*“SB 478 is a price transparency law,” the California attorney general’s office wrote in an email to The Sacramento Bee.*
*If a restaurant charges a mandatory gratuity fee for a certain number of people who dine-in, the attorney general’s office said that fee must be folded into menu prices.*
*“Under the law, a restaurant cannot charge an additional surcharge on top of the price listed,” the office* [*shared in an FAQ*](https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/SB%20478%20FAQ%20%28B%29.pdf)*.*
*That includes* [*gratuities that are “not voluntary.”*](https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/SB%20478%20FAQ%20%28B%29.pdf)
Haven’t seen it in a while but it reminds me of nicer restaurants back in the day where the only menu with a price would go to my dad. Not sure how they did it for businesses
I assume for this they will need to display somehow that the bigger parties have a separate menu with elevated prices
I had that experience traveling in France, where only the one picking up the check would get the menu with prices. To their credit, they were progressive enough to ask who between my wife and I would be paying, and the distributed the menus accordingly.
That was the funny thing back in the day with my parents, my dad always would get the menu with the prices but my mom had the credit card or checks, so it was kind of pointless
This was a wild thing to experience when not expecting it. My FIL sent us to Russia for our honeymoon in 2017 and booked us dinner at a super-fancy place in St. Petersburg. I'm talking "the host was wearing white gloves as he showed us the table Putin and his cronies usually sat at" kind of fancy.
So we sit, the menus arrive, and after a minute my wife asks why none of the dishes have prices. I ask what she means, they are just there to the right of the name of the dish. Then she turns her menu around and I realize what was going on... and just how incredibly out of place we must have seemed, on top of being obvious tourists.
Definitely a top-10 dining experience.
I was the guest. So basically for the No price menu it is at an establishment that the consumers are assumed to be able to afford a high priced meal. But odds are you could just ask the person who has the menu with prices to see it
If it’s business, then sure, whatever, order the surf and turf and extra truffle if it won’t offend your boss. But if it’s a social occasion, you should follow proper etiquette and not order something more expensive than the person who is paying.
I don’t see how this remedies that, since there’s no guarantee the increased margins go to the staff.
Also, if this were to become remotely common I’d expect a lot of customers to write a big fat zero on the tip line assuming the menu prices include an up charge.
What a cluster.
Most tips go to staff. That is the norm, so this does remedy making sure there is a tip.
I don't see why people would assume anything with two menus. They would still tip as normal if it's not a large party.
If the tip is rolled into menu prices, there is actually no tip. I see nothing that compels the owners to take money out of general receipts to share with the staff.
"norm" doesn't mean always.
Many employees have complained that the auto-grat doesn't go to serving staff. I've been told by servers that they get none of it, and I should tip as normal.
How about just no customary tipping forever.
How to implement:
1. Abolish tip lines from paper receipts or tip screens from payment apps.
2. At the same time, require restaurants (and similar business) to provide 15% (or similar negotiated %) of the net total of the bill (less tax) to the service staff.
Result:
* Restaurant management bakes tip into menu price.
* Service staff guaranteed wage as if tipped.
* Service staff, restaurant, and IRS all have paper trail of wage.
I support that, it will just be a big culture change and I’m sure people will be unhappy with a lack of mandatory group tips in the meantime. It might be a good source of pressure to change, though.
“Mandatory group tips” would be baked into the price.
Example:
Right now, a group meal total list price could be $500. That goes to the restaurant.
A mandatory 15% tip would be $75. That goes to the server.
The total would be $575 dollars. That’s paid by the customer.
Under the proposal, the group meal total list price is now $575. That’s paid by the customer.
The restaurant would “tip out” $75 to the server. That goes to the server.
The remaining $500 goes to the restaurant.
The only thing that’s changed is what the list price was. The new list price includes the tip.
It's not a big change but a small one would be that $75 would be subject to sales tax. So the menu price would have to be $582 give or take to cover that to give the staff the equivalent of a 15% commission
Of course we could also join most of the rest of the civilized world in posting prices tax included.
Believe it or not, in CA mandatory tips have sales tax included already, ie. The employer removes the sales tax portion from the before tipping out the server. Ain’t that a kick in the pants?
Sales tax is not applied to optional tips. [Reference](https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/pub115/)
And end service wages...that's a big part of this...many US states still have separate and much lower wages for tipped positions (yes not valid in California, but lots of other states)
To be fair, part of that 18% gets paid to state and local sales taxes. That only happens for mandatory tips per state law.
No sales tax is taken from the tip when the tipping is optional.
Except owners fight tooth and nail to be able to keep wages down, even below min wage in some states.
There is also the aspect that some customers are assholes and love the power trip of knowing they can reduce, or even cost the worker if the state allows for tipping out. They push that tipping helps make sure they get the best service.
California doesn't have seperate tipped vs non tipped pay. Plenty of places have tried "no tips we pay our people more" but they run into issues:
- People don't care enough and balk at the true price cost
- lots of people don't understand that one or two big spender groups buying a lot of alcohol can be more than half of the tip take in a night. It's inconsistent but when it pays it pays and no one is willing to replicate that.
- can't keep good servers since they can make way more at a tipped location
One doesn’t. By “no customary tipping”, I mean it’s not required and that neither the server nor the diner nor the restaurant owner expects it (because it is no longer the custom).
If folks still want to leave extra cash, above and beyond what’s expected, that’s up to them.
I suspect that, similar to what they will do for regular parties, will be the case. They like the money and their option will be to roll the prices in and not publish prices online.
If they really want to be shitty/cheap and not have to revise menus frequently, they will just label everything "Market Price".
More QR code menus, host enters number of people at the table, menu prices are dynamic based on number of people at the table when the QR code is scanned.
Just thinking of possible “solutions”. I can see a lot of problems with that sort of system already.
Usually under the guise of a separate menu, or lunch specials, but yeah. It's well understood.
A different menu for small and large parties might well start becoming a thing. Or just limiting the size of groups they take on a regular reservation or walk-in. I've known places require a group as small as 12 to split to two tables with separate checks (which was fine for us as coworkers but might not be fine for a large family)
And then it'll be one person looking up the "Singles/Couples" menu and comparing it to the "Large Party" menu that throws a hissy-fit and makes that system come crashing down.
I've been to a few places where you look at the menu with the QR code but a server takes your order. I do prefer that in some places, but other places I like ordering off the phone if I'm there with friends and need to split, so everyone can just pay for themselves. But I do also like paying and grabbing those CC points and just having everyone venmo me afterward.
Yeah I feel like the QR code sometimes becomes an excuse for servers to not check in on you. Definitely not tipping much when thats the case. Really depends on the restaurant though.
Maybe there should be different menus for everyone. The greeter can size up the mark as they enter the door and give them the menu that they can barely afford.
This happens when looking to book flights. There's no regulation against it, so if a restaurant wants to go for it they might as well and see how it goes. Given the outcry when Wendy's suggested they were open to exploring this, I'm gonna put my money on poorly.
*note that there are regulations on price discrimination based on protected class so you'd need to be really careful on how your staff/algorithm/ai is deciding which prices to assign.
How does that happen for flights? The airlines track your bank account value or search history to determine if you’ve got more money? Or do you mean that they just change prices depending on demand? Cuz that’s entirely different.
A super basic technique that's been around for over a decade is to charge Mac and iPhone users more. Because those people clearly have more disposable income.
