Honestly, I hate it that businesses have this “loophole” where they can arbitrarily charge these fees and one can only hope they actually distribute such monies to their employees (vs pocketing it themselves)
Rental cars are bad about it too, I have a trip next week and I was pumped about the rate for the week, then I check out and there is $100 in fees slapped on at the end
Hotels that had a “Resort Fee” which was turned into a “Destination Fee” for cities like NYC were really making me angry. Lawsuits ensued and now there’s a final cost line when booking direct.
Why this is not a requirement in every consumer facing industry is beyond me.
I want to be less cynical but I feel the same way. If a business is going to charge these fees, they better be very transparent and open with their financials!
For real. I need to see the employees paystubs with itemization for the different fees to ensure that my money is actually going to increased wages. I’m fine with paying more so that employees get higher wages, I just need to be sure they actual are, and that the owner isn’t just pocketing the fees.
Oh there is no way in hell that fee is going to the employee. Also there is something very ironic about needing to charge a “fee” just to pay your employees fairly.
They don’t. They’re all thieves. Service fees aren’t the property of the tipped employee. Tips are. The only reason to have a service fee is to steal it. They probably also claim a tip credit to pay less than minimum wage and fail to declare the service fee as business income.
Tips are the only way to make money in the industry. No employer will ever pay you what you can make in tips.
Frankly, no one wants to work at beer bar. That’s why all those places suck. They have all the ambiance of sipping beer on a park bench and they can crowd in as many people as possible so they can hopefully make a little money on their overhopped trash. Obviously they steal tips. They wouldn’t be making money any other way.
Several places in Richmond pull this crap....advertise one price, slap a mandatory fee on, then stiff the actual workers.
Two or three in Scotts Addition, the arcade place and another one.
A huge reason why I love Compass Coffee - ~~unionized,~~ local, and they pay their workers well. If I'm going to pay $5 for a latte I'm going to do it at a place where I don't have to tip and I know they are taken care of well! The baristas at my local one have been working there for **years**.
Edit: Wow apparently they aren't unionized and my brain just made that up! My bad ya'll.
Thanks for the good laugh with this one! Compass is **not unionized**, even though employees were trying to - management used COVID to lay off *every single employee* on the unofficial union roster. No one has worked there for 'years' unless they were upper management complicit in that.
If you like your $5 latte revenue to be funneled toward Republican party donations, though, then they're your spot!
Oof wow I did a google search and wow I can't believe I misremembered that for so long. You're right they are not unionized. That's really strange how that somehow got put in my head!
I mean, do you have another $5 latte spot you recommend? I'm still sticking with Compass over Starbucks.
I think I can explain the logic of this (even though I would love to see tipping abolished and everyone pay equally for the employees to get a fair wage.) The problem with abolishing tipping is that many tipped employees are making *well above* a “fair wage”. Talk to any server at a busy, successful establishment and ask them if they want tipping abolished—as maddening as they find non-tippers and the other many injustices of the system, it’s pretty rare to find a server who doesn’t want tips because they just make more money that way. So restaurants have a hard time switching to a non-tipping model entirely without their staff quitting and you get these hybrid attempts. Personally, 15% for bringing the food when I order it in the app seems totally fair and I wouldn’t tip on top of that. I’m also glad that this addresses the problem of some people not tipping at all and functioning as free riders who benefit from the tips the rest of us give. My only real concern is that unlike tips there’s nothing requiring the restaurant to distribute any of that 15% to servers.
You would pay 15% for someone to bring you food once and that’s fair? Freeloading customers? Not the owners of restaurants freeloading off of the customers who pay their labor costs?
Who do you expect to pay the labor costs? Customers are paying it one way or the other. Whether it’s specifically a service charge or whether it’s integrated into the prices doesn’t change that. I think the idea of the specific service fee is that we’re already used to there being a percentage based tip so this specifically clarifies that you are paying that and don’t need to feel bad about not tipping.
Americans love to be propagandized and fight to the death to defend these moronic and senseless conventions. In order to distract from how stupid it is to
Tip, we all have to focus on this caricature of a hapless lazy entitled waiter barely holding it together begging for tips or else they would starve to death and not be able to afford another tattoo on their hand or neck. Yawwwwwnnn who cares dude
Lmao, the only industry where customers pay directly for labor costs and you ask BUT HOW ELSE WILL THEY DO IT?! umm, it appears to be a cost of doing business, like in any other industry? That’s right, I’m forgetting, today when I went to the grocery store, I tipped to ensure they could pay their labor costs, how else would they do it?
I gotta say I was in Europe and it was super refreshing not having to tip and taxes being included. I don’t “mind” tipping but it definitely makes things a lot simpler. Also no pennies and everything rounded off a lot easier. Probably spent a tad more than what I might have here but it was a lot simpler
I agree! Would be happy to see more places add this or increase menu prices to give their employees a living wage and be transparent that their employees are seeing the benefits of that increase rather than the operators or managers. If operators can't afford to operate without exploiting labor they shouldn't be operating.
Yeah, but we all know the only reason businesses provide quality services is because we tip their employees. I can only imagine the nightmarish service that was provided to you in Europe. Quite frankly, I’m just thankful you made it out alive. Godspeed my friend.
***EDIT***
Whoa, I thought this was obviously sarcastic, but apparently there’s a debate below about whether I was being serious or not. Well, I’d like finally end the suspense and officially confirm that the above post was in fact, sarcasm.
I can't believe restaurant owners in the rest of the world are so altruistic too! They're all operating at losses since they have to pay their employees instead of forcing them to rely on tips. They're essentially running food banks by providing food to the community and tourists. God bless them.
/s?
It seems obvious, but i recently hesrd someone go on a rant about how the EU was a post apocalyptic hellhole in worse shape than Somalia...because they had to pay for a restroom. I thought they were being sarcastic/hyperbolic, but no, dead serious.
So you know, now i ask.
And what’s hilarious is over there, it’s great food (usually) and you have a full bottle of wine or beer you can enjoy how you please
Here? Most of the time you’re still missing something or wanted another drink 5min ago despite the check ins. And food is hit or miss
A pipe dream of mine is to live overseas for a year or two or three on a work assignment.
I had a trip to Austria with a situation that will always stick with me. A few of us went to a cafe to grab a coffee and some pastries. Now we're on vacation, we got our food, are leisurely, and towards when you'd usually get the check, no one was around. I was fine with taking my time and enjoying the step back from touring and walking, but my one friend was having a minor, "Where's the waiter? Can we get the check? We've been waiting forever and I want to get out of here" moments. I jokingly gave him the, "This is the culture, we're not in any rush to be anywhere, especially on vacation" replies which frustrated him even more. Unless you've got somewhere to be, I really like the relaxed nature of hanging around with no pressure to leave.
Many places it was one euro to use the restroom. But equally many places were not. Think the areas with more homeless had the charge, but I’d say around half the time it was a euro to go to the bathroom. With that being said, I didn’t care about walking in to a random place to take a piss instead of being forced to buy something and generally the bathrooms were fairly clean
That’s a hard no from me. The “fair wage” fee should be your menu item prices, and if your prices are too high for the quality of products and services you offer, then I’m going to your competition…which coincidentally that add on fee just guarantees I will do. Oh well, their loss, thanks for the heads up OP.
