A few years ago at J&V’s when I first encountered this, the server was very clear that nothing additional was expected. So I’ve always treated that way and generally added a flat $15 to $20 depending on the size of the bill (which can be an additional 15% or significantly less depending on our alcohol intake). I’ve never had anyone pressure me to leave anything more but maybe that’s because I haven’t asked about it…
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I believe the J&V restaurants had service charges from day one, but they changed the language to suggest that you add a tip. Whether they changed how the service charge was distributed … Eater? LA Times?
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Went to Son of a Gun over the weekend, and the verbiage is now something like “there is an 18% service charge, and any additional tip you add will be shared between the servers and the kitchen” (not exact but that’s the gist) But it had a tip line and the 12/15/20% tip amounts as well.
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Throw caution to the wind. Go to Animal once.
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Jon & Vinny’s, Petit Trois, Son of a Gun. All part of the same group.
Animal’s worth a visit. If you factor in the 18% the prices aren’t out of line with other paces at that level. E.g. $19 for the marrow bone + 18% = $22.50, Bavel charges $24 + 4% = $25.
So it cost $23 to just attend? Does this include the tip & other fees? Still excessive IYAM. I recently went to Son of a Gun. They add 18% to your bill and then don’t tell you, but also expect a tip. Huh? This is straight out restaurant extortion.
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All the Jon & Vinny restaurants do. It’s weird. There’s a long thread about it in the Animal topic.
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If there was a single payer health plan most if not all of that 18% would go away.
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The J&V restaurants do not claim to provide health insurance to all their employees, or promise it in their help-wanted ads, or claim that any of the “service charge” goes to health insurance.
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Just because they don’t shout it from the roof tops… In fact they got sued over it. Prominent LA restaurants battle price-fixing lawsuit | Restaurant Hospitality
Plus if you want to keep good FOH staff you need to pay them a living wage and allow tips. And slave labor is frowned upon these days in kitchens so you have to pay them a living wage too. Or the natives get restless. 90% of Zuni Servers Have Left the Restaurant Due to No-Tipping Policy; Policy May Still Be Revised
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Yeah it’s too late. American tipping policy is a failure and will never be replaced by something more sane.
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That 2015 lawsuit was about price-fixing. Nothing to do with health insurance or service charges per se.
It’s likely most of the former Zuni servers wouldn’t have come back when the restaurant reopened (after being closed for over a year) regardless of the tipping policy. Lots of people changed careers,.moved out of the area, or retired. Attributing it all to the tipping policy is shitty journalism.
A lawsuit over price fixing for adding a surcharge to pay for healthcare.
“ The complaint also cites the restaurant’s newsletter, still posted on its website, which explains the surcharge to consumers as a means to help cover the cost of providing healthcare coverage.
“We’ve recently sat down with other like-minded local chefs and restaurant owners like Suzanne Goin, Carolyn Stein and David Lentz, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, and Josiah Citrin to come up with a plan to offer coverage and have decided to implement a 3-percent employee benefit surcharge added to all of our checks beginning Sept. 1 to pay the October 1 premium,” the newsletter says”
Also, I’ve worked with a hell of a lot journalists over the years. When they are accused of shitty journalism, it’s by know it alls who’ve been proven wrong by by their reporting
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Maybe healthcare surcharges are different, but the issue with these fees is honesty and distribution/disbursement. Former J&V servers have reported, on both Reddit and Glassdoor, the service charge is kept in part by ownership.
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Service charge is not a tip. It’s not something which gets cashed out at the end of service.
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Never say never. People said Lake Mead and Lake Powell would never empty.
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Not sure I follow the point you’re making.
When it de facto replaces a tip but gets disbursed by the restaurant in opaque ways, it’s not crazy to wonder how it gets distributed. Same with healthcare surcharges (unless there’s a law governing those I’m unaware of).
What percentage of former Zuni servers chose not to return after the restaurant reopened because of the tipping policy? Two are on record saying they did. Beyond that we don’t know.
Making an unsupported claim that is from all evidence false is shitty journalism. Who you’ve worked with and who accused them of what and why and whether they were refuted are irrelevant. Your argument is a sophistic pile of logical fallacies.
We do know because other news orgs reported on the issue like the Chronicle which I didn’t post because its behind a firewall and I note about 8 who were said to have that as their primary reason for leaving. I’m guessing they and others left because their overall take home pay was lowered and they couldn’t afford to live in SF any more so they moved away and didn’t want to put up with the BS of being a server. Also while most of the FOH left, most of the Kitchen stayed, since their wages had increased significantly under this system. If the issue were the other reasons you state, wouldn’t there be similar attrition in both FOH and Kitchen?
The kitchen was doing takeout during the year-plus that the dining room was closed.
I count one former server who told the Chron he did not go back because of the no-tipping policy. He said there were at least seven more. The Chron also quoted another former server who left the industry for other reasons. The chef said five old servers had returned. I don’t see how Eater got their 90%, and they don’t explain it.
https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/2021-05-San-Francisco-Zuni-Cafe-no-tipping-service-16148343.php