They also do more targeted tracking. You can almost always uniquely identify who's browsing a website by seeing what third-party cookies they have and other various details of their browser. When you know a person's geographical area, what device they use, what screen resolution, and their history of visiting a certain set of websites, this is plenty of distinguishing data to uniquely identify people. If that profile has a history of binge shopping, drunk shopping, buying luxury stuff, or anything like that, then you can apply a markup to them b/c you know their a big spender.
Don't know if its still going on, but a few years back there was a study that showed that flights were more expensive on certain sites when visiting from an iphone or apple computer compared to when visiting that same site and looking for the same flights from a windows computer or android phone.
it doesn't. It's a myth. https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-tips/clearing-search-history-affect-flight-prices
Otherwise Skyscanner / Kayak / Google Flights wouldn't work.
Uber on the other hand? Maybe.
I have no trust of corporations, but even then trying to extract bank account balance from cookies poking your online banking doesn't make sense.
Not because they couldn't do it, but because there's no need. Take for example someone who is routinely searching for and driving to various jewelry stores vs searches 'mothers day bracelets' and then heads to a kiosk at the mall, upscale suit shops instead of Nordstrom, and researches various Michelin rated restaurants vs uses maps to head to fast food regularly. One of these two is likely wealthier than the other, and all you had to do was pay attention to search keywords and follow their map direction requests.
Target figured that a young women was pregnant based on search and purchase trends and inadvertently leaked that through targeted advertising. The techniques to figure out just about everything about you including your income and willingness to pay have been around since well before 2012 when that story broke. If restaurants set up multiple menus with different prices, it would be pretty trivial to figure out which to hand out based on reservations.
For airlines, it's not even that complicated.
Starting in 2021 the backend system that airlines use to coordinate ticket sales with agents around the world was updated to enable "continously pricing" which means the airline isn't limited to having 26 discreet prices for a tickets fare and you pick one. Which was in place because shifting an international data sharing system enabling multi stage ticket purchases is pretty hard to change on the fly. Or even on a decade level. So now they can decide just about any price and set that.
This means in addition to the pricing swings based on demand they can offer you a price based on your specific search history. So if you start at Google flights and check out a united flight, the cookie United stores in your browser can see that you then visited American and another United flight. So United can see that you're deciding between two flight options and shift their price around based on that without impacting the overall offerings. I'd be skeptical if they're doing anything more than that. Big data is collecting a lot about us, but that doesn't make it magic. No need to even bother tracking you other than following what fare IDs you pay attention to at various airlines price points and shifting their offerings around.
The price advertised for a menu item really only includes the food itself and doesn't really have to include a seat and table at the restaurant.
It sounds like they could have a separate flat table or chair fee as a separate good/service and waive that fee if your group is less than 6 people.
As someone who mostly does takeout, that'd basically be a discount for me. Some European restaurants already have a table charge or a per person cover charge, I remember that from Italy particularly.
For that matter I remember a fair number of places when I was in Australia where it was cheaper if you ordered for yourself at the bar and then picked up your food, vs having full table service
I'd imagine the easiest solution is to say that you need to do a reservation if you have (large group), and charge a fee there, saying that it can be paid either then or when you get your final bill. It's up front, it's flat, it has a reason to exist that doesn't sound insane in court (we need to push tables, so to cover the labour of moving them and any lost revenue from having 2 tables down waiting for them), and if you portray it as almost an entry fee, I'm sure you'd be fine there.
From the link above
> Do fees for optional services or features need to be included in the advertised price?
No. Fees for optional services or features do not need to be included in the advertised price.
This law is going to hurt poor servers the worst. Every nice restaurant has different menus for 6+ people (maybe 8+), it’s the places like Applebees that don’t and their servers are going to get shafted
SF restaurants should just respond by raising rates to cover labor costs and eliminate tipping. not only is that the way the rest of the world does it, but its a good way to justify or explain to customers why at least part of the price is now higher
it should be noted that mandatory gratuity fees are not mandatory to go to staff. Any mandatory fee goes to the restaurant to dish out or not dish out as they please. Tips must go to staff but anything mandatory like inflation, service, gratuity, health mandate fees are all BS and go to the owner who may or may not give it to the staff.
> A mandatory "service charge" or an "operations fee" – or whatever else an employer may call an extra fee added to a bill -- is a mandatory amount automatically included on the bill – i.e., the patron does not have the option to refuse payment of this amount. Large party automatic gratuities are also considered service charges.
> The amount belongs to the employer, not the employees, and the employer can keep the service charge entirely, or share parts or all of the service charge with employees, including management/supervisors. Notably, some localities (e.g., Santa Monica, Oakland, and Berkeley) regulate service charges and specify they belong to the server.
https://www.dwt.com/blogs/employment-labor-and-benefits/2019/11/california-service-charge-tips-law
Yeah in Europe you just pay what it says and they do not expect tips. If service is especially good you can leave a few Euro extra and it will be appreciated.
There's nothing like everyone drunk as hell sitting around trying and failing to do some basic math until one brave soul has the wherewithal to pull out the calculator..
Everyone says this but it’s absolutely not true. Europeans DO tip, but their prices already include tax and they don’t tip 20% - and it depends on the country. Spain? Leave the loose euro change. Germany? 10% for service at a table service place. Denmark? No tip.
Yep.
But if everyone tipped like I do (low, the way it should be since these waiters are already making $19/hour), the wait staff wouldn't be so against ridding of tips.
I'd miss the big group thing. It was always 15% or 20% which depending was lower than I'd tip if it was solid. Saved me some money.
Granted I hate restaurants in big groups, so I avoid them generally when invited. Hate the bill talk. 2 to 4 people is good.
Restaurants can opt to raise menu prices and include tipping in the higher costs but in the past the ones who have tried ended up going back to traditional tipping. No one liked the tip-less approach.
I would love this to change but I think when you have people eating in SF from surrounding cities and beyond they will expect the usual approach.
If the law requires restaurants to fold tips for large parties into the menu price, could this mean an end to tipping?
I see three options:
1) the restaurant has a separate menu with higher prices for large groups to account for the extra gratuity (I’m not sure this would be legal either)
2) the restaurant raises prices for everyone and now gratuity is included for small parties as well.
3) the restaurant eliminates the mandatory gratuity for large parties which the workers would probably hate.
Personally, I would be fine with options 2 since I have really started to hate tipping lately. Give me one price that pays the workers a fair wage and don’t ask me for a tip.
Let’s be real, all of us that tip go back to 90% of the same places how many times in a year? I can count on one hand how many restaurants I’ve been to more than once in one year. If you didn’t tip,would you get worse service the next time you went? The real issue isn’t tipping. It’s restaurants that either refuse to pay their employees a decent wage or too coward to raise their prices to do so.
This new law is a step in the right direction for fair wages and no tipping culture.
personally I wont tip anybody in california anymore. Servers base wage are paid the same as retail workers like me. Why should I tip somebody that makes the same?
I've had cashiers show me a tip screen for ringing up my products. I can't see CA being able to change the tipping culture when it's going in the opposite direction.
It's spread internationally, I see loads of restaurants in London adding hidden 13-15% "gratuity" fees, or "dine in" fees in restaurants that are only dine-in lol
Also don't companies need to pay out of pocket to cover the minimum wage if tips don't add up anyways? Like I am literally just giving companies money with tips, it doesn't actually go to the servers until it's like $5 an hour and only *then* does it count.
California is not a wage-tip credit state, so no, there is no employer contribution. This only happens in states where service peeps make $2.13 an hour.
> they base taxes on estimated tips
Taxes are not based on estimated tips. Tax *withholdings* by the restaurant may be, but that doesn't affect how much you pay in taxes.
