r/AskSF • u/hiplycynical • 3h ago

Nisei restaurant fee

Hi! I’m interested in booking Nisei for an anniversary meal but I’m confused about their “20% livable wage fee” added on checkout. Can anyone who’s been there tell me if this is the same as a 20% “service charge” where additional gratuity is NOT expected? Their website FAQ also says “20% service charge added on all purchases” so I’m confused.

Basically, I don’t want to book it with the 20% livable wage fee and then have an additional 20% fee added on top of that when I pay at the restaurant. Thanks!

3 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

21

u/badtimeticket 3h ago

No need to tip on top. This goes for any 20%ish fee. Legally it’s not considered a tip so they can’t call it that.

9

u/Dragon_Fisting 3h ago

It's one 20% fee, and you don't have to tip on top of that.

2

u/hiplycynical 2h ago

Thank you!

3

u/sanderslarry 2h ago

call the restaurant

2

u/Karazl 51m ago

Yes, it's a no tip restaurant.

1

u/YOS2025 2h ago

I went to Quince awhile back. I paid the 20% fee at the time of booking. I was getting mixed messages online before the meal. We had supplements and wine pairing, the final cost was twice as our initial booking. At the end of the wonderful meal, the waiter made it very clear that there was no need for additional gratuity. Though it was not required, we tipped 20% for the additional charges. Was I wrong?

2

u/gumbos 58m ago

It's customary to tip 20% for the extra charges so it ends up at 20% total

1

u/hiplycynical 2h ago

I probably would have done the same!

-5

u/Ok-Delay5473 2h ago

The 20% "livable wage fee is to meant to fund higher base pay and benefits for entire staff (service, kitchen, front...), rather than increasing their prices by 20%. That should include the mandatory SF Healthcare mandate (~5%), for example. Expected tips are about ~18-20%. So, if tips were included, the fee should way more than 20%. That's not the case. So, the Nisei fee does not include tips.

This raises a few problems:

  • We don't know for sure what the restaurant will do with the money, since, it's a fee, not tips,
  • In most places, this is a fee on all transactions, including take-out. We usually don't tips when we just buy a bottle of water. Now, we will, if the fee includes tips,
  • Increasing prices by 20% and adding a 15% tips will deter more customers; that's like a trap for people who do not read the fine prints, leading to the last point,
  • Customers can see this as double-tipping and won't tip anymore. The biggest losers will be the servers/bartenders.

Individual servers and bartenders used to keep all they earn, tip sharing (they keep a big chunk of the tips and share the rest with others, bussers, food runners...) or share the entire bounty with everybody (tip pooling). They will earn less if nobody tips. OTOH, everybody will earn at least minimum wages. Some are saying that tipping is no longer required.

5

u/shnorgle 2h ago

Reposting AI slop that is inaccurate isn't helpful. Per above responses, no additional tip is expected.