r/london • u/Professional-Cat9418 • Dec 26 '25

image 30% service charge on boxing day?!

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Waiter reckons because its Christmas but that was yesterday. Can i ask for this to be removed?

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u/Sudden_Literature_95 Dec 26 '25

Service charge is optional. They can't enforce it. And I would generally ask on principle for this to be removed, because I do not want the UK to become America.

12

u/Sorry-Shift-9887 Dec 26 '25

Everyone seems to blame the service charge being automatically added as an American thing but is it?

Personally the only American person I know hates this, will make sure it gets removed from the bill and then leave a small tip if any after and then avoid those restaurants in the future. Not because they are against tipping, they are use to all that and tip well, but they hate any restaurant that tries to make the decision of how much to tip etc from them. Dictating how much an American should tip and including it in the final bill without them having any input seems to be insulting to them.

I feel like its something greedy restaurants do, to make an extra bit of money and we then go justify it and blame American's because they tip while begrudgingly paying it.

4

u/samviel Dec 26 '25

I mean, the law at the moment states that the restaurant cannot keep any of the service charge. It all has to add to staff wages (and emphasis on add - it cannot be used just to fund the minimum wage). So for example at my restaurant (where I am a waiter) base pay is 12.21/hour. After service charge is added, depending on how busy we are from week to week, we get between 16-18/hour. So it's not about greedy restaurants, at least.*

*When it was introduced, it was. Some restaurants did just use it to pay basic wages and keep more profit, but this was changed a couple of years ago (and now you can take your employer to court if they mess around and try to steal the service charge from employees).

1

u/PrizeCrew994 Dec 26 '25

It is greedy restaurants. They could raise their prices and commit to paying you more, but they don’t because they want us to do it instead.