Restaurants auto grat on to go orders?

Had one place do that to me locally. They choose to set their business practices, I choose to no longer go there.

Free Enterprise at work. Well within your rights to out them for the practice though. The thing that REALLY pissed me off was they didn't disclose the practice until I handed them my card at the drive through pick up line. frick them for that.

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From what I can gather, staffing kitchen is pretty much impossible right now without paying them more than unemployment is. So in order to pay them that high, they either increase the prices of the food, or charge a service charge.

Personally, I'd just increase the food items so less people bitch, but it is all basically the same in the end I guess.

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This is a big problem and is going to get worse quickly, I would like to see restaurants (and other bushiness) to call it what it is "employee retention service fee" and maybe the public will fuss loud enough that something is done...IE eliminate the $300 /wk unemployment bonus, strict enforcement of unemployment rules, etc $15/hour to sit at home is hard for a business owner to compete with.

18% auto grat on a to go is wrong and should be called out

(no message)

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News to me, and we ordered out a lot

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i think this was an orleans parish thing. aren't you north shore?

i didn't notice the charge until after they swiped my card. I wasn't going to ask for my money back but i thought that was an outrageous fee to charge for a takeout.

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Nah. Why would I give them 18% for putting my food in a bag? Some of you are cowards.

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BC plenty of waitstaff feel entitled to a tip, even if they’re just handing you a bag

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telling them you disagree and not paying is more likely to create change

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Yes. Change in the form of them going, "Oh okay" and adding 18% to the menu prices instead.

The cost they need to afford these new pay requirements from employees is getting passed on to you no matter what. I get the gripe about seeing "auto grat" in front of you instead of it hiding in the prices, but at the end of the day, it is the exact same thing.

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Yes. Change in the form of them going, "Oh okay" and adding 18% to the menu prices instead.

The cost they need to afford these new pay requirements from employees is getting passed on to you no matter what. I get the gripe about seeing "auto grat" in front of you instead of it hiding in the prices, but at the end of the day, it is the exact same thing

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I’d rather them be upfront about raising prices for their food than charging me for non-existent service.

That's fair. I agree.. the fee isn't the way I'd go about it if I was running a restaurant. You're leaving an open opportunity for a customer to start drama. If you just raise the prices and update menus to reflect it, they can't argue against it.

I guess the fee is their way of trying to keep it fair to the dine-in customers. Raising prices across the board makes it even more expensive on dine-in customers because they're paying the new inflated prices plus expected to tip 18%-20%.

You could just raise the prices on takeout orders, but you'd likely get a handful of jerks every day who complain that they're being charged more than what the dine-in menu states.

EDIT- It has been a while, but I had read a few times that the places that tried to do away with tipping for dine-in and just increased prices ended up seeing a decline in business because people just didn't want to pay $18 for a burger when the place down the street that still does tipping is charging $15.

Even though it comes out to the same when you pay $15 and then tip, something about that $3 being the customer's choice makes a difference in their brains.

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Yes. Change in the form of them going, "Oh okay" and adding 18% to the menu prices instead.

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At least there is some transparency there. Adding an auto-gratuity when you're not clear about that policy upfront is shady AF.