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]
A list of L.A. restaurants doing this shit from a Reddit sub:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EEPzeytrva770H2xPFFPDUUNdpnL_VQL4vbzFph-jus/edit#gid=0
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, you’d leave the store having paid $120 for groceries with no wellness fee tacked on.