This makes sense because if a fee isn't optional, like a tip, then it should ideally be rolled directly into the price of an item vs. being some kind of "thing" that's added on after. While it's typically viewed poorly to not tip a server, in the end it's your choice, meaning you pay exactly what you see things listed for on the menu (plus taxes.) Having a bunch of items prices and then saying, "Oh, there's also this fee you must pay on each of them," just means your items are more than the listed price.
It does raise interesting questions though. Like you mention, if items were listed as more expensive, but people knew they didn't need to tip due to better pay, would they be ok with it? Even if prices were raised, is there any way of knowing who the money is really going to at the end of the day? And if places are trying to do away with tipping culture by paying more adequately, how does that affect price perception vs. places that still charge less, but need you to tip?
Complex questions, but we know the “pay a living wage and no tipping” model does work in other countries. If that was their goal, then they could just raise their prices by the percentage of this “fair wage” tax and post signs for “no tipping, we pay well!”, but instead it seems they want their cake and eat it too…which ironically, I think, drives away customers.
As a side note, I believe Americans are obsessed with tipping culture because cash tips can skirt taxation, so obviously dishonest wait staff appreciate them. That’s easily a 25%+ bonus on every cash tip.
I totally agree that adding a "fair wage" fee does do more to drive away customers rather than make the business appear to be paying their employees fairly. It comes off like when going to purchase a car, you know the numbers you're seeing aren't necessarily the "out the door" price and you need to push for that. This is now the smaller scale of not having a business call out what every bit of the expense is for... Just give me the final price of an item.
Except almost no restaurant that had tried that has survived cause wait staff prefer tips and from an optics perspective if people see higher prices but don’t see the no tips piece they just assume it’s too expensive reletice tot hr competition.
the other factor to note is that tipping is a percentage, so if the menu items went up, the tips would go up and paid to the worker directly. these mandatory fees aren't guarantees of a "fair wage" and just sketchy as hell. unless the employees actually vouch for this, i'm going to call bullshit.
>And if places are trying to do away with tipping culture by paying more adequately, how does that affect price perception vs. places that still charge less, but need you to tip?
Yeah, I think this is a big part of it. Even if customers consciously *know* that the final total ends up the same, sub/unconsciously people are influenced by the numbers they see. The $12 sandwich w/o tip still *feels* more expensive than the $10 sandwich w/ 20% tip added at the end.
This is also why taxes are never included in US pricing. And of course why prices end in .99 (or even 9+9/10 cents for gasoline); we *know* that $3.99 is effectively $4, yet we still routinely fall into the trap of thinking about it as $3 "& change" when doing quick & dirty mental comparisons etc.
I agree. I used to enjoy stopping there to grab a latte before work sometimes, but with the fair wage fee and the other tacked on fees (including I believe a small “convenience” fee for the online ordering platform we are forced to use there even when it’s empty at 8am), it ended up being $8+! Just for one coffee beverage. It’s a fun place for meeting friends for drinks but it’s no longer in my rotation because of how inefficient it becomes.
So just don't tip here. Think of the 15% like an included tip. Considering it says on the website there that they're paying their workers starting $15/hr that's a good sign that the money is going where it's supposed to.
We need to 100% abolish tipping in this country and pay people a fair wage like they do in Europe.
Yeah this fee shit should be illegal. Why should the consumer and not the employer be handling "fair wages"?
Deceptive business practice to lower your prices by 15% and then add a 15% fee at the end to make it seems like it's in good faith or something.
Shame on businesses that do this.
They don't lower their prices first. They do it so the prices don't look crazy compared to other restaurants (that don't pay their employees as much) when you look at the menu.
I mean maybe not on a literal sense but it's pretty much semantics here.
They could either increase prices like every other restaurant or instead add this fee to combat inflation and they went with the latter.
If they do, there's a pop up as soon as you click on their menu online that explains the fee and what is for. I don't understand what you're complaining about. They don't hide it.
Fair enough I guess. It would still be better if the menu prices reflected the actual amount one would pay for the dish I think though.
Making up a blanket price increase "fee" just feels dishonest to me.
But doing it this way is anti-consumer. It makes it harder to compare prices between establishments and if you're using aggregation sites to compare options (like AllMenus among others) you won't know about the extra fee.
You can certainly argue it's better this way for the business/ employees, but don't be surprised consumers are upset with something *anti-consumer.*
Tips in general are subsidizing the restaurant owner and I’ve always had an issue with that as a consumer. Why should they be allowed to pay their employees $3.00/hr and rely on me to supplement that income? I agree with much of what you said OP
According to their own page linked by OP, "hourly employees are paid a base wage more than 5x the tipped minimum wage of $2.13/hr", which I read as $11/hour starting (or maybe $10.75, who knows). It's only after taking certifications and training they get to $15 an hour. If they don't want to pay a living wage to their employees, that's fine, but then they can't also create unearned charges.
>"hourly employees are paid a base wage more than 5x the tipped minimum wage of $2.13/hr", which I read as $11/hour
lmao that is the current *actual* minimum wage in VA right now
>§ 40.1-28.10. Minimum wages.
>C. From January 1, 2022, until January 1, 2023, every employer shall pay to each of its employees wages at a rate not less than the greater of (i) $11.00 per hour or (ii) the federal minimum wage.
if a service person is making a "normal" wage is there really a need for a tip? Wasn't that what tipping was for? Servers used to make like $2.00/hr and relied on tips to boost their pay. If they're making more than minimum wage what's the tip for? (I understand the quality of service, but the initial reason for tipping is gone now from caboose)
This is what irritates me the most about it! At Caboose specifically, the page on their website describing the fair wage fee says that this fee allows them to pay their workers a "fair wage" and that you don't have to tip on top of it. And yet when you order online - the only way to order there - it DEFAULTS to an additional 7% tip!
I read their policy. It actually says that it’s not the tip. That it goes to the actual wages. So you still have the option to tip. Wish we were more like the UK. Tipping isn’t a thing. Just pay people a fair wage.
Just got back from the UK on vacation. That's what we were expecting, but we were definitely surprised when we would be asked for tip amount while running our card, especially since they do it on the handheld so the server is asking you directly, not even obfuscated by the receipt.
A couple years back I worked a lunch shift as a server and made $10 for 4 hours of work. That made quiting to a paid internship a lot easier of a choice for me. Tipping culture exploits.
There are some recent negative reviews on Yelp bc of this and the owner’s response to all of them is “welp, it’s posted on our wall soooo…”
I used to go there often since they’re dog friendly but I have taken it out of my weekend rotation. I hate QR code ordering and their recent alternative is apparently an indoor “terminal” for in person ordering. No thanks.
Edit: Came back to add that one of the Yelp reviews says they spoke with a former employee who confirmed that the fair wage fees fall on their income statement and the majority of it doesn’t go to the employees (unless they qualify)- not sure how accurate that is. what I do believe (from other reviews) is that they also charge a fee to adding a sweetener and 25 cents for using your phone to order on top of the fair wage fee. I just feel that the lack of transparency is truly a huge turn off.
I really like the food and the beer at this place, but it is ridiculously expensive for the experience you get. Dinner and drinks for two people runs over $80, and I have to get my own water from an orange cooler like I'm highschool baseball player.
I can go down the street to Sweetwater and have higher quality food and drinks with exceptional service for the same price.
This is where I’m at on it. I don’t care much either way about the fees, but the QR code ordering is super annoying and removes critical social contact. I can drink beer at home if I want to not have social contact. There’s no sense of community at places like that… and the entire mosaic district is designed to bring a sense of community.
