Welcome back to the Waiting Game, my monthly column where I try to explain why restaurants implement policies that can confuse and irritate the dining public. Up this month: the dreaded and confounding automatic gratuity.
The auto-grat, as you probably already know, is a policy that restaurants adopt wherein they choose what you’ll tip your server by taking you out of the equation. On average, an auto-gratuity is applied only to parties of six or more, and is generally 18 percent. Many restaurants seem to be shedding this practice, but some still employ it, reasoning that it protects their servers, as well as the co-workers who are tipped out at the end of each shift.
Here’s an example of the auto-grat in action: Let’s say three couples decide to meet for dinner and drinks on a Saturday night. Everything goes swimmingly, and everyone’s happy with their food, drinks, and service. To simplify matters, let’s say each couple’s check comes to $100 for a $300 total for the entire table. With the auto-gratuity in place, that server stands to make at least $54 from the table. Not bad for an hour’s worth of work waiting just one table, right?
But let’s say the server hedges their bets, thinking that things went so well, they’ll choose not to activate the auto-gratuity. Two of the couples opt to pay in cash, leaving an 18 percent tip, and tossing $118 each on to the table. The other couple puts their credit card on the table and tells the server to put whatever’s left on their card.
The server does so, running the card for the remainder of the bill: $64.
I think you can see where this is going, because more often than you’d think, the couple that ordered $100 worth of food and drinks—but paid just $64—is going to tip on that $64. And if that couple leaves a 20 percent tip on top on that $64, the server will take home just $12 or $13. Not so good, right? Or at least not as good as the auto-grat-generated $54.
(And before you roll your eyes and say that servers are entitled and make too much money: Yes, because of tips, they can make far more than they would working a different kind of minimum wage job. But I’m glad that servers can make a livable wage in this town, and you should be, too. And at most places, $300 six-tops don’t happen very often, so slow your outraged roll. Also, you’re also sorta right about servers: Some can act very entitled. Nobody likes that.)
But back to the point: The couple in this scenario that left the $13 tip on a $300 check? They’re not bad people. They’re not greedy people. They were likely three cocktails deep, looked at their check when it was dropped and said to themselves, “Ah, what great service! I’m going to be generous and tip 20-plus percent!” without taking into account that the other two couples paid for their meals and drinks—and their tips—with cash.
It was an honest mistake. It could happen to anyone. And that’s exactly why restaurants put the policy in place. It has happened to anyone. It’s happened to a lot of anyones. It’s happened so often to so many servers that restaurants decided to implement the policy to remove human error out of the tipping process.
All that said, if you don’t think it’s fair when restaurants tell you they’re in charge of how much you tip, simply ask the manager not to deploy the auto-gratuity. Trust me, they’ll do as you ask. Once more, with feeling: It’s the manager’s job to make you happy enough to want to come back again and spend more of your money. It’s also doubtful that the server will even care.
The only time I ever regretted taking away the 18 percent auto-gratuity was when I waited on a 40-top for a big lunch party. They asked to remove the auto-gratuity and promised to take great care of me, and I said, “Sure.” My mistake? They were from Canada, which meant my 18 percent cut automatically plummeted to 10.
Now is it fair to blame a country that doesn’t force its restaurant guests to subsidize that restaurant’s employees’ wages? Should we join the modern world and get rid of tipping altogether?
Stay tuned for next month’s column, when I’ll weigh the pros and cons of tipping.
I eat at a LOT of restaurants (burbs and the city). I can’t remember the last I encountered a server I’d call “entitled.” Most servers are humble, hardworking people.
There are more reasons than those listed in this article as to why an auto grat may be applied to large parties. In most situations the server would not walk away with the mentioned $54 on the party of six with a total bill of $300. In most cases the server is responsible for tipping out all other support staff, that can include kitchen staff, host, bartender and bussers. The amount a server tips out is usually based on total sales and not total tips made from the evening. These tip outs can add up to ten percent of a servers sales, so in this case the server will be tipping out $30 dollars regardless of what tip was left. The server made $24 off this table more than likely and that’s great especially if the table only took an hour to eat as the article explains.
More often than not large parties take longer than smaller parties from the time they sit to the time they leave. (Think about any time you have dined out with a large party and sat waiting at your table for 10-30 min for all the members of that party to arrive or stayed at your table talking for 20 min after the bill was payed). If a server has an 8 table section for an evening and 4 of those tables are put together to accommodate a 12 top, the amount of tables they can turn in an evening goes down. Sometimes just the act of being a large table can automatically mean that the server whose section you have been sat in will make less that evening. Imagine that the 12 top only leaves a 10 percent tip. The server made no tips from that table and was limited in the amount of tables they could turn in the evening. Imagine the 12 top leaves less than 10 percent, the server would than in effect be paying money out their own pocket to have served the large party in order to cover the tip out owed to other staff based on the total sales.
If you go out to eat, have a terrible experience from start to finish and find an auto grat on the bill that you feel is unreasonable, by all means explain it to the server. Provided you have had a good (to hopefully) great dining experience keep in mind all the above mentioned as reasons why the auto gratuity may be applied to your bill. The only thing as equally bad as an entitled server is an entitled customer.