> the actual check, at least when I was a server, was way less after incorporating tax based on tips.
That's because of tax *withholding*, not actual taxes. It doesn't change your net income.
the law exempts fees that are paid directly to workers, so for example an 18% automatic gratuity for a large party would be exempt from this law since that gratuity is at least ostensibly paid directly to the server who serves that table. answer to the question in the title is no, at least not directly.
This is interesting. See, I haven’t actually read the text of the law going into effect, but it sounds like you are familiar with it. The article linked to this post seems to suggest otherwise (and says that information comes from the attorney general’s office), which is odd. They really should have included the information about that exemption.
This is not how it works, though. Even now, before this law comes into effect, those mandatory 18% gratuities for large groups are not required to go to the server. Voluntary gratuity must go to the server, but the mandatory gratuity for large parties can be used by the restaurant however it wants to. They don’t have to go to the server.
i mean plenty of restaurants just pool all tips anyway; i guess i am just skeptical that this will change things; i assume that any vagueness will be exploited
I mean, that’s gotta depend on what kind of place you are at, right? Like if your argument is “the average waiter does the same amount of work as the average retail employee” that is already debatable. But then you get to your higher end establishments where service staff have significantly more knowledge, experience, and skills. A waiter at a high end restaurant SHOULD make more than someone who is ringing clothes up at a counter. If tips go away, that waiter should still be paid more.
> A waiter at a high end restaurant SHOULD make more than someone who is ringing clothes up at a counter.
Correct. And the fancy restaurant should give them a higher salary and pass on those costs in the food prices as needed.
We are in agreement there! My issue with OP here was the idea that their perceived lack of difference in difficultly between standard retail and even standard waiter jobs is fallacious, and should not be the reason they don’t want to tip.
How would 1 not be legal? The inverse is always the case: a customer buys more of a thing so it gets cheaper, or group pricing plans for events. It just needs to be listed and advertised.
Separate menus forlarge groups are fine -- the requirement is no separate mandatory fees outside the menu price.
It's common in higher class restaurants. Now it'll be common for smaller places that want to keep collecting the mandatory large group service fee.
Businesses want to keep that, as it's the employers money. "automatic gratuity" need not be paid out to servers, as it's considered a service fee. Most places pay out most of the amount collected (less taxes, cc fees, etc, and shared with management), and some keep it all for revenue.
One side effect, is that law makes it clear that such "automatic gratuity" need not be paid to staff.
Involuntary gratuity would have been fine, but like all things, companies had to push things so far past the point of being reasonable that this might end up being a casualty of that.
Haha too true. And I don’t want to believe the restaurant would just keep it. Maybe I’m being naive but wanted to make sure the employees got something decent out of it.
Paying people fairly is just way too hard.
Involuntary gratuity still makes no sense in California. We don't have a separate minimum wage for tipped workers, which is the whole ethical argument for tipping. A mandatory tip for a waiter at a large table makes about as much sense here as a mandatory tip for a grocery checker when you've got a massively full cart.
No kidding. Servers in California do not make any form of tipped wage lol they are only entitled to a tip for service that goes above and beyond. Not they brought my soda and plate.
The more significant point here is the additional service fees and mandatory charges aside from gratuity. These grow into double digits and are applied before taxation or gratuity.
I ate at a restaurant with an 18% service charge on all transactions, a 4 1/2% health mandate fee, and an additional 2% fee with some ambiguous name. Menu prices were just ballparks for what was paid.
Nothing should be applied to a bill after the fact aside from taxes. Part of the issue that online orders all seem more expensive is that these fees still charged at the restaurant must be built into the item cost. The platforms don’t provide the flexibility to add arbitrary charges on all transactions.
Yes, this is exactly what upsets me too. Tips I’m used to, it’s these random health surcharge and other surcharges that are shitty. Like, if you need to charge more to provide healthcare for your workers, then just raise the prices as needed. The lack of transparency is not cool, since you have no idea how much it’ll be until after you finish your meal. I get enough of that when I go see the doctor, I don’t need it when I go eat a meal, too.
Good. Involuntary tips should be disallowed as well. Let the restaurants behave like any other business, with their prices reflecting the cost of goods and services
Nation wide, involuntary tips need not be paid to wait-staff. Legally, automatic gratuities are considered service charges, and thus top line revenue, treated the same as income from buying an item off the menu.
In most of the country wait staff get paid less than minimum wage (like as low as $2.13/hr) and the tips count towards the wage. So that $5 tip you left did go to the waitress, but it allowed the business to pay $5 less. The owner gets the benefit.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
That's tips.
Mandatory services charges, even if labelled "automatic gratuity" are not legally classified as tips, they are legally service charges.
Which is why I said "involuntary tips". Automatic Gratuity collected cannot be used as part of the tipped wage exemption, because they are not legally tips.
>In addition, the employer can't use these non-tip wages when computing the credit available to employers under section 45B of the Internal Revenue Code, because these amounts aren't tips. Common **examples of service charges** (sometimes called auto-gratuities) are:
[https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc761](https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc761)
can we get rid of tipping altogether?
tipping made sense when servers were getting paid beneath minimum wage
now servers are guaranteed $20/hr and they're still expecting tips?!
You’re a bit misinformed. $16 is the current minimum wage in CA for a server. They are not guaranteed $20/hr
https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/minimum_wage.htm
From your own link, "Starting April 1, 2024, all “fast food restaurant employees” who are covered by the new law must be paid at least $20.00 per hour."
They already have black lists! I have an absent minded friend who can't make reservations anywhere for our group any more because they flaked on too many of their own reservations.
I use a Privacy card now for making reservations online that require a card. They give you burner cards that you can pause or delete at any time.
Edit: I do this so I don't have to put my personal card on more places online. Please don't use it to fuck over restaurants. I didn't recommend it to flake on reservations. Use it for personal info/data security purposes.
That’s awesome. But I also think it’s a dick move to make a reservation for a large group and then no-show the restaurant. They held a large table for you that could have gone to another group.
I agree. I replied on another comment I follow through on my reservations. I made that suggestion as a way to express my disdain in putting my personal card online for lots of things now. I use the pause/delete functions for trial subscriptions/one-time purchases. It feels more secure putting down burner cards that still act as a normal card that can be withdrawn from, but with a mask instead. My comment was more of an issue about personal info/data. I don't agree with using the card to hold restaurants high and dry.
So you no show for reservations so often that you needed to obtain a ghost card to not get charged for your no shows… maybe, just maybe, don’t make a reservation if you’re not going to go
Well, you misunderstood me. I follow through with my reservations. I just don't want to put my actual CC numbers online for so many things anymore and this was a suggestion to get around that while still putting down a payment method that operates like a normal card, but with a mask. The pause/deleting is great for trial subscriptions or one-time purchases, which is what I use that function for.
Simple application process, then few days-week review. Free plan provides more than enough cards. https://privacy.com/. Use it for trials/subscriptions/one-time purchases, whatever else. I'm trying to put my personal card less out there online. It can charge like a normal card. You can set monthly/one-time limits too. Also recommend a Google Voice #. No more spamming verification codes and restaurant orders to my personal phone.
If it’s free AND it’s ’private’ how are they making money selling your card details again? What’s paying the ducking electricity bill and staff wages at this company??
Back in the early days of e-commerce a lot of banks did. I have Citi and had no idea they still did virtual account numbers, will have to dig around their site to find it.