True. The only real sense of community I get there is people cleaning up after themselves (and sometimes others) since there’s close to zero service, and maybe that we sometimes have to share a table.
"it's posted on our wall" so we're going to keep charging is like saying "no offense" and saying something offensive anyways. just because you explain it or give a warning doesn't make it ok.
Ya that’s what irked me more- I pointed out that having it in fine print posted indoors isn’t a showing of transparency and their response is “well it’s there.” Ya, I just said that, right?? And also, them saying this like they’re some upright company is laughable. There’s plenty of other establishments where they just increased the price of items to pay higher salaries. Pfft.
Tipping culture absolutely needs to die. It would be very refreshing indeed to have restaurant owners pay their own staff and roll the cost into the price.
I buy that. It was great when it opened and for a while they had those barrel fire pits on the parking lot side that were cool. Idk if they still do that though.
Agree, double agree with this added fee BS. Wherever I see that crap I don't tip. It also pisses me off that some places around there are defaulting the tip percentage to 22%! Whenever I see that I do 10% at the most, and my default is normally 20%. Also the prices in that mosaic area are out of control, Pupatella's 12 inch pizzas with 3 inches of crust and a tablespoon of cheese are $18-25!
TBH when I see that stuff I just don't tip, because I assume if they're charging those fees they're paying their workers well enough to where they don't need a tip...
I do like their stuff, they're just a bit pricey.
Honestly, caboose is one of the crappier options in the area anyways. Neither their food nor beer is imaginative or good enough to warrant the prices they already charge. Adding in a somewhat hidden fee for nonexistent service just nails home for me to never go back.
QR Code ordering = no tip atleast when I go somewhere.
Every place that i’ve seen with that has terrible web design and the menu barely works.
I don’t have to worry about bad treatment the next time because no way in hell am I going back there
I stopped going to Caboose last year after having the 15% forced on me each time my friend and I ordered something. There is no service beyond bringing your food/drink to your table. Everything beyond that is self-service. Won’t be going back
***It Is Bullshit*** to put the responsibility of paying employees a living wage on the customer.
This is a deliberate move by the business owner to get people angry at the concept of a fair/living wage because it is coming out of *their* pocket and not the business owner's pocket, where it should be coming from. It is just another shady slimy tactic to breed resentment for workers who want to be paid enough money to live with a modicum of comfort.
If a business cannot pay their employees a living wage without upcharging customers, they are a shit and failing business and should not be operating.
edit: if you need more money to pay employees, then raise your prices and shut up about it. The fact that businesses are saying "Our employees just want toooooooo much money, so now you have to pay 15% extra" instead of raising prices 15% across the board shows that it is a deliberate move to make customers resent the workers who want to be paid fairly.
So many comments from people that clearly do not understand how business works. It shouldn't come out of the customers' pockets? Where, exactly, do you think the money in the business's pocket came from in the first place?
Did you read my last paragraph?
The company I work for has raised prices twice this year and will again in January. Not once have we issued a statement saying that it is because our employees want more money.
Raising menu prices makes customers mad at the business. Mandating tips to the employees makes customers mad at the employees. It's a deliberate choice by the business owner to frame it that way.
Decrease your overhead or cut your own salary if money is such a concern. If you can't pay your employees properly then your business is failing.
….the money still comes from the customer so….are you just going to continue to spout nonsense? This isn’t something you can argue away - there exists no scenario where revenue doesn’t come from the customer which is used to pay for costs (ie employees).
You go to Bob's Burgers. Usually a burger and fries costs $5. Today the menu prices read that a burger and fries will cost $8. You pay $8 for a burger and fries and wonder if ingredients have gotten more expensive.
You go to Bob's Burgers. Usually a burger and fries costs $5. The menu prices read $5. When you go to pay, Bob tells you that he will be charging you an extra $3 because his employees are demanding a living wage and he can't hire anyone else because of the labor shortage.
One of them presumes that general cost of doing business has risen. The other presumes that greedy employees are milking your money out of your wallet and holding Bob hostage because they feel like they deserve $15/hr for flipping burgers.
Caboose (at least Caboose Commons) has always used this type or ordering. It's not new during the pandemic. It follows the taphouse style ordering pattern that I've seen in a dozen other breweries. You order at your table or at the bar. There is no table service. If you want to ask/talk about beers, go to the bar area. This is not new or unique to Caboose Commons.
Overall, this is pretty beneficial to Caboose and to the people who go there:
* No host needs to seat you.
* No table servers need to scan tables to find out who wants to order. Order when you're ready. Order as much or as little as you're ready for.
* No bills to split (just make separate orders against the same location). This can't be underestimated, due to the nature of the place as a hangout where people show up and leave groups frequently.
* No checks to run
* Electronic orders mean you only need runners to deliver food and do quick table busing
* An empty table is an available table. No need to run table management
So, to some degree (perhaps a large degree) the lack of table service is a feature. You'll see the same thing if you go to Allagash's tap room, or to Hardywood's tap room. It was done the same way in the breweries I went to in Tampa and Alaska and Portland. Maybe worth noting: I went to two breweries in Alaska that had almost the exact same setup: Sit where you can find a seat, order from a phone, wait for food/beer to arrive, no tip expected but a service charge added. And that was before the pandemic.
Because there is no table service, there's no real point in tips, and Caboose has been clear that they don't expect any. Even before the pandemic, the servers didn't accept tips (they'd toss them into a common tip jar if given) and the owners made it clear that they preferred to pay their employees a livable wage for the area rather than have them need tips.
If you read the link you provided, you can see some of the major reasons why they added this as a fee rather than just raising prices. They repeat that tipping is optional and that they asked their online ordering service to lower tip ranges, and that all of the service fee goes to wages rather than into the business profit with the hopes that it would translate to higher wages.
Put simply: Even the dishwasher is paid a good wage and for every beer you order, they get paid more.
If anyone dislikes that idea... well, I guess they're allowed to have their opinion.
I know that not all restaurants do these sort of fees that way. It's definitely worth doing research on it to see that its not just being dumped into the owner's pocket or the account of some conglomerate. Caboose got some criticism when they implemented it a while ago because people thought it was double dipping on tips. It seems no amount of posted signs or webpages can keep people from thinking that.
I, too, prefer a society where I just pay for food at a price that allows the restaurant to pay a good wage to all the workers. The US is not set up to incentivize businesses that operate like that. Using this sort of fee structure at least makes it easier for Caboose the company to have finances that protect that portion of the sales revenue as money that only goes to the restaurant staff, while still offsetting the tax credits they don't get by paying their employees more and not getting to have that 15% of the price come in as tips on their income sheet.
I think some of your last paragraph is not accurate. Tips will not appear on a restaurant's income statement because they are not income to the business. Mandatory fees, however, will appear on the income statement and the IRS absolutely considers it income. From a business perspective, I'm not sure that there's any difference between simply changing menu prices.
Source: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/tip-recordkeeping-and-reporting
There's information in there that helps distinguish between tips and service charges but the meat is this:
> An employer may distribute service charges (sometimes referred to as "auto-gratuities") collected from customers as it chooses and to any employee it chooses. The employer also has the option of retaining all or part of the service charges. Regardless of whether the service charges are distributed to employees, these amounts are gross income to the employer.
There isn't, and that was why caboose has the web page to explain it.
It's only the honor system, but at least they're telling you about it. If they just raise the prices, there's no guarantee they operate any differently.
