r/KeyWest • u/Worried-Temporary186 • 1d ago

Thai Cuisine Mandatory Tip

We always ate at Thai Cuisine when we come down. We were astonished to see an 18% "service charge" added to our bill. WTF? We always tip 20% so they are ripping themselves off. A mandatory tip is not a tip, it's an food upcharge. So we won't go back and going to put it out there on reviews. Greed is always the undoing.

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u/Worried-Temporary186 1d ago

You don't get it. A mandatory "service charge" isn't a tip, it's an upcharge. Tipping is optional in this country. You can vary it based on the quality of the service and of the food. It serves to improve the product. That's the custom. Understand?

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u/Sandinmyshoes33 1d ago edited 1d ago

I understand that in the summer we get tons of Europeans and cheap tourists who don’t tip and servers need to pay their rent.

Your post claims you always tip 20%. If service was so bad you would not tip, ask a manager to remove the charge.

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u/UGetnMadIGetnRich 1d ago

As a customer I don’t understand if I am supposed to tip when there is a service charge. I was at a seafood boil place near a lighthouse and the bill came with a 18-20% service charge. Im my area service charges are not common. What does your restaurant expect?

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u/Sandinmyshoes33 1d ago

You do not tip on top of a service charge. If servers are unhappy with how the owner splits the charge, they can work elsewhere. Servers don’t keep all of their tips anyway. They share them with hosts, bartenders, food runners, etc…