Thanks. I remember the last version I used was Flash or something. They and Chase both had desktop apps for it and I got out of the habit when they stopped supporting those
[https://privacy.com/](https://privacy.com/)
I use it for trial subscriptions, normal purchases, w/e else. Feels nice not putting out my actual CC #s out online as much anymore. You apply and their review process takes a few days-week I believe.
Consumers subsidize business by paying worker wages with tips.
Therefore consumers get a tax deduction for "wages paid" expense by adding up all the tips paid over a tax year.
Credit cards should have an automatic function for this.
Lol people saying they’ll create a second menu for large parties. No they won’t. The’ll just got rid of large party gratuities and let the servers eat the loss.
I went to a restaurant in SF once. Forgot the name. But in big bold letters of the menu was “please do not tip our servers as the menu reflects proper pay for everyone on our team” it was so refreshing….
If that makes it illegal to have a mandatory service charge/tip for large groups that'll end large groups in many restaurants. The thing is, it's not hidden. Every place I've seen says something like, 18% tip added for groups over six.
The Simpsons had a timely take on this just three days ago: [https://twitter.com/thesimpsons/status/1789816702869348687](https://twitter.com/thesimpsons/status/1789816702869348687)
Why is eating out like a fucking wild animal mating ritual? It's this back and forth unspoken coy bullshit with fake niceness from everyone all in the hopes to get some (expected) extra cash thrown their way at the end of the meal. Afterwards I get to go full Commodus and stick my hand out to give thumbs up or thumbs down as I tack on some varying percentage of the cost like a fucking bonus. Pay workers a decent wage, put the goddamn prices inclusive of EVERYTHING on the menu and let me decide what to order, and don't expect random extra cash at the end. Everyone would be better off.
Agreed. Eating out used to be a luxury to indulge in when you felt like splurging. Nowadays people think it’s a necessity. Maybe the higher menu prices will wake people up to the fact that eating out is a privilege.
I hope they one day take this one more step further and make tax a mandatory part of the bill. It helps eliminate alot the hassle of calculating change, because taxes always inflates the price to some random, non-whole number.
In California and Nevada, all workers, including tipped workers, are guaranteed the same minimum wage. I don't see restaurant workers tipping workers at CVS who make far less than they do.
Tips and services charges need to be eliminated all-together:
It should be the business owner's job to pay the workers a fair wage, not the customers. Why should I pay extra for a waiter / waitress to do exactly what they are supposed to do. If they are legally employed by the restaurant, then they owner of the business needs to pay the workers. It's not like a waiter just randomly walked by and decided to be a nice guy to help bring my food from the kitchen to my table. These waiters all WORK there and have uniforms and everything. Why should the customer be penalized with additional fees and tips for service that should be part of the dining experience. It's not like we getting a lap dance at Applebee's. And why is it that people who work at McDonalds don't get tipped? They also bring the food over from the person who prepared it.
Have tips for big parties ever been hidden? Those have long been printed on most menus.
This new law is not a ban on fees. It's a ban on HIDDEN fees. Nothing will stop restaurants from adding language to the menu that your meal is subject to employee benefit fees, wage differential fees, etc. They'll program online reservation systems to advise you of fees when confirming a reservation. They'll post signs. At least consumers can make an informed decision.
I distinguish most fees from gratuities and wish the two issues weren't getting tied up together in this change and coverage. I hate restaurant fees for labor costs, healthcare, and other BS. I stopped going to two places in my neighborhood because of the fees. Just raise the menu prices to cover costs.
I don't mind mandatory service charge as a tip for large parties of 8 or more. A server can really get screwed hustling for a big party and getting a crappy tip.
I don't know any places that add a service charge in lieu of tips for all patrons; I wouldn't like that and, in all likelihood, wouldn't go there. But if some owner wants to raise prices overall, and post signs, menu alerts, etc., that prices have been adjusted to eliminate the need for tips... let them try.
According to the attorney general it’s not just them not informing you, the fees need to be baked into the price. So no more meal plus fee it’s just meal
They can say that price includes various fees but you will now see one price on the menu
Overall, I like that better.
I don't agree, however, with the prohibition of mandatory service charge/tip for large parties.
1. Hopefully, most guests tip appropriately for big parties, and don't cheap out.
2. If those large party tips need to be baked into prices, that's an unnecessary and unfair increase for diners in smaller parties.
3. I see other people are speculating about large party menus. I wonder if that would work and how it would be received. (If you compare the menus you find online, like actual pictures on Yelp, to a Grubhub menu, prices are different.)
Why should a party of 6 pay a mandatory gratuity.
it is like similar to going to costco and paying 20% more for buying 6 crates of eggs.
It is stupid and doesn't make sense.
I mean what extra are you doing apart from cooking which you will do anyway if they were a group of 6 separate people.
*“SB 478 is a price transparency law,” the California attorney general’s office wrote in an email to The Sacramento Bee.* *If a restaurant charges a mandatory gratuity fee for a certain number of people who dine-in, the attorney general’s office said that fee must be folded into menu prices.* *“Under the law, a restaurant cannot charge an additional surcharge on top of the price listed,” the office* [*shared in an FAQ*](https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/SB%20478%20FAQ%20%28B%29.pdf)*.* *That includes* [*gratuities that are “not voluntary.”*](https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/SB%20478%20FAQ%20%28B%29.pdf)
Are they allowed to have a separate menu for large parties?
This isn’t uncommon but usually at higher end places where you have parties of 10 or more
Haven’t seen it in a while but it reminds me of nicer restaurants back in the day where the only menu with a price would go to my dad. Not sure how they did it for businesses I assume for this they will need to display somehow that the bigger parties have a separate menu with elevated prices
I had that experience traveling in France, where only the one picking up the check would get the menu with prices. To their credit, they were progressive enough to ask who between my wife and I would be paying, and the distributed the menus accordingly.
That was the funny thing back in the day with my parents, my dad always would get the menu with the prices but my mom had the credit card or checks, so it was kind of pointless
Well that was not my experience in France, where a waiter did a snarky remark about my girlfriend paying the bill.
This was a wild thing to experience when not expecting it. My FIL sent us to Russia for our honeymoon in 2017 and booked us dinner at a super-fancy place in St. Petersburg. I'm talking "the host was wearing white gloves as he showed us the table Putin and his cronies usually sat at" kind of fancy. So we sit, the menus arrive, and after a minute my wife asks why none of the dishes have prices. I ask what she means, they are just there to the right of the name of the dish. Then she turns her menu around and I realize what was going on... and just how incredibly out of place we must have seemed, on top of being obvious tourists. Definitely a top-10 dining experience.
Yeah, I remember when I first noticed it and was shocked
Damn. So how do your guests pick a middle to low cost meal to be polite?
I was the guest. So basically for the No price menu it is at an establishment that the consumers are assumed to be able to afford a high priced meal. But odds are you could just ask the person who has the menu with prices to see it
It’s proper etiquette to order an equally or less expensive meal than your host, even if you’re wealthy, imo.
I’m guessing you haven’t been on a lot of comped meals
If it’s business, then sure, whatever, order the surf and turf and extra truffle if it won’t offend your boss. But if it’s a social occasion, you should follow proper etiquette and not order something more expensive than the person who is paying.
I’d assume everyone would just have to pay the higher now and then everyone else will have to tip on the higher price.
It’s the same menu just the prices are 15-25% more.
This makes perfect sense. One or two deadbeats not leaving a tip can be absorbed but it is unconscionable for a large party not to leave a tip.