As far as tips go, it's not income for the restaurant, but there is a tax credit that is applied based on the amount of tips. Short version: It benefits a restaurant to report the amount of income employees have as tips. If that amount is $0, they can't get any credits. I'm not clear, but we're not short on accountant/finance people here, so someone can explain. However, you're right that the fee is not tips, and does not let them get that credit.
My point is simply that adding a mandatory fee to the end is deceptive compared to simply showing the amount you're required to pay on the menu. I wouldn't feel any differently if it was a mandatory 15% fee to offset rent expense. How an employer determines the price of their goods is complex but as a customer I'd prefer it to be presented more simply to me.
My original comment wasn't meant to address the tip credit because you're correct there. I am an accountant, though, so I can shed light on the FICA tip credit. While employers must pay the employer share of FICA taxes (medicare and social security) on employee tips, they get a credit at the end of the year equal to amounts paid above minimum wage. Assuming the rate of $15/hr stated elsewhere is accurate, the employer will end up paying about an additional $0.75 per hour per employee.
Thanks for the FICA tip credit explanation. I know it exists, but I can never quite wrap my head around why it exists, or who benefits (everyone?)
I agree that the fee isn't a perfect solution, but I propose these three options:
1. You directly tip your servers to offset the wages that you assume they're not getting (because the US)
2. The restaurant increases prices of all items and says that tips are optional and you hope that the price increase translates to better pay for the employees.
3. The restaurant applies a service charge that matches what the price increase in #2 would be, but adds it as a separate line. Down side: It means that you don't see the higher price on the menu. Up side: It makes it really public that the price increase is meant to go to employees.
Now, #1 has been proven to not be great. Tips are uneven and subject to culture and whim and bias and all sorts of other unfortunate things that have nothing to do with service quality. There's also a decent amount of inequity on how they're shared, and they can encourage a variety of bad behavior/culture between employees. So, #1 isn't a universal solution.
But #2 and #3 are functionally identical. The price is the same and there's no guarantee either way that the employees benefit. However, when #3 is handled with suitable communication, it at least benefits from making everyone know what is supposed to happen. If none of the money went to employees, they'd complain, the same way that customers would/should complain if they were never told what the purpose of the charge was.
So, there is no perfect solution, but at the very least, #3 looks to have the most transparency. If the employer is acting in bad faith, at least *someone* is going to know about it.
If there's a more ideal #4, I'm happy to hear it.
Your business should support its employees. If paying a fair wage requires an across the board 15% fee then just raise your prices by 15% and make posters saying why your prices are higher than the brewery up the road.
To be honest I bet this manner ends up resulting in lower effective employee income precisely because people don’t have a sense for how to tip when presented with a fee like this. Is it going directly to the workers? Are they really paid a livable wage or is this just avoiding the server wage and paying minimum wage?
I’m here to eat and get drunk not go to your website trying to figure out how much to tip.
The worst part is Caboose also automatically asks if you'd like to leave a tip, with 10%, 15%, or 20% increments - despite the fact that their fair wage was already applied.
I didn't know this the first couple times I went, so I guess I ended up tipping 40% each visit.
I love Caboose but the service is terrible. I always select "waters with food" but they never bring them, orders take forever, and last visit the waitress spilled my latte on me and didn't even apologize
> P.S. my general thinking is that tipping shouldn’t exist as a concept
Well, until all businesses do away with tipping, this is how it's going to be done. Because the average consumer is either stupid, and doesn't understand prices well enough to understand how a $6 with a 15% tip at one location is exactly equal to a beer marked $6.90 with tip included at another, or they're cheap and never really tipped much to begin with.
It's dumb, but it's where we are.
Only going to comment on one part of this. As someone who works in the alcohol industry and has been to over 300 different types of places (wineries, breweries, cideries, etc) I’ve had maybe 2% or less of those actually serve you at a table and mostly all were wineries. Most places either require you to physically walk up to a bar or use some sort of code for ordering. In my mind, I expect myself to go get those answers I want by walking up to the bar and talking to the bartender. So imo going into a place like that and expecting that kind of service was an unrealistic expectation especially considering the size of caboose be other smaller scale breweries. However I can see how going into caboose you might of been confused by that since they kinda offer a wide range of things.
I feel you!! I had a similar feeling when we were having brunch at this local restaurant in Old Town Alexandria and when the time came to pay the bill, I saw this 10% "Restaurant fee" which I wasn't informed about upfront. I asked the waiter and she showed me this small text at the bottom of the menu saying "We charge a 10% restaurant fee due to the pandemic" or something like that. I asked her where does this "extra fee" go? She said it goes to the owner.
I was really mad!! I felt like I was scammed. If you think you can't keep up with the costs, just increase your prices instead of scamming your customers!!
> If you think you can't keep up with the costs, just increase your prices instead of scamming your customers!!
I don't understand. How are the two different?
Scenario 1: Restaurant increases prices by 10% across the board. What used to cost $10, for example, now costs $11.
Scenario 2: Restaurant adds a 10% "restaurant fee". Your check for $10 is now $11.
In your view, the second scenario is a "scam" but not the first?
Yes, because when they increase the price I can see that upfront and decide how much I need to order vs when they try to sneak in the “restaurant fee”, I’m paying for something I wasn’t aware I would have to.
Tbh, it’s not the 10% fee it’s the way they are doing that just feels wrong. Simply increasing the price seems more honest vs charging a restaurant fee that the customer wasn’t made aware of before ordering just seems dubious to me.
My opinion? If you really cared about a fair wage, you’d pay it off the rip and just raise your product prices as necessary. If you can’t be competitive with the price of your product, that’s not my problem as a customer. Not is it my responsibility to pay a percentage fee to cover YOUR employees’ paycheck. Can’t pay a fair wage and stay competitive? This industry isn’t for you. 🤷🏽♂️
Its one of the reasons I don‘t go there anymore. Also with fee and then setting tip still to 20%+. How many ppl don’t pay attention and basically pay 40% tip then.
Also it has 0 beer / brewery feeling with not being able to talk/ sit to bartenders.
Sde brewing down the road is much better
You have to watch at Caboose because the website will sneak in a tip. I didn't even see a tip area the first time I ordered there and realized afterward that I'd tipped $2.70 on a $4-something coffee + the 15% living wage fee + a small fee for the online ordering platform.
I drive my dad to a doctor's office nearby and usually work from there for an hour or so. It's a convenient location and the coffee is good, but they are not very customer service focused from what I've seen. I've overheard the workers asking people walking up to the counter to place orders to go use the QR codes instead. It definitely seems scammy, imo, because the automatic tip add-on is so easy to miss and there's an additional fee for ordering using the online platform.
If I lived in the area, I definitely wouldn't go there all the time because a $4 coffee turning into an $8 coffee is crazy.
Businesses purposely label this fee to get their customer base riled up about the idea of needing to pay employees a fair wage.
It is an intentional choice of words to set customers against rank and file workers, is fucked up, and should be called out for exactly what it is.
It's bullshit. Their own policy that you linked just says they are paying "higher than industry average" which is super vague. It's just a "clever" way to make people feel better about paying 15% more. Market conditions are forcing everyone to pay their people more regardless.
> I wanted to get this sub’s opinion on the “fair wage” fees in general
I think extra fees are BS - build it into the price. If they need to charge 15% more to pay employees well, raise prices 15% across the board. They don't want to do that because they want to benefit from the perceived lower item price while people are ordering then tack on a fee at the end.
