Call It What It Is!

For the past decade, people have been massaging the language to fit their own needs. Forty is the new thirty, thieves are hedge fund managers, and airlines charge an additional fee to transport luggage in the baggage hold of an airliner. The latest naming, however, seems in my limited world view to be a form of extortion, and it's a cause I'm going to champion. You say gratuity, I say tip, but neither word defines a service charge added to a bill that originates in ... a service industry.

A group of students went to a restaurant for dinner. The table never received set-ups, they had to get their own beverages, and the service over-all was bad. However, when the bill came, one bill for the group/no individual checks allowed, a generous pre-determined gratuity was added to the tab, an additional 18% fee that the group refused to pay. The majority of consumers see the gratuity, or tip, as a recognition of good service and tally an appropriate amount, ranging anywhere from 5% to 25%, depending on the restaurant and the service provided by the servers.

Quite simply, no service means no tip.

Not so at this establishment: a group is automatically assessed an additional 18% gratuity to be seated at a table as a group. It's actually a service charge, a group seating charge, not a gratuity to reward good service by the waitstaff. The restaurant, however, lists it on the bill as a gratuity that is paid as part of the bill, in addition to a tip for the waitstaff to be determined by the guest. What is the intent of this 18% seating fee? If the waitstaff gets the 18% gratuity, why is there an additional tip expected? And if the waitstaff does not get the 18% gratuity, who does? If the mandatory gratuity for a group is 18% and an additional tip is expected for the waitstaff, a group could end up paying a third again of the total bill just to eat dinner out!

When the group refused to pay the 18% mandatory gratuity on top of the bill and the service tip they added, an amount that reflected the total lack of service by the waitstaff, two of the group members were arrested!! The restaurant's justification for calling the police is that it is "stealing" to refuse to pay the 18% gratuity. The word "gratuity" actually originates in the Latin word gratuitas, which means "present," a gift that is free. If a restaurant is going to add a mandatory gratuity to the bill (an oxymoron, like sweet/sour), they should label it as what it is, a service charge in exchange for seating a group, an additional fee that excludes the tip for the service. That information needs to be shared upfront so the patron can decide whether to eat at the restaurant or go to another establishment that provides service to all patrons regardless of the number of guests in the party.

A mandatory service fee by any other name is still a service charge, not a gratuity given freely by the person who receives good service from the staff hired to perform the service. No restaurant wants the free publicity from arresting patrons because the waitstaff failed to perform their job professionally, but that's the best tip this restaurant is going to get. Word-of-mouth advertising can make -- or break -- a business, and this restaurant is going to have more bad publicity than it ever dreamed from this failed service opportunity.