickers who looks for any excuse to leave a bad tip, no matter how hard the server is trying.
Guess what buddy, there is no excuse to not leave a 20% tip. You got your food, you got your drinks, what more do you want? The server to polish your knob?
Your complaint was that you did not see your server and the busboys handled the majority of the work. Well, I can tell you right now, the busboys are getting a portion of that 18% automatic gratuity. All restaurants has a tip out system in which the server is required to give a portion of his tips at the end of the night to the busboys, hosts, bartenders and food runners. So basically by wanting to screw to the server, you want to screw everybody. Don’t eat out you cheap jerk.
It blows my mind when management is so short sighted as to not see an opportunity to be the good guy. Policy Schmolicu! You make the rules so you are allowed to break them. Do whatever it takes to make this guy happy! He is reasonable in his disappointment. Grab the moment to be compassionate and make this guy proud of the industry he’s also in!
Betsy Fischer,
Restaurant Management/Culinary Arts Program, Santa Rosa Junior College