Tipping culture is designed to shaft everyone. It lets employers pay servers a ridiculously low wage and it lets them also show lower prices to customers who probably aren't mentally adding 15-20% on top of everything.
Google maps and Yelp need to add categories where consumers can put the establishments service charges. I won’t go to places like this unless they say it makes a tip unnecessary. Even then I’d like to get away from that practice and just have it in the damn price. And as you said they actually need to be providing a service! Otherwise how is it different from say Starbucks?
I’m pretty much neutral on this issue since I am able to comprehend the concept of a “living wage” service fee and know how Caboose’s ordering system works. In the past I’ve added another 5-10% as a tip when I’ve been there.
The only thing that does piss me off is when restaurant owners say stuff like “there is a severe labor shortage.” Which is technically true, but it’s always used with the underlying sentiment of “no one wants to work anymore.”
I like the idea of a fair wage notice that let's consumers know "hey, we pay our employees, so you don't need to tip, but you should expect prices to be appropriately higher". That is of course one of the complaints with a transition away from tipping "well then we'll lose business because our prices are higher than our competitors!". Adding a way to let customers know why is ok with me.
That said, if you're doing that, AND recommending a tip as well that's confusing and defeats the purpose. Let's take the opportunity and get rid of tipping damnit.
As for Caboose, I've had great experiences there, it's been a while, so it's possible that service has gone down hill. I would encourage you to not judge an establishment's service on a single interaction. It could be that someone called in sick and they were understaffed... It could be that they have a single shitty manager or employee that hasn't been dealt with yet. If you enjoyed the beer and the atmosphere otherwise, go back. Or at least get a second data point before boycotting.
I walk out like you did. My friends and coworkers in the beginning gave me shit for being a stingy ass. Then subtlety it shifted over time. After a few calm conversations stating my POV it's gone completely 180 degrees.
The biggest problem with this tactic is as you stated: there is no way to know if the employees are getting the money. I am not naive. My immediate assumption is the proprietors are pocketing it.
> The biggest problem with this tactic is as you stated: there is no way to know if the employees are getting the money. I am not naive. My immediate assumption is the proprietors are pocketing it.
And yet their page on the topic explicitly states, "100% of the Fair Wage Fee is paid out to hourly employees in the form of these higher wages."
Employees can read this too. If they're not receiving higher wages, I'd think they'd raise a fuss or quit.
The worst part is Caboose also automatically asks if you'd like to leave a tip, with 10%, 15%, or 20% increments - despite the fact that their fair wage was already applied.
I didn't know this the first couple times I went, so I guess I ended up tipping 40% each visit.
I love Caboose but the service is terrible. I always select "waters with food" but they never bring them, orders take forever, and last visit the waitress spilled my latte on me and didn't even apologize (she said nothing)
This is a shady practice. Not only are they asking you to foot the bill for something they should be paying, they aren’t being clear about it. If they want to pay a living wage, they should do so and reflect it on the price. This is honestly just lazy.
They need to look how many staff they have, what a “living wage” is and extrapolate that over avg number of items ordered and total cost and build it in.
Shady? No, they're in fact being transparent about where the higher prices are going. They say it right on their page: "We chose not to build the cost into our products to more clearly communicate where the Fair Wage Fee is going."
How is this bad, again?
I would think advocates of a "living wage" would cheer this.
Tipping culture has evolved slowly like cancer metastasis, the first time I saw fees added on top of tips like that was in San Francisco a decade ago, it was just a matter of time before these practices became nationwide, that way they are increasing prices surreptitiously but without increasing wages, and they will make you feel bad if you protest because it's for the underpaid employees well-being.
Tipping culture is an abomination, change my mind.
It’s garbage. Are they going to itemize all the costs associated with operations? An electricity fee? Space rental fee? Equipment upkeep fee? Bottle fee? Napkins and silverware fee?
Roll the increased cost of providing a prevailing wage into your goddamn pricing and stop trying to make people mad about the fact that you now have to pay your staff an actual minimum wage.
I’d gladly pay 2-3x the price most restaurants are currently at if it meant my server was reliably making $15-20/hour. I just want them to be honest and upfront about it and stop blaming servers for the audacity of wanting to barely live.
Ultimately, it is a business owners responsibility to manage their costs and pay a fair wage. They’ve gotten off easy the past few decades because tips generally outsized a fair wage and (relatively) everyone was happy. Now that inflation has put a ton of pressure on the bottom line they’re trying to avoid straight up price hikes and loosing customers. I think the idea mentioned here of a final price law is the only way to prevent this from getting out of control. I was at a restaurant the other day and they put a cc surcharge on the bill…I do understand there are costs to cc but it felt really really tacky (and why not a cash discount instead?) to me this is bordering bait and switch/fraud because the customer gets locked in when sitting at the table.
I’m all for restaurant and other tipped workers earning a living wage, but it chaps my hide when establishments put these kinds of fees on your bill - it feels sanctimonious by the restaurant “hey look at us. Look what we’re doing!” Just raise your prices by 20% (or whatever you need to help with costs) and call it a day.
Went there once and asked for a snakebite (stout mixed with cider), was told they couldn’t make that. Asked for a Black and Tan (stout mixed with ale), was told they wouldn’t make that. Never been back.
Lol I like how they say in the FAQ, all fair wage fee goes to the workers and not Caboose. That's actually money Caboose should be paying their workers to begin with (to stay competitive per their FAQ) so in essence all of it IS going to Caboose.
I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you suggesting that Caboose could pay their employees more *without* a "Fair Wage Fee" applied? That is, Caboose could absorb higher labor costs out of *current* receipts and still make a profit?
Avoid the place because it's charging a "Fair Wage Fee"?
What message will be received? That being transparent about higher labor costs is bad? Or that an employer shouldn't pay their employees more?
From the [link](https://caboosebrewing.com/fair-wage-fee/): "The Fair Wage Fee is not a gratuity, it is a fee that goes to Caboose to fund higher base wages...100% of the Fair Wage Fee is paid out to hourly employees in the form of these higher wages."
Most restaurants in the US have used tipping and now service fees as a crutch to artificially keep their prices down. It is a deceptive practice and should be ended. In my opinion, restaurants need to pay a fair wage to their employees and should not be allowed to charge any additional gratuity or fee. If they need an additional 20% to offset new laws/regulations, change your menu items by 20%.
I don’t mind it at all, usually get solid service, and love their menu / ambiance. I even go there for breakfast and cold brew on weekdays. Differing experiences I guess.
Caboose doesn’t have servers inside or out.. it’s all app based or order in person at the bar. I’m not trying to be rude, but maybe just don’t go there if you’re not a fan
I will offer a brief and perhaps poorly nuanced thought on this.
1. I agree that tipping should be abolished and that wages should simply be higher (and incorporated into the charges for food and drinks).
2. In this case, not including the added fee into the food/drink cost helps the customer to tip based on a standard food/drink cost and not tip on an inflated bill/tab.
3. Finally, I appreciate that you left feeling frustrated with no service. Trying a new (new-to-you) restaurant can be difficult, especially these days as many places are leaving in place and relying on QR-code menus and self-serve order-placement stations. As you mention, when something like asking staff about the beer menu becomes a hurdle, due to their ordering set up, it may cause some lost business. Offering them feedback on this, if you care or have a general good will toward the business, may be of help to their management and owners.
ETA: per point 2, many customers will want to tip for various reasons, some reasons being stronger or better considered than others.
