High Street chain collapse sweepstake

[Jacket]

Also the culture of tipping and service charges pisses me off. Like £20 quid for fucking sausage and mash isn’t enough already.

I'm a bit conflicted on this whole issue. On one hand, yes 20 quid for sausage and mash is extortionate but on the other, that's not the fault of the waiting staff.

When I worked at Café Rogue 20+ years ago, we all relied on our tips because the company paid us less than minimum wage. The loophole that made that legal was that if in any given month we didn't receive enough card tips (from which they took a 10% "processing fee") to boost it to minimum wage, the company would make up the difference. (In reality, that only ever happened if you'd been off sick or on leave.) I'm pretty sure that's illegal now.

But... we gave excellent service, if I do say so myself. The company gave us good training and we took care of our customers well. These days when I eat out at a chain, I'm usually made to feel like an inconvenience to the staff, they can't answer basic questions about the menu and forget that people need cutlery to eat with. There are exceptions, obviously.

If there's a discretionary service charge, I have no compunction about asking for it to be taken off if the service is bad.

When I do get good service, I always want to reward it but nine times out of ten, the waiter will bypass the option to add a tip before handing me the card machine. Presumably they're hoping I'll leave cash instead, but I don't carry it so they lose out. I feel bad but then again, it's not like it's unusual for people not to have cash these days and if they've cut off their own nose like that, it's not my fault.

So, yeah, the whole situation's a lot more complicated than it used to be.

[Zimba]

Personally got no issue with tipping, it's optional.

Service charges should be banned imo. I believe, the price on the menu is what you should pay and there shouldn't be any hidden fees. Imagine if you went to Tesco and had to pay a '10% service charge' because you went through a till because it's basically the same thing.

One is normalised and the other is outright outrageous though.

[BBC TV Centre]

Personally got no issue with tipping, it's optional.

Service charges should be banned imo. I believe, the price on the menu is what you should pay and there shouldn't be any hidden fees. Imagine if you went to Tesco and had to pay a '10% service charge' because you went through a till because it's basically the same thing.

One is normalised and the other is outright outrageous though.

I feel the service charge is another one of those horrific American imports that is slowly becoming normalised. The reason why they have it in the US (and why people get shirty about not being left a tip) is that it counts towards the minimum wage. In the UK, we have a minimum wage and that is what your employer must pay you legally.

I don't mind leaving a tip if the service was good, and that should be at the discretion of the guest to exercise the amount.

Some places are very sneaky about the so-called discretionary service charge. I was in a slightly fancy hotel for a wedding recently and got some drinks at the bar, and thought it's nearly £9 quid for each bloody pint doing the mental maths before tapping the card, so on the next round I asked for a VAT receipt and it turns out they'd slapped on the service charge automatically, cheeky shites, nowhere on the menus etc did it state this extra charge.

Obviously a great winner for whoever owns the hotel (and maybe the staff if it's a shared tronc and everyone gets a slice of the pie) but there's often very little transparency about who gets this charge. They should make it mandatory to disclose what the distribution is like of it, otherwise, you can't put down a service charge.

Having done my time in the trenches pulling pints and waiting tables it's a nice surprise and the icing on the cake to get a good tip at the end of service to whatever table you've been looking after for sure. But i wouldn't ever be offended if I wasn't tipped, I knew what the pay was for this job before signing on the dotted line.

[Zimba]

I feel the service charge is another one of those horrific American imports that is slowly becoming normalised. The reason why they have it in the US (and why people get shirty about not being left a tip) is that it counts towards the minimum wage. In the UK, we have a minimum wage and that is what your employer must pay you legally.

I don't mind leaving a tip if the service was good, and that should be at the discretion of the guest to exercise the amount.

Some places are very sneaky about the so-called discretionary service charge. I was in a slightly fancy hotel for a wedding recently and got some drinks at the bar, and thought it's nearly £9 quid for each bloody pint doing the mental maths before tapping the card, so on the next round I asked for a VAT receipt and it turns out they'd slapped on the service charge automatically, cheeky shites, nowhere on the menus etc did it state this extra charge.

Obviously a great winner for whoever owns the hotel (and maybe the staff if it's a shared tronc and everyone gets a slice of the pie) but there's often very little transparency about who gets this charge. They should make it mandatory to disclose what the distribution is like of it, otherwise, you can't put down a service charge.

Having done my time in the trenches pulling pints and waiting tables it's a nice surprise and the icing on the cake to get a good tip at the end of service to whatever table you've been looking after for sure. But i wouldn't ever be offended if I wasn't tipped, I knew what the pay was for this job before signing on the dotted line.

Yeah totally agreed, it's my feelings too. Like I can totally understand why it happens in the US, but we're not the US and don't want to be the US either as it's all a bit backwards.

Wouldn't surprise me one but if it doesn't go anywhere near the servers though, or they'll bend it like it goes towards wages but that's not the point of it.

Tipping is there for that, and if you do a good job, I'd happily tip them and I hope some of the money goes to the chefs aswell because when I'm buying food that's what I care about the most truthfully.

[all new Phil]

There’s definitely a big cultural difference between the UK and US, where they seem to want “service” that’s (to us) over the top, whereas we just kind of want to be left to it apart from to order and then pay. Don’t recall seeing things just QR codes to order over there last time I went, but man I think they’re the best thing ever here.

As an aside, self-service type ordering is generally better for businesses. Found in a previous line of work that people would order more because they didn’t feel judged or embarrassed about adding extras. That said, Americans are generally better at suggesting sides etc I’ve found.

[cdd]

I don't care for tipping in general, because people's tips are influenced by factors the server can't control, like their appearance or how happy they're able to come across.

My approach is to tip a flat percentage regardless of how good or bad the service is. Thus I prefer service charges for the same reason, nobody likes paying more but it's better than tipping.

[Martin Phillp]

Since the local Poundland stores closed, I travelled to another store in South London that is still open and stock levels on the shelves were low or out of stock and not many customers.

It's all reminiscent of Wilko in 2022/23 when they were limping on.

Simply Poundland despite the supposed change in direction still feels rudderless which rivals like Savers in the same area have got the multi-price format better implemented.

[Martin Phillp]

Croydon's Post Office isn't moving into TGJones after all as redevelopment plans for the shopping centre are happening a lot more sooner than suggested during the proposal.

So it's staying in the original premises for the time being operated by franchisee ZCO Limited who were initially given the contract to operate the PO until it moved to TGJones.

https://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/new ... -scrapped/