this spot looks good & cute but these charges are getting out of hand. First it started with the 4% insurance charge and now it’s up to 20% on top of bills that doesn’t count as a tip whatsoever. What is it really going towards & why aren’t they paying their staff guaranteed fair wages? I’d rather the food be more expensive than have to pay the 20% extra on top.
Thoughts?
by Elusiveenigma98
20 Comments
To me, that 20% is a tip.
Sad. I was looking at the menu yesterday and looking forward. Oh well.
What does it say on the receipt/menu about the fee exactly?
https://preview.redd.it/4aeybgeniybb1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1dfe8e2cd4a927d460eb000f701da35561a2bdb2
I really don’t like restaurants like this. They could just as easily include this as part of the cost of the food instead of separating it out like this and tell their staff that 20% of all sales will go to them as part of their wage.
Commendable what they’re trying to do but their implementation sucks.
Thoughts? Fly to Spain instead. Restaurants like these just reaffirm why I need to constantly travel and enjoy *real proper* cuisine without yet reading another sobbing story about the fee that is not gratuity and they are really trying to do better than Jon Vinny saga.
IMO, If it’s on top of what you’re paying for food, it’s a tip.
Unless the experience is astoundingly above and beyond the norm, I wouldn’t have any problem enjoying a meal there and then not leaving anything else.
It says not a tip, but that tips are purely discretionary. They’re just saying what happens in real life where the tips get carved up but eliminating the variable.
Disagree with the percentage if you want, but this is more fair. Just zero out the tip. The server will get some of that amount just like the old tip system.
And honestly, I feel like there should be a law against doing this lol. Maybe dramatic but seriously. Or we protest and don’t go to restaurants like this until they fix it.
So I guess my question would be what are they paying staff because if it’s minimum wage than they can shove this fee up their greedy bums.
xuntos (a play on juntos, no doubt) really means “**together** with the price of the food and your tip, we have a fee that you can pay”
Don’t forget that you’re taxed on the service charge too, so you’re really paying 22% extra
I feel like I’m shouting at trees here.
Tips are legally for the server. Thus the 20% is a service charge used to distribute pay more equitably between servers, bussers, cooks, dishwashers, sommeliers, etc. and not an actual “tip.” The point is to replace tipping as a tacit built-in cost of going to restaurants.
Servers in a service charge system still receive relatively high pay. What got lost in the Jon & Vinny uproar was that their servers still received a ~$39 per hour base pay on top of any additional extra tips they received. This was, iirc, higher than any of the other non-manager employees. I’m sorry, but a server making what is essentially $80,000 a year is fine (LA average salary is $67,000, low income is considered sub $70,000 for single person/earner household).
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“Why don’t they just raise prices by 20%?” If it were so simple. Menu prices are inversely proportional to sales quantity. This is simple consumer psychology. Prices on the menu go up, likelihood of people ordering it go down. You take away the 20% MSC, jack up prices and you end up with a decrease in sales volume. Realistically, it’s to keep their menu prices competitive and consistent with competing restaurants who use the archaic tipping structure.
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Restaurants are fundamentally broken in this country. Razor thin margins, high failure rate, poor pay for everyone involved. There are very few people who make it big by starting a restaurant, and if they do, it’s from ancillary sales (books, private events, etc.). These service charges are only to address the front of house vs back of house pay imbalance.
Man just saved this as a restaurant to go to. No longer will be going. Bummer, looked cool.
It is sad that the price gauging falls on the restaurants’ backs when really it is corporate profits of food manufacturers- much of what we are now monopolies. [https://www.vox.com/money/23641875/food-grocery-inflation-prices-billionaires](https://www.vox.com/money/23641875/food-grocery-inflation-prices-billionaires)
*In fiscal year 2022, its revenue reached a* [***record $165 billion***](https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/cargill-fiscal-2022-revenue-jumps-23-165-billion-2022-08-10/)*. A record $6.68 billion of that was profit, double what its profits were in 2020. Its shareholders* [***received***](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/look-at-all-themoney-cargill-made/2022/10/07/9d6bdca4-4627-11ed-be17-89cbe6b8c0a5_story.html) *$1.21 billion of those profits in dividends — yet another record.*
*…*
*Tyson Foods, the largest meat company in the US, also more than* [***doubled its profits***](https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/26162-tyson-foods-reports-higher-profit-net-income-despite-market-headwinds) *between the first quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022. Packaged foods manufacturer General Mills, which owns a variety of cereal brands as well as food brands like Annie’s, Betty Crocker, Chex, and Bisquick, has raised prices five times since 2021 and indicated another* [***price hike***](https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/general-mills-raises-annual-forecast-banking-price-hikes-steady-demand-2023-02-21/) *could be coming soon. At the end of last year, its* [***profits were up 97 percent***](https://investors.generalmills.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2022/General-Mills-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-Results-for-Fiscal-2022-and-Provides-Fiscal-2023-Outlook/default.aspx) *compared to the previous quarter, and up 16 percent annually. Conagra, which owns packaged food brands like Healthy Choice, Duncan Hines, and Reddi-wip, noted a 22 percent profit increase in its last* [***quarterly earnings report***](https://www.conagrabrands.com/news-room/news-conagra-brands-reports-second-quarter-results-prn-122839)*. Grocery giant Walmart — the largest US corporation, bar none — has seen its* [***profits grow for the past several years***](https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/WMT/financials/annual/income-statement)*, with a 7 percent jump between 2020 and 2021.*
This place has a sister restaurant in Woodland Hills, Gasolina, with the same policy. I go fairly frequently, and when paying the bill I have never been asked for additional tip. There is no tip line. They swipe your card and you’re done. I admit the wording in the menu is poor, but hoped to clarify from my own experience.
Fuck this place. Tapas are overrated anyways
I would think paying your staff more than industry standard…then incorporating those costs into the menu pricing…then explaining what you do would actually garner support
The vendors that charge more for organic ingredients should school the owners/managers on how to price their items appropriately….then explain the higher pricing and use it as a point of pride instead of using some sort of slight of hand with the customers
Coverup is ALWAYS worse than the crime
Thanks for sharing that. That helps me understand the business rationale better. Still though, there has to be a better way. maybe only increase costs by 10%, maybe increase the cost more on the best selling items. There has to be an equilibrium point. Or, explain this to the the customer and recommend a 15% tip, that’s not ideal but still better than this.
In a time where we’re all getting hit with what feels like double digit inflation and self serve kiosks are asking us to tip, this mandatory service fee system just confuses and upsets the customer and may put off customers, resulting in less business than if they went with a less precise system of trying to find equity between the from and the back of the restaurant.
People hate this because it’s not the ideal solution but it’s the only step forward that can gain widespread traction in North America right now IMO. Businesses get to keep prices artificially low, servers don’t revolt, while we still fix the BOH and FOH disparity and remove ambiguity for customers. Well, it should be unambiguously made clear and normalized that you never tip on top of the MSC, that’s ridiculous.