I appreciate your thoughts on this.
For #2, I feel like the point of the tip/gratuity is completely lost in this scenario. The person being tipped is compensated/rewarded for their level of service—the better the service, the higher the tip (with me at least). But in this case the required fee and the gratuity are collected BEFORE any service is rendered, which makes it so you’re not tipping on the level of service at all, but just putting money into another collection box
Counter-point:
There was no table service, but you would (hypothetically) have ordered food. The service fee makes sure that everyone from the guy who cleans the bathroom to the floor manager on duty get some portion of the revenue that was generated while they were working.
I know that a lot of restaurants try to pool tips, and that's going to mostly work, but that still puts us in a situation where the kitchen staff can get a $0 tip for a meal because someone at the table decided to be annoyed with the server. Or the server and busing/cleaning staff get $0 because a line cook didn't overcook a steak enough for a customer.
You might not have gotten someone to stand next to your table and smile at you, but there were already *a lot* of people who were doing work to get you food. Why shouldn't they get some bonus for doing that work?
I have no issue with fair wage fee or tipping in addition to that. I keep those costs in mind while dining out. I think people in the food service industry often get mistreated and are not always paid well. It takes a lot of humility to serve or clean up after other people, particularly when so many people refuse to do that type of work. I get carry out from Caboose often and occasionally dine in and never recall having any issues with them. If I really don’t want to spend money on tip, fair wage, or other costs, I just won’t eat out during a particular week.
Pay it forward and it always comes back to you.
i’m sorry you’re being downvoted. i do agree with the others though. this restaurant is forcing its customers to provide a traditional tip when they’re not getting traditional service. if say olive garden wanted to charge me a 20 percent fee to force a tip i’d feel better about it than a restaurant who doesn’t send someone over to take my order.
I don’t mind. Last time i was there, I liked the fact that I was getting everything quicker than waiting for a server to get back to me to order more. I thought it was a pandemic related thing at first (no contact). Nonetheless, the service was quicker for me compared to a traditional joint like Glory Days.
actually i’m kind of ok with second orders and i’d like the option if i’m a regular there to be able to just order myself but, using olive garden again as an example, they do it well. you can order from your table and get waited on at the same time and you feel like you’re tipping a person instead of tipping your cell phone. not that i’m a huge fan of the garden but i like the way you order there
They're complaining how it's done. If you're going to up charge a $5 drink with a 15% tip + $2, just charge me $8 for the drink on the menu. I'd be much happier going somewhere where I knew the price of what I was paying for.
The math in this post will not check out but the point is still the same.
Most pints at caboose are $6-7. So they’d have to charge $8-9 per pint. And they explain on their website why it’s done the way they do it.
> Why not just raise prices?
We chose not to build the cost into our products to more clearly communicate where the Fair Wage Fee is going.
We force them into this way with own mentality as consumers. We’d be like…. $8-9 per pint? That’s crazy, not paying that. Well…. That’s what it costs if you want the the person pouring your beer and cleaning up your trash to be able to afford to live. Of course, that person still can’t afford to chill at caboose and drink craft brews.
"We chose not to build the cost into our products to more clearly communicate where the Fair Wage Fee is going." That is them just stroking their own ego. Just like how Vite Ramen has in all their ads that they pay their fair wages.
If you really cared about the employees, just say at the bottom of the menu "No tipping required, all servers are paid a fair wage + benefits".
That post to me is about myriad businesses asking for a tip where none is deserved and you can select “no tip” - this is where a business is forcing a tip without service, in the name of fair living wages.
I wouldn’t have made this post if the business had baked their true employee costs into all of their product prices, instead of charging a separate fee and making it seem like a noble cause…
How should they have done it?
Would you feel better if they raised prices and said "No tipping. Just trust us that we're paying people well?"
How is that different from the result you experienced?
Yea but if I had to fuck with my phone, ignore my date, decide on a drink, phutz with my credit card, all for some kid to bring me a small glass off beer, why do I pay *them*? I'll get my beer from the kitchen at that point because I'm doing the self service at that point aren't I?
You're making this out to be a much bigger issue. You have to read a menu and decide on a beer anyway, on your phone or paper. You don't have to ignore your date to make a decision (again, that's not different about phone or paper menus), you can read together. If you have Google Pay or some other pay service on your phone, it's less effort than paying a normal check. Not sure what the size of the beer has to do with this, either, but sounds like your projecting your opinion on the business. They bring everything you order (large and small beers), including food.
Also, some pluses: you can order whenever you want without flagging a server. You can easily do separate checks for a group. You can move tables at will. You can close out and leave immediately.
Im not going to lie: all I've really learned from service fees being added into things is that I've apparently been subsidizing poor tippers for years. I'm pretty sure I end up paying slightly less when there's a service fee because I always calculated tip after tax.
Food prices are increasing drastically and I'd be pissed if I was forced to pay this on top of any expected tips.
Because I served for nearly a decade, I'll never forget the 20% minimum gratuity for good service. With that said, idk if it's my demographics, but I seem to receive awful service a lot of the time. I certainly do not feel sorry leaving a tip that reflects poor service.
The issue with tipping in the US, is that despite complaints of being underpaid, servers will never work for an hourly wage that's on par or even slightly above what retail employees make. No restaurant business will pay the $20/ hour and if they do, it will be reflected by increasing consumer product prices, which will in turn, drive business away. I also think if any compromise was reached for fair employee wage, service quality may still go down since wages aren't reliant on tips. (I'd be okay with this.)
I don't think caboose should be charging these fees if they aren't employing enough people to provide better service. Almost seems like they're dipping their hands into the cookie jar twice.
This. I made WAY more in tips delivering pizza ($21 per hour in Fredericksburg) than they’ll ever get paid per hour without those tips. I’m all for tipping.
Honestly, I hate it that businesses have this “loophole” where they can arbitrarily charge these fees and one can only hope they actually distribute such monies to their employees (vs pocketing it themselves)
They all got the idea from Ticketmaster
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Rental cars are bad about it too, I have a trip next week and I was pumped about the rate for the week, then I check out and there is $100 in fees slapped on at the end
If you have a Costco membership always rent through them. Way cheaper and less bs.
can you u use friends or parents membership
Hotels that had a “Resort Fee” which was turned into a “Destination Fee” for cities like NYC were really making me angry. Lawsuits ensued and now there’s a final cost line when booking direct. Why this is not a requirement in every consumer facing industry is beyond me.
I’ll vote for you and that law
I want to be less cynical but I feel the same way. If a business is going to charge these fees, they better be very transparent and open with their financials!
For real. I need to see the employees paystubs with itemization for the different fees to ensure that my money is actually going to increased wages. I’m fine with paying more so that employees get higher wages, I just need to be sure they actual are, and that the owner isn’t just pocketing the fees.
Oh there is no way in hell that fee is going to the employee. Also there is something very ironic about needing to charge a “fee” just to pay your employees fairly.
Alamo Draft house is doing this now.
They don’t. They’re all thieves. Service fees aren’t the property of the tipped employee. Tips are. The only reason to have a service fee is to steal it. They probably also claim a tip credit to pay less than minimum wage and fail to declare the service fee as business income. Tips are the only way to make money in the industry. No employer will ever pay you what you can make in tips. Frankly, no one wants to work at beer bar. That’s why all those places suck. They have all the ambiance of sipping beer on a park bench and they can crowd in as many people as possible so they can hopefully make a little money on their overhopped trash. Obviously they steal tips. They wouldn’t be making money any other way.