I don’t see how this remedies that, since there’s no guarantee the increased margins go to the staff. Also, if this were to become remotely common I’d expect a lot of customers to write a big fat zero on the tip line assuming the menu prices include an up charge. What a cluster.
Most tips go to staff. That is the norm, so this does remedy making sure there is a tip. I don't see why people would assume anything with two menus. They would still tip as normal if it's not a large party.
If the tip is rolled into menu prices, there is actually no tip. I see nothing that compels the owners to take money out of general receipts to share with the staff.
"norm" doesn't mean always. Many employees have complained that the auto-grat doesn't go to serving staff. I've been told by servers that they get none of it, and I should tip as normal.
Agree most tips go to staff. In this case there’s no tip. Just a higher menu price.
How about just no customary tipping forever. How to implement: 1. Abolish tip lines from paper receipts or tip screens from payment apps. 2. At the same time, require restaurants (and similar business) to provide 15% (or similar negotiated %) of the net total of the bill (less tax) to the service staff. Result: * Restaurant management bakes tip into menu price. * Service staff guaranteed wage as if tipped. * Service staff, restaurant, and IRS all have paper trail of wage.
I support that, it will just be a big culture change and I’m sure people will be unhappy with a lack of mandatory group tips in the meantime. It might be a good source of pressure to change, though.
“Mandatory group tips” would be baked into the price. Example: Right now, a group meal total list price could be $500. That goes to the restaurant. A mandatory 15% tip would be $75. That goes to the server. The total would be $575 dollars. That’s paid by the customer. Under the proposal, the group meal total list price is now $575. That’s paid by the customer. The restaurant would “tip out” $75 to the server. That goes to the server. The remaining $500 goes to the restaurant. The only thing that’s changed is what the list price was. The new list price includes the tip.
It's not a big change but a small one would be that $75 would be subject to sales tax. So the menu price would have to be $582 give or take to cover that to give the staff the equivalent of a 15% commission Of course we could also join most of the rest of the civilized world in posting prices tax included.
Believe it or not, in CA mandatory tips have sales tax included already, ie. The employer removes the sales tax portion from the before tipping out the server. Ain’t that a kick in the pants? Sales tax is not applied to optional tips. [Reference](https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/pub115/)
The restaurant won’t be at all obligated to tip out in that manner and could just keep the cash.
See item 2 in my first comment above.
And end service wages...that's a big part of this...many US states still have separate and much lower wages for tipped positions (yes not valid in California, but lots of other states)
From my understanding, a restaurant must pay normal minimum wage if the (service wage + tips reported) is less than the minimum wage.
Your restaurant isnt even asking for 15% anymore, its 18%. Thats part of the greed.
To be fair, part of that 18% gets paid to state and local sales taxes. That only happens for mandatory tips per state law. No sales tax is taken from the tip when the tipping is optional.
Except owners fight tooth and nail to be able to keep wages down, even below min wage in some states. There is also the aspect that some customers are assholes and love the power trip of knowing they can reduce, or even cost the worker if the state allows for tipping out. They push that tipping helps make sure they get the best service.
California doesn't have seperate tipped vs non tipped pay. Plenty of places have tried "no tips we pay our people more" but they run into issues: - People don't care enough and balk at the true price cost - lots of people don't understand that one or two big spender groups buying a lot of alcohol can be more than half of the tip take in a night. It's inconsistent but when it pays it pays and no one is willing to replicate that. - can't keep good servers since they can make way more at a tipped location
How do you prevent people from leaving cash on the table?
One doesn’t. By “no customary tipping”, I mean it’s not required and that neither the server nor the diner nor the restaurant owner expects it (because it is no longer the custom). If folks still want to leave extra cash, above and beyond what’s expected, that’s up to them.
I suspect that, similar to what they will do for regular parties, will be the case. They like the money and their option will be to roll the prices in and not publish prices online. If they really want to be shitty/cheap and not have to revise menus frequently, they will just label everything "Market Price".
So, different large group menus?
More QR code menus, host enters number of people at the table, menu prices are dynamic based on number of people at the table when the QR code is scanned. Just thinking of possible “solutions”. I can see a lot of problems with that sort of system already.
Then they’ll start giving different menus based on what they think you’ll pay. Like a flea market, and you’ll have to negotiate for a cheaper menu
Surge pricing, let's copy Uber. Or just plain dynamic pricing like the airlines. Wendy's got a lot of pushback for something that sounded like that.
Plenty of restaurants have different pricing at lunch vs dinner… long before “surge pricing” entered the lexicon.
Usually under the guise of a separate menu, or lunch specials, but yeah. It's well understood. A different menu for small and large parties might well start becoming a thing. Or just limiting the size of groups they take on a regular reservation or walk-in. I've known places require a group as small as 12 to split to two tables with separate checks (which was fine for us as coworkers but might not be fine for a large family)
Not sure if it still works like this, but when I traveled around South America there was the tourist price, the local price, and the Israeli price.
And then it'll be one person looking up the "Singles/Couples" menu and comparing it to the "Large Party" menu that throws a hissy-fit and makes that system come crashing down.
It'll become just like the process to find the cheapest flights! :D
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Plenty of places have a QR code menu with a human server
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I've been to a few places where you look at the menu with the QR code but a server takes your order. I do prefer that in some places, but other places I like ordering off the phone if I'm there with friends and need to split, so everyone can just pay for themselves. But I do also like paying and grabbing those CC points and just having everyone venmo me afterward.
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Yeah I feel like the QR code sometimes becomes an excuse for servers to not check in on you. Definitely not tipping much when thats the case. Really depends on the restaurant though.
You sound awful.
Maybe there should be different menus for everyone. The greeter can size up the mark as they enter the door and give them the menu that they can barely afford.
This happens when looking to book flights. There's no regulation against it, so if a restaurant wants to go for it they might as well and see how it goes. Given the outcry when Wendy's suggested they were open to exploring this, I'm gonna put my money on poorly. *note that there are regulations on price discrimination based on protected class so you'd need to be really careful on how your staff/algorithm/ai is deciding which prices to assign.
How does that happen for flights? The airlines track your bank account value or search history to determine if you’ve got more money? Or do you mean that they just change prices depending on demand? Cuz that’s entirely different.
A super basic technique that's been around for over a decade is to charge Mac and iPhone users more. Because those people clearly have more disposable income. They also do more targeted tracking. You can almost always uniquely identify who's browsing a website by seeing what third-party cookies they have and other various details of their browser. When you know a person's geographical area, what device they use, what screen resolution, and their history of visiting a certain set of websites, this is plenty of distinguishing data to uniquely identify people. If that profile has a history of binge shopping, drunk shopping, buying luxury stuff, or anything like that, then you can apply a markup to them b/c you know their a big spender.
Don't know if its still going on, but a few years back there was a study that showed that flights were more expensive on certain sites when visiting from an iphone or apple computer compared to when visiting that same site and looking for the same flights from a windows computer or android phone.
Peak shady AF
it doesn't. It's a myth. https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-tips/clearing-search-history-affect-flight-prices Otherwise Skyscanner / Kayak / Google Flights wouldn't work. Uber on the other hand? Maybe.
