Shoney's Restaurants 15% upfront, salad bar only, 8 people and a baby trying to rip people off Lake City Florida

You say $10-$12 is a good tip, for 8 or more people at a table. You actually left $5 at the place you ate at. I think you have confirmed what everyone already knew and said. It's hard to figure out who the worst customers are at a restaurant...old, black, or asian. They are all overbearing and less than willing to pay for it. It's not racist, it's just the way it is. Tanya has proven the point. I go to a place down the road for lunch nearly every day. I leave between $2-$3 for a $10 meal. I've seen groups of 4 leave anywhere from $1-$5. I've also seen waitresses go out and give the precious dollar back to the customer. $1 for 4 people.

And yes, these are the customers that run the girls ragged and whine about everything. I tip well and the service I recieve shows it. I get the feeling the waitress at Shoney's got an excellent bargain when you and your group went somewhere else...in fact, you have clearly stated that yourself.

has the tip become an expectation? A tip is something THAT YOU EARN and is not a "requirement." Most restaurants pay LESS than the prevailing minimum wage to thier servers/waiters/waitresses with the expectation that the customers make up what they are too cheap to pay.

I believe in tipping for good service, and I generally tip anywhere between 15-20%, however, if you give me crappy service you WILL get a crappy tip.

We were generally leaving anywhere up to 10 or 12 dollar tips at most places we went to depending on the service of the food and staff. We do tip and will tip well when we feel we've been served good. We did not stay at the restraunt but i felt it was a rip off that they were trying to rip people off by demanding the tip before they even took our orders.

it was wrong of her in my opinion to tell us we HAD to tip her. we do tip but only when we feel they have deserved it. Why should we tip her 15% if she wasn't going to do a good job.

It might of been a mis communition somewhere but from what we understood they wanted us to pay our tip upfront before they even took our order or seated us. Like if we was gonna stiff them on money or something. In My opinion a tip is earned not rquired as its done on a basis of how well they serve us.

The thing that was most interesting about it all that i'm not sure i included in is that after telling us that it was all like that in florida we drove up the road a bit and stopped at another shoney and they didn't say anything about a tip.. The just took us in and seated us and took our orders and then we paid and left a $5.00 tip that was only cause the waitress only checked on us like 2 times and messed up our drinks. we didn't feel that she deserved more then that.

Maybe she asked for 15% up front, maybe she didn't. Maybe she just said the 15% is automatically added on. But if the manager got involved, then there had to be a discussion about the comment, and if she didn't say "up front," then the waitress should have apologized for being misunderstood before it even got to the manager. She probably wanted to make sure she "got her money." Large groups, especially since they had a baby, can be messy. That was definately wrong, though.

I have a toddler, and I try to keep the mess to the minimum, but sometimes the floor gets a bit dirty from dropped food I've missed. I always make sure to leave extra with the tip for the trouble of cleaning, but the several times that's happened and we've had awful service, then that makes getting a smaller tip that much worse.

The automatic gratuity doesn't bother me if it was deserved, and in only one case it has. We went to a resteraunt, and even though our group of 8 sat at 3 different tables due to a full resteraunt and we didn't interact, we were like 3 seperate parties, they still tried to put on the automatic tip. Even worse, the server ignored us for the other tables, figureing on the tip being a sure thing. she only came 3 times, to take the order, bring the drinks, and bring the food. no checking on us, no refills, and no conversation, just what do you want the first time, and dropping food off and leaving the other times.

Needless to say, we didn't feel she deserved the full tip, and since we weren't together as a full group (the tip was added to 3 seperate checks) we did not feel the rule should apply to us. We finally found a manager, and his answer was she worked hard to serve us and she deserved every penny and he wasn't taking it off the bill. after going around and around in circles we paid the exact amount owed without tip in cash - we just set the amount on the table and walked out the door.

Making people feel like they have to pay a certain amount no matter what the quality of service is wrong. And, it's rude to remind someone upon walking in the door of the policy, even if you aren't demanding payment up front. It's such a common practice that it's really a given that it's going to happen.

I can't tell you how many times the "Automatic Tip" was added in the middle of a large check. Places that server tourists sometimes do it to beat you out of a second tip.

The automatic gratuity is fairly standard. It is rare to see it applied at buffet style restaurants though. I've seen it range from %15-20 for parties as small as 6 people. It's never been an issue with me but I also keep in mind that if for some reason the service was not up to snuff I'll let the manager or cashier know and they'll reduce or even eliminate that tip on the bill. I've only had to do that a few times in my life.

First of all, you definitely misunderstood the server. There is NO WAY that they were asking for a 15% tip UP FRONT. Like a previous rebuttalist stated: how would they even know what 15% was going to be? They were courteous enough to verbally inform you of the policy before you sat down and you made a decision to be offended, and to not fully understand what was being told.

Second, your report illustrates exactly WHY the 15% gratuity is added on. I can tell by your report that, had the gratuity NOT been added on, you would have tipped something less than 10%. The server at a buffet is doing no less work than a server in any other restaurant, but you decided that her job was easier than most other servers and, therefore, she probably deserved less than a 15% "starting point."

Outside of the buffet context (and I would NEVER want to serve at a buffet because this reporter's outlook is shared by most people), there is a very simple reason why restaurants do this: on the average, the more people there are in a group, the smaller the percentage tip will be. People in a large group look at their large bill and figure that the server doesn't need a 15% tip because the bill is so large. What they DON'T think about is the fact that they are that server's only table, probably for a couple of hours.

If I am a waiter with a five table section, and average $3 per table, with an hourly turnover, I would have expected to make $30 in two hours. If one group takes up all of my tables for two hours, and tips me less than $30, then I am worse off. And, even though the group's bill may be $200, the payor may feel that $30 (15%) is too much to leave on one bill, and will leave something between $10 and $20. Unfortunately, this happens more often than not in the absence of an automatic gratuity.

Very few people possess the aptitude to be a good waiter or waitress. If a restaurant wants to attract good servers, and to keep them around, then it's going to have to make sure that the servers are making good money. Sometimes this requires stepping outside of the informal gratuity system.

It isn't uncommon for a resturant to charge a Gratituty for large parties (usually 6 persons and up) and charge up to 25% depending on the resturant. It is usually plainly marked in their menus, and in your case they notified you UP FRONT. You could've chose not to eat there. That particular policy will vary from franchise to franchise, however, I have never heard of a resturant charging for the Gratituty UP FRONT either....I have had friends balk at paying the gratituty, but as I have said most of those policies are spelled out in the menu, and most places will inform you of it, and IT WILL be added to the bill. My friend had a party of eight go to a local stir fry buffet and balked at the gratituty being added in, they wouldn't take it off and threatened to call the police if she didn't pay. The work around on this is SEPARATE CHECKS, and leave a tip at your will. If you travel in a large group like this, ask if there is a mandatory gratituty for large groups on one ticket, then inform them that there will be TWO TICKETS...If the resturant balks at that, then don't eat there. I'm not a fan of mandatory gratituties, but it is a very common practice in menu based atmosphere resturants.

Sometimes something that seems like a rip off is just a strange situation for the uninformed.

Later Taters!

I think you might have been mistaken. I have NEVER heard of a resturant wanting a tip UPFRONT. How would they know how much the bill would be before you ate. What I think the waitress might have told you was that the tip was going to be AUTOMATICALLY added to the bill, at the end of the meal. Most resturants, even the Fancy ones will have this stated in their menu. I think that she was just informing that the tip would be already on the bill.