Went to a restaurant in LA today and when I got the check I noticed that it was a bit higher than it should be. Then I noticed this 18% service charge. So… We, as customers, need to help pay for their servers instead of the owners paying their servers a living wage. And on top of that they have suggested tip. I called bs on this. I will bet you that the servers do not see a dime of this 18% service charge. [deleted a word so it wasn’t a grammatical horror to read]
The alternative is that they just jack up the menu prices to accomplish the same thing. This is just the equivalent of pricing things at $19.99 because people don’t understand that really means $20 which sounds like a lot more money.
So let’s say you checkout at the grocery store tomorrow and your $100 of groceries has a $20 “employee wellness” fee tacked on. You see that and pricing an item 1 penny below a round number as the same thing. Really?
No, because the difference of seeing a $19.99 price versus a $20.00 price is that I see it up front. That’s more honest than tacking on a $21.50 hidden fee after the fact.
Yeah, please if you’re going to charge me 40 bucks for a salad just put 40 bucks on the menu. Or 39.99 If you must. I greatly prefer that over listing the salad as $30 on the menu, only get blindsided by a separate $10 service charge on the bill. Matter of fact can we just go to putting the entire cost of the item on the menu?
Everything should be on the wheel and out the door pricing. Doing any other way is absolute bullshit.