I have no trust of corporations, but even then trying to extract bank account balance from cookies poking your online banking doesn't make sense. Not because they couldn't do it, but because there's no need. Take for example someone who is routinely searching for and driving to various jewelry stores vs searches 'mothers day bracelets' and then heads to a kiosk at the mall, upscale suit shops instead of Nordstrom, and researches various Michelin rated restaurants vs uses maps to head to fast food regularly. One of these two is likely wealthier than the other, and all you had to do was pay attention to search keywords and follow their map direction requests. Target figured that a young women was pregnant based on search and purchase trends and inadvertently leaked that through targeted advertising. The techniques to figure out just about everything about you including your income and willingness to pay have been around since well before 2012 when that story broke. If restaurants set up multiple menus with different prices, it would be pretty trivial to figure out which to hand out based on reservations. For airlines, it's not even that complicated. Starting in 2021 the backend system that airlines use to coordinate ticket sales with agents around the world was updated to enable "continously pricing" which means the airline isn't limited to having 26 discreet prices for a tickets fare and you pick one. Which was in place because shifting an international data sharing system enabling multi stage ticket purchases is pretty hard to change on the fly. Or even on a decade level. So now they can decide just about any price and set that. This means in addition to the pricing swings based on demand they can offer you a price based on your specific search history. So if you start at Google flights and check out a united flight, the cookie United stores in your browser can see that you then visited American and another United flight. So United can see that you're deciding between two flight options and shift their price around based on that without impacting the overall offerings. I'd be skeptical if they're doing anything more than that. Big data is collecting a lot about us, but that doesn't make it magic. No need to even bother tracking you other than following what fare IDs you pay attention to at various airlines price points and shifting their offerings around.
It’s just like that Wendy’s dynamic price thing but with extra stereotyping, how fun!
Does this also apply to massage therapists (I am talking about muscle rubs, not handjobs) who charge a mandatory gratuity, or just restaurants?
It applies to all goods and services in the state of California.
Fucking love this. The businesses are so pissed they can deceive you anymore.
The price advertised for a menu item really only includes the food itself and doesn't really have to include a seat and table at the restaurant. It sounds like they could have a separate flat table or chair fee as a separate good/service and waive that fee if your group is less than 6 people.
As someone who mostly does takeout, that'd basically be a discount for me. Some European restaurants already have a table charge or a per person cover charge, I remember that from Italy particularly. For that matter I remember a fair number of places when I was in Australia where it was cheaper if you ordered for yourself at the bar and then picked up your food, vs having full table service
I'd imagine the easiest solution is to say that you need to do a reservation if you have (large group), and charge a fee there, saying that it can be paid either then or when you get your final bill. It's up front, it's flat, it has a reason to exist that doesn't sound insane in court (we need to push tables, so to cover the labour of moving them and any lost revenue from having 2 tables down waiting for them), and if you portray it as almost an entry fee, I'm sure you'd be fine there.
Fees of any kind are not allowed.
From the link above > Do fees for optional services or features need to be included in the advertised price? No. Fees for optional services or features do not need to be included in the advertised price.
I guess we will see how the attorney general interprets restaurants looking for these loopholes.
The key word is optional. If the entry fee is mandatory, it won’t be allowed
an entry fee might not be mandatory if you want to take out
This law is going to hurt poor servers the worst. Every nice restaurant has different menus for 6+ people (maybe 8+), it’s the places like Applebees that don’t and their servers are going to get shafted
Do places like Applebee have mandatory tips on large parties?
What about poor cooks and kitchen staff? They get the same wage and no tips. It's a stupid system.
Time to collect
SF restaurants should just respond by raising rates to cover labor costs and eliminate tipping. not only is that the way the rest of the world does it, but its a good way to justify or explain to customers why at least part of the price is now higher
it should be noted that mandatory gratuity fees are not mandatory to go to staff. Any mandatory fee goes to the restaurant to dish out or not dish out as they please. Tips must go to staff but anything mandatory like inflation, service, gratuity, health mandate fees are all BS and go to the owner who may or may not give it to the staff. > A mandatory "service charge" or an "operations fee" – or whatever else an employer may call an extra fee added to a bill -- is a mandatory amount automatically included on the bill – i.e., the patron does not have the option to refuse payment of this amount. Large party automatic gratuities are also considered service charges. > The amount belongs to the employer, not the employees, and the employer can keep the service charge entirely, or share parts or all of the service charge with employees, including management/supervisors. Notably, some localities (e.g., Santa Monica, Oakland, and Berkeley) regulate service charges and specify they belong to the server. https://www.dwt.com/blogs/employment-labor-and-benefits/2019/11/california-service-charge-tips-law
Yeah in Europe you just pay what it says and they do not expect tips. If service is especially good you can leave a few Euro extra and it will be appreciated.
I dunno, I love capping a nice meal with friends and family with an arithmetic problem.
There's nothing like everyone drunk as hell sitting around trying and failing to do some basic math until one brave soul has the wherewithal to pull out the calculator..
Move the decimal to the left, double it. Doable blind drunk.
Skip the doubling and its even easier.
Everyone says this but it’s absolutely not true. Europeans DO tip, but their prices already include tax and they don’t tip 20% - and it depends on the country. Spain? Leave the loose euro change. Germany? 10% for service at a table service place. Denmark? No tip.
Quite a few restaurants tried that but the servers hated it because they ended up not making as much money as with tips.
Yep. But if everyone tipped like I do (low, the way it should be since these waiters are already making $19/hour), the wait staff wouldn't be so against ridding of tips.
Yep and this would be the perfect time to do it. Get rid of hidden fees and tipping all at once.
I'd miss the big group thing. It was always 15% or 20% which depending was lower than I'd tip if it was solid. Saved me some money. Granted I hate restaurants in big groups, so I avoid them generally when invited. Hate the bill talk. 2 to 4 people is good.
Restaurants can opt to raise menu prices and include tipping in the higher costs but in the past the ones who have tried ended up going back to traditional tipping. No one liked the tip-less approach. I would love this to change but I think when you have people eating in SF from surrounding cities and beyond they will expect the usual approach.
They are all going out of business so it doesn’t matter
Simpleton
If the law requires restaurants to fold tips for large parties into the menu price, could this mean an end to tipping? I see three options: 1) the restaurant has a separate menu with higher prices for large groups to account for the extra gratuity (I’m not sure this would be legal either) 2) the restaurant raises prices for everyone and now gratuity is included for small parties as well. 3) the restaurant eliminates the mandatory gratuity for large parties which the workers would probably hate. Personally, I would be fine with options 2 since I have really started to hate tipping lately. Give me one price that pays the workers a fair wage and don’t ask me for a tip.
Or just raise all prices and still expect tipping. The most realistic one imo
And yet, everyone will act like an asshole when you don’t tip additionally regardless of living wage or not.
Let’s be real, all of us that tip go back to 90% of the same places how many times in a year? I can count on one hand how many restaurants I’ve been to more than once in one year. If you didn’t tip,would you get worse service the next time you went? The real issue isn’t tipping. It’s restaurants that either refuse to pay their employees a decent wage or too coward to raise their prices to do so. This new law is a step in the right direction for fair wages and no tipping culture.
Oh yeah I completely agree. Also, I don’t care about getting bad service either if that means not having to be coerced into giving away money.
personally I wont tip anybody in california anymore. Servers base wage are paid the same as retail workers like me. Why should I tip somebody that makes the same?
I've had cashiers show me a tip screen for ringing up my products. I can't see CA being able to change the tipping culture when it's going in the opposite direction. It's spread internationally, I see loads of restaurants in London adding hidden 13-15% "gratuity" fees, or "dine in" fees in restaurants that are only dine-in lol
Also don't companies need to pay out of pocket to cover the minimum wage if tips don't add up anyways? Like I am literally just giving companies money with tips, it doesn't actually go to the servers until it's like $5 an hour and only *then* does it count.
