Does anyone else get frustrated paying a MANDITORY gratuity in some restaurants and getting crappy service?

yes, I do, and I wish I had been more assertive on several occasions when this happened to me! I think the "auto-grat" leads to inferior service...if the waitron thinks s/he has the $ in the bag, why go to any extra effort?

First off, I'm a server. If you get crappy service, you shouldn't give a good tip. In an establishment that adds the gratuity, if you don't feel you got service that reflects the price of the tip, I would call over a manager and let them know that you are less than satisfied with your service and that it is crazy to give a good tip to someone that doesn't deserve it. A few clicks of the key strokes and that tip can be taken right off. However, the reason your gratuity should be higher when you buy a more expensive meal is because no matter how much you tip your server has to claim their tips at the end of their shift, and they tip out on the price of your bill to the busser and the bar. At my restaurant, if your bill is $100 and 40 of it is alcohol, I have to give $4 to the bar and $1 to each of the 2 bussers. So if you tipped me 10% that means I got $4 left for running around like crazy getting all your drinks and napkins and cleaning up the mess your kids left behind. NOT saying that you have children that you let make messes at restaurants, but just an example, those are the ones that should tip over 20%.

I understand your problem. Believe me, as a server, I'm the first to notice and be annoyed by bad service. But take a few things into consideration before making a judgment call. First, how busy is the place? Sometimes you can be sitting in a restaurant, and not even notice what is around you. A lot of times servers can get very busy with several tables leaving at the same time, or coming at the same time etc. and not be able to get back to you for a sec. Take it all into consideration. Second, as others have pointed out, tips are most of a servers salary. So even if I get bad service, being a server and knowing what it's like, I always try to tip well. And about your question of a mandatory gratuity, most restaurants do that for larger parties simply because of how hard it is to wait a large party. Believe me I know! Just think about all the little things, separate checks, less space to get to people, more to remember and keep track of, etc. Now I know what your saying and I can understand your problem, but just try to think about being in the servers shoes before getting very upset.

At all the restaurants I have worked in, we added gratuity to larger parties. I personally don't usually do it, because I feel that the table may think that I auto-gratted them because I thought that they wouldnt leave a decent tip. Here in MD, you are not held accountable for the amount of gratuity. By law, you don't HAVE to tip, it's just standard practice. You can't have someone arrested for not tipping, whether you have a table of 2 or 20. You can refuse to pay the gratuity. People think that because it's part of their bill they have to pay it. Some servers may take advantage of that too, thinking they can give bad service because they are getting an automatic grat.

And to answer your second question, I understand your way of thinking....but think about this. The waitress at Denny's has a high turnover. The food is cheap, she may get a couple bucks off of each table, it adds up. At a nicer restaurant, like the one I work in, you only get a few tables all night, the food is excellent and expenisve, and people tend to sit at that table for much longer. They order drinks, dessert, apps, etc. How often do patrons at Denny's order a 4 course meal? Plus, (usually) you get better at nicer restuarants because their servers are more experienced. Honestly, if you don't want to tip more at a nicer restaurant, then go to Denny's!

The situation is understandably frustrating! I am a server in Tallahassee Florida, but my restaurant (unlike most) does not have a mandatory gratuity, we leave it up to the customer. As for the tips being an added bonus, that is incorrect, tips are our salary. Servers generally only make 2-3 dollars an hour, which is gone by the time taxes are taken out. But you are correct you should have the choice to leave a tip or not, next time try speaking to the manager on duty, they are generally very helpful. Most restaurant managers will do just about anything to keep their customers coming back, Including giving you a free meal if you are unsatisfied. Also, as for the cost of a meal raising the tip, I don't know about "fancy places" , but at my restaurant, generally the higher the bill goes, the higher the gratuity. because when the bill gets higher, it usually means more work. and don't get me wrong, being a server is very simple, it is probably harder at places like Denny's, but it is very tiring work because you are running around and moving non-stop. anyways, if you are ever in Tallahassee stop in at roadhouse grill, I guarantee you will leave happy!

Oh, BTW the general rate to tip a server is 15- 20% so if you leave less than 15% the server will know you left unhappy.

and one other thing, contrary to the movie "Waiting" people in retaraunts DO NOT do thing to your food when you send it back.