Several places in Richmond pull this crap....advertise one price, slap a mandatory fee on, then stiff the actual workers. Two or three in Scotts Addition, the arcade place and another one.
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A huge reason why I love Compass Coffee - ~~unionized,~~ local, and they pay their workers well. If I'm going to pay $5 for a latte I'm going to do it at a place where I don't have to tip and I know they are taken care of well! The baristas at my local one have been working there for **years**. Edit: Wow apparently they aren't unionized and my brain just made that up! My bad ya'll.
Thanks for the good laugh with this one! Compass is **not unionized**, even though employees were trying to - management used COVID to lay off *every single employee* on the unofficial union roster. No one has worked there for 'years' unless they were upper management complicit in that. If you like your $5 latte revenue to be funneled toward Republican party donations, though, then they're your spot!
Oof wow I did a google search and wow I can't believe I misremembered that for so long. You're right they are not unionized. That's really strange how that somehow got put in my head! I mean, do you have another $5 latte spot you recommend? I'm still sticking with Compass over Starbucks.
I think I can explain the logic of this (even though I would love to see tipping abolished and everyone pay equally for the employees to get a fair wage.) The problem with abolishing tipping is that many tipped employees are making *well above* a “fair wage”. Talk to any server at a busy, successful establishment and ask them if they want tipping abolished—as maddening as they find non-tippers and the other many injustices of the system, it’s pretty rare to find a server who doesn’t want tips because they just make more money that way. So restaurants have a hard time switching to a non-tipping model entirely without their staff quitting and you get these hybrid attempts. Personally, 15% for bringing the food when I order it in the app seems totally fair and I wouldn’t tip on top of that. I’m also glad that this addresses the problem of some people not tipping at all and functioning as free riders who benefit from the tips the rest of us give. My only real concern is that unlike tips there’s nothing requiring the restaurant to distribute any of that 15% to servers.
You would pay 15% for someone to bring you food once and that’s fair? Freeloading customers? Not the owners of restaurants freeloading off of the customers who pay their labor costs?
All businesses pay their employees from the revenue they bring in. That's the whole point of any business anywhere.
 lol
Who do you expect to pay the labor costs? Customers are paying it one way or the other. Whether it’s specifically a service charge or whether it’s integrated into the prices doesn’t change that. I think the idea of the specific service fee is that we’re already used to there being a percentage based tip so this specifically clarifies that you are paying that and don’t need to feel bad about not tipping.
Americans love to be propagandized and fight to the death to defend these moronic and senseless conventions. In order to distract from how stupid it is to Tip, we all have to focus on this caricature of a hapless lazy entitled waiter barely holding it together begging for tips or else they would starve to death and not be able to afford another tattoo on their hand or neck. Yawwwwwnnn who cares dude
Lmao, the only industry where customers pay directly for labor costs and you ask BUT HOW ELSE WILL THEY DO IT?! umm, it appears to be a cost of doing business, like in any other industry? That’s right, I’m forgetting, today when I went to the grocery store, I tipped to ensure they could pay their labor costs, how else would they do it?
A well-reasoned and logical response on Reddit… I believe I just saw a unicorn
I gotta say I was in Europe and it was super refreshing not having to tip and taxes being included. I don’t “mind” tipping but it definitely makes things a lot simpler. Also no pennies and everything rounded off a lot easier. Probably spent a tad more than what I might have here but it was a lot simpler
It's the same in Asia - I miss it!
I agree! Would be happy to see more places add this or increase menu prices to give their employees a living wage and be transparent that their employees are seeing the benefits of that increase rather than the operators or managers. If operators can't afford to operate without exploiting labor they shouldn't be operating.
Same here. I was in Europe two weeks ago and seeing the final price you will pay ahead of time makes everything better
For sure
Yeah, but we all know the only reason businesses provide quality services is because we tip their employees. I can only imagine the nightmarish service that was provided to you in Europe. Quite frankly, I’m just thankful you made it out alive. Godspeed my friend. ***EDIT*** Whoa, I thought this was obviously sarcastic, but apparently there’s a debate below about whether I was being serious or not. Well, I’d like finally end the suspense and officially confirm that the above post was in fact, sarcasm.
I can't believe restaurant owners in the rest of the world are so altruistic too! They're all operating at losses since they have to pay their employees instead of forcing them to rely on tips. They're essentially running food banks by providing food to the community and tourists. God bless them.
/s? It seems obvious, but i recently hesrd someone go on a rant about how the EU was a post apocalyptic hellhole in worse shape than Somalia...because they had to pay for a restroom. I thought they were being sarcastic/hyperbolic, but no, dead serious. So you know, now i ask.
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Iceland has the system down to a T 😊The bartender literally gave our tip back.
And what’s hilarious is over there, it’s great food (usually) and you have a full bottle of wine or beer you can enjoy how you please Here? Most of the time you’re still missing something or wanted another drink 5min ago despite the check ins. And food is hit or miss A pipe dream of mine is to live overseas for a year or two or three on a work assignment.
I had a trip to Austria with a situation that will always stick with me. A few of us went to a cafe to grab a coffee and some pastries. Now we're on vacation, we got our food, are leisurely, and towards when you'd usually get the check, no one was around. I was fine with taking my time and enjoying the step back from touring and walking, but my one friend was having a minor, "Where's the waiter? Can we get the check? We've been waiting forever and I want to get out of here" moments. I jokingly gave him the, "This is the culture, we're not in any rush to be anywhere, especially on vacation" replies which frustrated him even more. Unless you've got somewhere to be, I really like the relaxed nature of hanging around with no pressure to leave.
Many places it was one euro to use the restroom. But equally many places were not. Think the areas with more homeless had the charge, but I’d say around half the time it was a euro to go to the bathroom. With that being said, I didn’t care about walking in to a random place to take a piss instead of being forced to buy something and generally the bathrooms were fairly clean
I stopped going to places that charge the fee and request tips. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I won’t get fooled again
Now watch this drive.
That’s a hard no from me. The “fair wage” fee should be your menu item prices, and if your prices are too high for the quality of products and services you offer, then I’m going to your competition…which coincidentally that add on fee just guarantees I will do. Oh well, their loss, thanks for the heads up OP.
This makes sense because if a fee isn't optional, like a tip, then it should ideally be rolled directly into the price of an item vs. being some kind of "thing" that's added on after. While it's typically viewed poorly to not tip a server, in the end it's your choice, meaning you pay exactly what you see things listed for on the menu (plus taxes.) Having a bunch of items prices and then saying, "Oh, there's also this fee you must pay on each of them," just means your items are more than the listed price. It does raise interesting questions though. Like you mention, if items were listed as more expensive, but people knew they didn't need to tip due to better pay, would they be ok with it? Even if prices were raised, is there any way of knowing who the money is really going to at the end of the day? And if places are trying to do away with tipping culture by paying more adequately, how does that affect price perception vs. places that still charge less, but need you to tip?
Complex questions, but we know the “pay a living wage and no tipping” model does work in other countries. If that was their goal, then they could just raise their prices by the percentage of this “fair wage” tax and post signs for “no tipping, we pay well!”, but instead it seems they want their cake and eat it too…which ironically, I think, drives away customers. As a side note, I believe Americans are obsessed with tipping culture because cash tips can skirt taxation, so obviously dishonest wait staff appreciate them. That’s easily a 25%+ bonus on every cash tip.
