flanneruk

<b> Health Warning: This post may damage your stereotypes </b>

We're always having the tipping argument here. Americans say tips improve service: Europeans say their staff get proper wages.

Well: not quite.

A loophole in Britain's minimum wage laws allow restaurants to pay derisory wages (say &pound;2/hr) as long as staff get enough in tips to bring their wages up to the legal minimum (can't face googling: but about &pound;6/hr)

Hard Rock UK exploits this loophole. Which, of course means that if you DON'T tip, Hard Rock has to pay more. And, of course, Hard Rock staff get paid MORE when they're on holiday or sick.

Mathematically, if most customers tip generously, your waiter at HR will be better off if YOU tip generously. But if - as is the norm in Britain - most customers are niggardly tippers, what you tip makes no difference at all to your waiter's income. Especially if your waiter's not usually that good at getting tips.

Generous tips just inflate Hard Rock's profits.

Not sure whether this proves what mean gits Hard Rock are or how weird the results of minimum wage laws can be. Or that I'm right in avoiding tipping (and Hard Rock) whenever possible.

willit

Several years ago, a friend worked for a restaurant chain that did the same thing - and took all tips included in the credit card bill rather than distribute them to staff.

Since then I have been leaving tips in cash to the waitress/waiter.

chartley

I found some more on this at http://tinyurl.com/6htjhq.

Chain restaurants believed to use this practice include Carluccio's, Caf&eacute; Rouge, Strada, Caffe Uno, Zizzi and ASK. I think I have read the same about Pizza Express. These places sell an ambience as well as food, but I am sure that they would not want the public to know about their employment practices.

I would welcome comments from someone who has worked in the catering trade. Is it better to tip in cash, rather than add an amount to the credit card? I prefer any gratuity to be shared among staff, since it is seldom that one is served by a single individual in a UK restaurant.

lola618

I used to work at a restaurant in NY and when someone left a tip on a credit card, the server did not get the full amount. The owner held approximately 2% to cover the cost of accepting the credit card.

I know that delivery people in NYC prefer cash tips because they sometimes have to wait for the credit card to &quot;settle&quot; before they receive their tips if you add it to the credit card.

kerouac

Labor laws are not the same in the UK and the countries of continental Europe, so this information applies only to the UK.

chartley

Information about a trade union campaign on this issue can be found at http://tinyurl.com/5vafnu.

walkinaround

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;
what you tip makes no difference at all to your waiter's income.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

i'm not sure if flanner's assumptions about such a low level of tipping are correct (i.e. that a server would not even break &pound;4 per hour in tips at a place like hr cafe in central london). but if he is right, this challenges the often seen view (here on fodor's at least) that servers in the uk are paid glorious 'living wages' with the assumption that they are far better off than their 'enslaved' american cousin servers.

i would imagine that a waiter or bartender at the HR cafe in NYC would make many multiples of &pound;4/$8 per hour in tips. turning over just an average of 4 tables of 2 people an hour should yield well over $50 per hour in tips at a place like hr cafe.

if a waiter at a popular central london restaurant that is far from cheap and probably almost always busy with presumably high drinks revenue as well as &pound;15 hamburgers, many dessert eaters, etc can't even make &pound;4 per hour in tips, then this is a serious indictment of our waiters' abilities to earn a decent living! and we should not longer look at american waiters as poor versions of their 'well paid' british counterparts.

bilboburgler

This came out a few months ago and hard rock is just latest most blatent thief. And yes it does break all the assumptions of a lot of brits.

Basically the people have to receive minimum wage so the company just deducts the tips. It may be legal but is not in the spirit of the thing.

My campaign as of 2 months ago is only tip cash at the table, avoid the chains and complain like mad if I have to use a chain

Disgusting thieving B*******s

RM67

''and we should not longer look at american waiters as poor versions of their 'well paid' british counterparts.''

That would true if all British restaurants do it, but I don't think they all do - just some of the more penny pinching ones.

An abhorrent practice - can't wait till it's outlawed - which I'm pretty confident it will be when there's been enough negative publicity....

ira

Don;t put tips on your CC.

Leave cash on the table.

Anywhere in Europe.