Ask to speak to the manager, or if he/she is there, the owner. Explain your problem. You should not have to pay for poor service, even if a tip is mandatory (for a large party).

I dined at one place with a group of friends, they added the gratuity on, but did it in a stealthy manner as part of the list of items, and then left a blank spot for a tip. I automatically added 20% to the total, so with the 15% gratuity I wound up leaving a whopping 38% total! (1.15 x 1.20 is 1.38, or 38%, not 35%) I didn't notice it until the next morning when emptying my wallet. I called the restaurant and the apologized, and took off the tip amount. They credited me the entire purchase, reran the card with just the tip. I told them I was coming down to sign, and because of this service I still added an additional 15% (making for a total of 32%). The fact that they did that for me made me go back, and yes they had changed their receipt to show the added gratuity.

Cheap, Cheap, Cheap.

If restaurants paid service staff more, your meal would have been more than 25% more expensive. Guarantee that restaurants would charge more money to offset the additional wages and accounting necessary to facilitate higher wages.

You pay more at nicer restaurants because the service should be better. High quality servers usually don't work at Denny's because they can make more elsewhere (supply and demand).

I know you just wanted people to tell you that you are not cheap for complaining about an automatic gratuity but they are put in place to defend against people like you not tipping at all because they "disagree with the concept".

Truly poor service can always be brought to management's attention. A good manager will always do something about it.

P.S. - McDonald's does not add an automatic gratuity, perhaps that would be more appropriate for you.

You should have complained to the manager about the bad service - maybe they could have given you a refund or a discount!

As for the service charge - it's fair that you had to pay that, since you did get your food, and you did pay for it. Since you recieved the service from the waiter, you have to pay for it, irregardless of the quality.

In the American restaurant industry, servers and bartenders are paid a very small base salary (currently it's $ 4.35/hr in New York State) and the bulk of their income comes from tips from customers.

This is to keep restaurant owners labor costs low - if they day is slow, they only have to pay $ 4.35/hr. But if the day is busy, and there are a lot of customers, the servers get to make some money.

Basically, the "front of the house" workers are expected to be a sort of "partner" in the boss' business - if he makes a lot of money, they get to make some cash, but if he has a bad day, they have an even worse day.

The City, State and Federal government all tax servers and bartenders based on theoretical "tips allocated" based on their sales that day.

So, if a server had 12 customers on a shift, and the total sales added up to $ 720 dollars, she'd be taxed on $ 108 dollars in "tips allocated".

If she got stiffed by one of the parties, and got nothing as a tip instead of the $ 12 dollars allocated - she'd still get taxed on that twelve bucks she never got!

That's why restaurants impose service charges - because, no matter how good, bad or indifferent the service was, you still got your food and you still paid for it, so the server should get paid his/her share too!

I think we should go to the European system, where restaurants are required to impose a mandatory service charge - so, if your party has a total bill of $ 100 bucks, the restaurant will automatically add a $ 15 dollar service charge, the same way they add the sales tax, so your final bill would be $ 123.37 - $ 100 bucks for the house, $ 15 bucks for the server and $ 8.37 for the sales tax.

Of course, in most European countries, restaurant workers are unionized - here, outside of a few major hotels in major cities like New York, San Francisco, Atlantic City or Las Vegas, unfortunately that's not the case.

First, I always try hard no matter if the tip was added or not. I like being a good server. And as far as you paying our salary, that's the way the resaurant biz is. If you don't like it, I guess don't go out to nice places.

Second, fine dining are diners are two different things. You pay for quality when the price of the food goes up, service included.

No, I understand where you are coming from, and it does piss me off. I normally tip 20-25%, but I don't think it's right to have a mandatory tip, esp. if the waiter sucks. If it happens again, speak to the manager, during the meal. Ask for another waiter, and tell the manager why..

Look, life is not always fair and you won't always get what you want and how you want it. I kind think of hundreds of other things related to service that are much worse than paying a mandatory tip in a restaurant. How about overpaying for a car by $5k-$10k or having to pay for a doctor's visit because your insurance company is unethical and is too cheap to pay for coverage your entitled too. Those are a few examples about what's worse. Of course with anything, you'll take your chances and hope for the best. The world is not out to kiss your feet and make you happy. And even if someone says that's their goal and if they're not your family or friend, chances are they're either lying or acting like they care when they really don't.