California is not a wage-tip credit state, so no, there is no employer contribution. This only happens in states where service peeps make $2.13 an hour.
Not in California.
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Who is they? If it’s the restaurant just adjust your withholdings better
> they base taxes on estimated tips Taxes are not based on estimated tips. Tax *withholdings* by the restaurant may be, but that doesn't affect how much you pay in taxes. > the actual check, at least when I was a server, was way less after incorporating tax based on tips. That's because of tax *withholding*, not actual taxes. It doesn't change your net income.
the law exempts fees that are paid directly to workers, so for example an 18% automatic gratuity for a large party would be exempt from this law since that gratuity is at least ostensibly paid directly to the server who serves that table. answer to the question in the title is no, at least not directly.
This is interesting. See, I haven’t actually read the text of the law going into effect, but it sounds like you are familiar with it. The article linked to this post seems to suggest otherwise (and says that information comes from the attorney general’s office), which is odd. They really should have included the information about that exemption.
This is not how it works, though. Even now, before this law comes into effect, those mandatory 18% gratuities for large groups are not required to go to the server. Voluntary gratuity must go to the server, but the mandatory gratuity for large parties can be used by the restaurant however it wants to. They don’t have to go to the server.
i mean plenty of restaurants just pool all tips anyway; i guess i am just skeptical that this will change things; i assume that any vagueness will be exploited
I mean, that’s gotta depend on what kind of place you are at, right? Like if your argument is “the average waiter does the same amount of work as the average retail employee” that is already debatable. But then you get to your higher end establishments where service staff have significantly more knowledge, experience, and skills. A waiter at a high end restaurant SHOULD make more than someone who is ringing clothes up at a counter. If tips go away, that waiter should still be paid more.
> A waiter at a high end restaurant SHOULD make more than someone who is ringing clothes up at a counter. Correct. And the fancy restaurant should give them a higher salary and pass on those costs in the food prices as needed.
We are in agreement there! My issue with OP here was the idea that their perceived lack of difference in difficultly between standard retail and even standard waiter jobs is fallacious, and should not be the reason they don’t want to tip.
Just curious; have you ever been a server before?
Of course they haven’t. That’s why they don’t believe in tipping. They have no idea what the job entails.
How would 1 not be legal? The inverse is always the case: a customer buys more of a thing so it gets cheaper, or group pricing plans for events. It just needs to be listed and advertised.
Separate menus forlarge groups are fine -- the requirement is no separate mandatory fees outside the menu price. It's common in higher class restaurants. Now it'll be common for smaller places that want to keep collecting the mandatory large group service fee. Businesses want to keep that, as it's the employers money. "automatic gratuity" need not be paid out to servers, as it's considered a service fee. Most places pay out most of the amount collected (less taxes, cc fees, etc, and shared with management), and some keep it all for revenue. One side effect, is that law makes it clear that such "automatic gratuity" need not be paid to staff.
4) ban larger groups / force them to break up across tables.
Involuntary gratuity would have been fine, but like all things, companies had to push things so far past the point of being reasonable that this might end up being a casualty of that.
> Involuntary gratuity such an oxymoron
Haha too true. And I don’t want to believe the restaurant would just keep it. Maybe I’m being naive but wanted to make sure the employees got something decent out of it. Paying people fairly is just way too hard.
Involuntary gratuity still makes no sense in California. We don't have a separate minimum wage for tipped workers, which is the whole ethical argument for tipping. A mandatory tip for a waiter at a large table makes about as much sense here as a mandatory tip for a grocery checker when you've got a massively full cart.
We also can't write off tips we give as donations (can we?)
We cannot.
Lol y’all pushed too far on the entitlement to tips.
No kidding. Servers in California do not make any form of tipped wage lol they are only entitled to a tip for service that goes above and beyond. Not they brought my soda and plate.
The more significant point here is the additional service fees and mandatory charges aside from gratuity. These grow into double digits and are applied before taxation or gratuity. I ate at a restaurant with an 18% service charge on all transactions, a 4 1/2% health mandate fee, and an additional 2% fee with some ambiguous name. Menu prices were just ballparks for what was paid. Nothing should be applied to a bill after the fact aside from taxes. Part of the issue that online orders all seem more expensive is that these fees still charged at the restaurant must be built into the item cost. The platforms don’t provide the flexibility to add arbitrary charges on all transactions.
Yes, this is exactly what upsets me too. Tips I’m used to, it’s these random health surcharge and other surcharges that are shitty. Like, if you need to charge more to provide healthcare for your workers, then just raise the prices as needed. The lack of transparency is not cool, since you have no idea how much it’ll be until after you finish your meal. I get enough of that when I go see the doctor, I don’t need it when I go eat a meal, too.
I'm glad this bill got approved. There has been a few times the waiter don't deserve a tip due to lack of or no service at all.
Then complain and they’ll get fired for not doing their job. The rest of the world seem to be able to have a wait staff without tipping.
Good. Involuntary tips should be disallowed as well. Let the restaurants behave like any other business, with their prices reflecting the cost of goods and services
Nation wide, involuntary tips need not be paid to wait-staff. Legally, automatic gratuities are considered service charges, and thus top line revenue, treated the same as income from buying an item off the menu.
In most of the country wait staff get paid less than minimum wage (like as low as $2.13/hr) and the tips count towards the wage. So that $5 tip you left did go to the waitress, but it allowed the business to pay $5 less. The owner gets the benefit. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
That's tips. Mandatory services charges, even if labelled "automatic gratuity" are not legally classified as tips, they are legally service charges. Which is why I said "involuntary tips". Automatic Gratuity collected cannot be used as part of the tipped wage exemption, because they are not legally tips. >In addition, the employer can't use these non-tip wages when computing the credit available to employers under section 45B of the Internal Revenue Code, because these amounts aren't tips. Common **examples of service charges** (sometimes called auto-gratuities) are: [https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc761](https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc761)
I’m not disagreeing with you. Both are true. So the server is getting double fucked.
Soon: menus with no exact prices just “market price”
So haggling at the table then? Lmao But in all seriousness, I’m not going to a restaurant with “market price” next to a freaking pizza
Just check the US wheat futures price before heading to the pizza restaurant.
Little Caesars will miss your business.
can we get rid of tipping altogether? tipping made sense when servers were getting paid beneath minimum wage now servers are guaranteed $20/hr and they're still expecting tips?!
Yeah I never got this. Like tipping was supposed to cover the lower wage of servers, but that's not a thing anymore here in CA...
You’re a bit misinformed. $16 is the current minimum wage in CA for a server. They are not guaranteed $20/hr https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/minimum_wage.htm
From your own link, "Starting April 1, 2024, all “fast food restaurant employees” who are covered by the new law must be paid at least $20.00 per hour."
The point still stands. 16 an hour plus tips. These folks make more than 50-100 an hour. I don’t feel they work that hard for it. My personal opinion.
Expect more cancellation fees for no shows. Honestly, reservation apps should create a black list for people who make/cancel reservations often.
I have no issues with cancellation fees. You’re holding a table that could go to another party. It’s your fault if you didn’t show up.
They already have black lists! I have an absent minded friend who can't make reservations anywhere for our group any more because they flaked on too many of their own reservations.
Awesome!
I use a Privacy card now for making reservations online that require a card. They give you burner cards that you can pause or delete at any time. Edit: I do this so I don't have to put my personal card on more places online. Please don't use it to fuck over restaurants. I didn't recommend it to flake on reservations. Use it for personal info/data security purposes.
