'Discretionary' Service Charge

I've noticed an emerging trend in English restaurants. When you get your bill, there is a discretionary service charge of usually 12.5% added on to the total, so there are two totals displayed. Now, giving guidance on how much they'd like to be tipped is one thing, but most everyone pays for meals in restaurants with cards. Being slightly in the future in the world of paying, when you plop your card down on the table, the waiter/waitress brings over this little portable device that read the pin on your card (no swiping in this parts, people!). The staff person inserts the total and then hands it over to you to type in your pin while they sometimes turn their backs so you're left trying to hand it back to them while they can't see you. Anyways, when they type in a total, they include the service charge. In what is generally a mixed blessing, sometimes you have the option of adding additional tip using the little machine, but this doesn't occur as often as you would think. So personally, pardon my English here, I find it a bit cheeky that these restaurants basically bully you into paying them a 12.5% tip and then sometimes try to get more just because you're paying with a card and have no choice in the matter, unless, that is, you are willing to loudly make a point that you do not want to pay the extra charge. But remember, these people are English and that's not how they roll.

In the US, where you typically tip between 15 and 20%, this 12.5% automatic tip might not be particularly obscene. However, the UK is a relatively tip-free society. If you are impressed with service in a restaurant, you might tip 10%, but really no more. So for restaurants to just automatically decide that they are worthy of a 12.5% tip is more like an American restaurant deciding they're going to add on a 20 to 25% tip and then give you the option of leaving more. What's especially tricky is that if you don't pay close attention, you might not notice that this sum has been added on and then leave an additional tip. It's really just a tricky, sneaky way to get more money out of people already paying exceedingly high prices to eat out, especially in London.

I can think of only one occasion where I actually evaded the discretionary service charge, and this was when I was dining at a pizza place called Fire & Stone with Chris (Hi Chris) a few months ago. Garishly showing up without a reservation, they said we could have an hour, which seemed fine. However, it took about 20 minutes for us to flag down our waiter before we could even order, and a similar scene resulted when we wanted the bill. We were therefore not particularly impressed with the service and did not feel the waiter was worthy of the 12.5% tip he graciously wanted. With service charge, the bill came to about £22, without, a little less than £20. Needless to say we plopped £20 on the table and made a run for it, well over an hour after we'd been seated and surrounded by empty tables. (Note: this experience did not hurt my overall opinion of the place, I've been back twice since then. Opinion helped by deliciousness of pizza, uniqueness in topping combinations, and Mark's ability to have acquired a never-expiring, re-usable 20% coupon for the place).

Given the increasing wily-ness of restaurants in these parts, it's advisable you keep a close eye on these things, try to carry cash, and don't let the sad look of the nicely paid waiter/waitress bully you into leaving additional tip on the little machine. Oh, and in case they don't give themselves a tip and then don't give you the option of adding one on the little machine, it's useful to have some one pound coins!