[Pauler]

Couple Busted for Refusing to Pay Tip | NBC Philadelphia

this is outrageous. if its really poor service, the waiter/waitress does not deserve the tip.

[Art]

While I agree, this is a bit of a special situation. The restaurant has the right to add a gratuity under certain circumstances. Large parties, etc. In that way, it is part of the bill. :/

[doulos14]

Originally Posted by Art

While I agree, this is a bit of a special situation. The restaurant has the right to add a gratuity under certain circumstances. Large parties, etc. In that way, it is part of the bill. :/

Yep, its often on the menu "parties greater than __ are subject to a __% gratuity"

This is certainly legal and if you don't pay then that would be stealing

[thesteve]

Originally Posted by Art

While I agree, this is a bit of a special situation. The restaurant has the right to add a gratuity under certain circumstances. Large parties, etc. In that way, it is part of the bill. :/

Typically it seems like restaurants will work with you on this, despite what it says on the menu. In the article it seems like there are some major omissions to the story. Why wasn't the manager involved?

I had a similar bad service experience at Bennigan's in San Diego. We came with a party large enough that we should have been given two servers, but instead were given one that (it seemed to us) decided to go on a break after taking our drink orders and didn't tell anyone to cover for him. It took us about 30 minutes to get our drinks and when someone needed a refill we had to hunt down another server (who proceeded to take another ten minutes to fill it). At the end of the night (we were there for a couple hours, largely because the service was so slow) we received our bill with the 18% gratuity on it. I talked to our server about it and he told me that it was a mandatory part of the bill. I told him I wanted to talk to the manager in charge, and at that point he decided to just take the 18% off. To this day I have no idea how much he was actually tipped by the guy that paid the bill.

[Fandrew]

Too often, there are servers who are assigned large parties with guaranteed tips, so they don't feel the need to work hard... or in thesteve's case, work at all. It's up to the managers to catch and punish these employees in order to please the customers. Also, it's up to the table to talk to the manager before neglecting to pay ANY part of the bill.

[Art]

It does say they talked to the "bartender in charge", which lead me to assume that he was the highest authority in the restaurant at the time.