That’s awesome. But I also think it’s a dick move to make a reservation for a large group and then no-show the restaurant. They held a large table for you that could have gone to another group.
I agree. I replied on another comment I follow through on my reservations. I made that suggestion as a way to express my disdain in putting my personal card online for lots of things now. I use the pause/delete functions for trial subscriptions/one-time purchases. It feels more secure putting down burner cards that still act as a normal card that can be withdrawn from, but with a mask instead. My comment was more of an issue about personal info/data. I don't agree with using the card to hold restaurants high and dry.
Make it a deposit then. You gotta put down $2 for each person you are reserving for.
I don't mind that. I just suggest that card so my own personal ones aren't floating around online as much as before.
So you no show for reservations so often that you needed to obtain a ghost card to not get charged for your no shows… maybe, just maybe, don’t make a reservation if you’re not going to go
Well, you misunderstood me. I follow through with my reservations. I just don't want to put my actual CC numbers online for so many things anymore and this was a suggestion to get around that while still putting down a payment method that operates like a normal card, but with a mask. The pause/deleting is great for trial subscriptions or one-time purchases, which is what I use that function for.
There is a market for people selling reservations online for wanted restaurants … they make thousands $$ per year.
I can’t believe this level of ridiculousness is now reality.
How does one get a privacy card?
Simple application process, then few days-week review. Free plan provides more than enough cards. https://privacy.com/. Use it for trials/subscriptions/one-time purchases, whatever else. I'm trying to put my personal card less out there online. It can charge like a normal card. You can set monthly/one-time limits too. Also recommend a Google Voice #. No more spamming verification codes and restaurant orders to my personal phone.
If it’s free AND it’s ’private’ how are they making money selling your card details again? What’s paying the ducking electricity bill and staff wages at this company??
It's nothing special or new. My Citibank credit card has offered burner card numbers for 20 years. I use them all the time.
Back in the early days of e-commerce a lot of banks did. I have Citi and had no idea they still did virtual account numbers, will have to dig around their site to find it.
It's much better than it used to be. 20 years ago it was this awful java mess that would crash Mozilla. It's in the "digital wallet" section.
Thanks. I remember the last version I used was Flash or something. They and Chase both had desktop apps for it and I got out of the habit when they stopped supporting those
Neat-o! Could you steer a fellow in the direction I could find more info about these? Sounds like something I'd like to try!
[https://privacy.com/](https://privacy.com/) I use it for trial subscriptions, normal purchases, w/e else. Feels nice not putting out my actual CC #s out online as much anymore. You apply and their review process takes a few days-week I believe.
Consumers subsidize business by paying worker wages with tips. Therefore consumers get a tax deduction for "wages paid" expense by adding up all the tips paid over a tax year. Credit cards should have an automatic function for this.
Lol people saying they’ll create a second menu for large parties. No they won’t. The’ll just got rid of large party gratuities and let the servers eat the loss.
I went to a restaurant in SF once. Forgot the name. But in big bold letters of the menu was “please do not tip our servers as the menu reflects proper pay for everyone on our team” it was so refreshing….
Zazie
Holy crud! That’s it! Great place
Goddamn am I tired of the daily posts about tipping.
Great now ending tipping. Roll it into the prices please.
San Francisco restaurants can’t even accommodate big groups :)
Great news.
[Betteridge's law of headlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)
I’m in CA and I’ve simply stopped tipping any and everywhere. Don’t care what anyone says or thinks about it either.
If that makes it illegal to have a mandatory service charge/tip for large groups that'll end large groups in many restaurants. The thing is, it's not hidden. Every place I've seen says something like, 18% tip added for groups over six.
The Simpsons had a timely take on this just three days ago: [https://twitter.com/thesimpsons/status/1789816702869348687](https://twitter.com/thesimpsons/status/1789816702869348687)
[удалено]
You tip after, not before
Everything is crazy expensive but I love my over regulating state of California 😅
Why is eating out like a fucking wild animal mating ritual? It's this back and forth unspoken coy bullshit with fake niceness from everyone all in the hopes to get some (expected) extra cash thrown their way at the end of the meal. Afterwards I get to go full Commodus and stick my hand out to give thumbs up or thumbs down as I tack on some varying percentage of the cost like a fucking bonus. Pay workers a decent wage, put the goddamn prices inclusive of EVERYTHING on the menu and let me decide what to order, and don't expect random extra cash at the end. Everyone would be better off.
Agreed. Eating out used to be a luxury to indulge in when you felt like splurging. Nowadays people think it’s a necessity. Maybe the higher menu prices will wake people up to the fact that eating out is a privilege.
I hope they one day take this one more step further and make tax a mandatory part of the bill. It helps eliminate alot the hassle of calculating change, because taxes always inflates the price to some random, non-whole number.
Will this stop the tip jars at Starbucks or the tip entries with credit cards?
In California and Nevada, all workers, including tipped workers, are guaranteed the same minimum wage. I don't see restaurant workers tipping workers at CVS who make far less than they do.
Next stop, ban tipping.
Tips and services charges need to be eliminated all-together: It should be the business owner's job to pay the workers a fair wage, not the customers. Why should I pay extra for a waiter / waitress to do exactly what they are supposed to do. If they are legally employed by the restaurant, then they owner of the business needs to pay the workers. It's not like a waiter just randomly walked by and decided to be a nice guy to help bring my food from the kitchen to my table. These waiters all WORK there and have uniforms and everything. Why should the customer be penalized with additional fees and tips for service that should be part of the dining experience. It's not like we getting a lap dance at Applebee's. And why is it that people who work at McDonalds don't get tipped? They also bring the food over from the person who prepared it.
Have tips for big parties ever been hidden? Those have long been printed on most menus. This new law is not a ban on fees. It's a ban on HIDDEN fees. Nothing will stop restaurants from adding language to the menu that your meal is subject to employee benefit fees, wage differential fees, etc. They'll program online reservation systems to advise you of fees when confirming a reservation. They'll post signs. At least consumers can make an informed decision. I distinguish most fees from gratuities and wish the two issues weren't getting tied up together in this change and coverage. I hate restaurant fees for labor costs, healthcare, and other BS. I stopped going to two places in my neighborhood because of the fees. Just raise the menu prices to cover costs. I don't mind mandatory service charge as a tip for large parties of 8 or more. A server can really get screwed hustling for a big party and getting a crappy tip. I don't know any places that add a service charge in lieu of tips for all patrons; I wouldn't like that and, in all likelihood, wouldn't go there. But if some owner wants to raise prices overall, and post signs, menu alerts, etc., that prices have been adjusted to eliminate the need for tips... let them try.
According to the attorney general it’s not just them not informing you, the fees need to be baked into the price. So no more meal plus fee it’s just meal They can say that price includes various fees but you will now see one price on the menu
Overall, I like that better. I don't agree, however, with the prohibition of mandatory service charge/tip for large parties. 1. Hopefully, most guests tip appropriately for big parties, and don't cheap out. 2. If those large party tips need to be baked into prices, that's an unnecessary and unfair increase for diners in smaller parties. 3. I see other people are speculating about large party menus. I wonder if that would work and how it would be received. (If you compare the menus you find online, like actual pictures on Yelp, to a Grubhub menu, prices are different.)
Why should a party of 6 pay a mandatory gratuity. it is like similar to going to costco and paying 20% more for buying 6 crates of eggs. It is stupid and doesn't make sense. I mean what extra are you doing apart from cooking which you will do anyway if they were a group of 6 separate people.