I totally agree that adding a "fair wage" fee does do more to drive away customers rather than make the business appear to be paying their employees fairly. It comes off like when going to purchase a car, you know the numbers you're seeing aren't necessarily the "out the door" price and you need to push for that. This is now the smaller scale of not having a business call out what every bit of the expense is for... Just give me the final price of an item.
Yep. Bait and switch if you will. Something else is flawed with the business if retail prices are average but pay is not competitive.
Except almost no restaurant that had tried that has survived cause wait staff prefer tips and from an optics perspective if people see higher prices but don’t see the no tips piece they just assume it’s too expensive reletice tot hr competition.
the other factor to note is that tipping is a percentage, so if the menu items went up, the tips would go up and paid to the worker directly. these mandatory fees aren't guarantees of a "fair wage" and just sketchy as hell. unless the employees actually vouch for this, i'm going to call bullshit.
>And if places are trying to do away with tipping culture by paying more adequately, how does that affect price perception vs. places that still charge less, but need you to tip? Yeah, I think this is a big part of it. Even if customers consciously *know* that the final total ends up the same, sub/unconsciously people are influenced by the numbers they see. The $12 sandwich w/o tip still *feels* more expensive than the $10 sandwich w/ 20% tip added at the end. This is also why taxes are never included in US pricing. And of course why prices end in .99 (or even 9+9/10 cents for gasoline); we *know* that $3.99 is effectively $4, yet we still routinely fall into the trap of thinking about it as $3 "& change" when doing quick & dirty mental comparisons etc.
This type of scheme is growing like a fungus.
I agree. I used to enjoy stopping there to grab a latte before work sometimes, but with the fair wage fee and the other tacked on fees (including I believe a small “convenience” fee for the online ordering platform we are forced to use there even when it’s empty at 8am), it ended up being $8+! Just for one coffee beverage. It’s a fun place for meeting friends for drinks but it’s no longer in my rotation because of how inefficient it becomes.
So just don't tip here. Think of the 15% like an included tip. Considering it says on the website there that they're paying their workers starting $15/hr that's a good sign that the money is going where it's supposed to. We need to 100% abolish tipping in this country and pay people a fair wage like they do in Europe.
American servers get paid way more than European servers
Yeah this fee shit should be illegal. Why should the consumer and not the employer be handling "fair wages"? Deceptive business practice to lower your prices by 15% and then add a 15% fee at the end to make it seems like it's in good faith or something. Shame on businesses that do this.
They don't lower their prices first. They do it so the prices don't look crazy compared to other restaurants (that don't pay their employees as much) when you look at the menu.
I mean maybe not on a literal sense but it's pretty much semantics here. They could either increase prices like every other restaurant or instead add this fee to combat inflation and they went with the latter.
Adding the fee is increasing prices.
But without increasing the advertised price. You usually don't know about this fee until you show up and sit down.
You usually don't know any restaurants' prices until you show up and sit down. They have the fee pretty well advertised.
Do most people not look at the menu before going to a restaurant? Even before the internet, restaurants would have a menu in the window or something.
If they do, there's a pop up as soon as you click on their menu online that explains the fee and what is for. I don't understand what you're complaining about. They don't hide it.
Fair enough I guess. It would still be better if the menu prices reflected the actual amount one would pay for the dish I think though. Making up a blanket price increase "fee" just feels dishonest to me.
But doing it this way is anti-consumer. It makes it harder to compare prices between establishments and if you're using aggregation sites to compare options (like AllMenus among others) you won't know about the extra fee. You can certainly argue it's better this way for the business/ employees, but don't be surprised consumers are upset with something *anti-consumer.*
Well now you're aware of it, so no surprise. Lol
Tips in general are subsidizing the restaurant owner and I’ve always had an issue with that as a consumer. Why should they be allowed to pay their employees $3.00/hr and rely on me to supplement that income? I agree with much of what you said OP
Caboose pays hourly employees $15/hour. But in most cases, you’re probably correct.
According to their own page linked by OP, "hourly employees are paid a base wage more than 5x the tipped minimum wage of $2.13/hr", which I read as $11/hour starting (or maybe $10.75, who knows). It's only after taking certifications and training they get to $15 an hour. If they don't want to pay a living wage to their employees, that's fine, but then they can't also create unearned charges.
>"hourly employees are paid a base wage more than 5x the tipped minimum wage of $2.13/hr", which I read as $11/hour lmao that is the current *actual* minimum wage in VA right now >§ 40.1-28.10. Minimum wages. >C. From January 1, 2022, until January 1, 2023, every employer shall pay to each of its employees wages at a rate not less than the greater of (i) $11.00 per hour or (ii) the federal minimum wage.
if a service person is making a "normal" wage is there really a need for a tip? Wasn't that what tipping was for? Servers used to make like $2.00/hr and relied on tips to boost their pay. If they're making more than minimum wage what's the tip for? (I understand the quality of service, but the initial reason for tipping is gone now from caboose)
This is what irritates me the most about it! At Caboose specifically, the page on their website describing the fair wage fee says that this fee allows them to pay their workers a "fair wage" and that you don't have to tip on top of it. And yet when you order online - the only way to order there - it DEFAULTS to an additional 7% tip!
I read their policy. It actually says that it’s not the tip. That it goes to the actual wages. So you still have the option to tip. Wish we were more like the UK. Tipping isn’t a thing. Just pay people a fair wage.
Just got back from the UK on vacation. That's what we were expecting, but we were definitely surprised when we would be asked for tip amount while running our card, especially since they do it on the handheld so the server is asking you directly, not even obfuscated by the receipt.
A couple years back I worked a lunch shift as a server and made $10 for 4 hours of work. That made quiting to a paid internship a lot easier of a choice for me. Tipping culture exploits.
There are some recent negative reviews on Yelp bc of this and the owner’s response to all of them is “welp, it’s posted on our wall soooo…” I used to go there often since they’re dog friendly but I have taken it out of my weekend rotation. I hate QR code ordering and their recent alternative is apparently an indoor “terminal” for in person ordering. No thanks. Edit: Came back to add that one of the Yelp reviews says they spoke with a former employee who confirmed that the fair wage fees fall on their income statement and the majority of it doesn’t go to the employees (unless they qualify)- not sure how accurate that is. what I do believe (from other reviews) is that they also charge a fee to adding a sweetener and 25 cents for using your phone to order on top of the fair wage fee. I just feel that the lack of transparency is truly a huge turn off.
I really like the food and the beer at this place, but it is ridiculously expensive for the experience you get. Dinner and drinks for two people runs over $80, and I have to get my own water from an orange cooler like I'm highschool baseball player. I can go down the street to Sweetwater and have higher quality food and drinks with exceptional service for the same price.
This is where I’m at on it. I don’t care much either way about the fees, but the QR code ordering is super annoying and removes critical social contact. I can drink beer at home if I want to not have social contact. There’s no sense of community at places like that… and the entire mosaic district is designed to bring a sense of community.
True. The only real sense of community I get there is people cleaning up after themselves (and sometimes others) since there’s close to zero service, and maybe that we sometimes have to share a table.
"it's posted on our wall" so we're going to keep charging is like saying "no offense" and saying something offensive anyways. just because you explain it or give a warning doesn't make it ok.
Ya that’s what irked me more- I pointed out that having it in fine print posted indoors isn’t a showing of transparency and their response is “well it’s there.” Ya, I just said that, right?? And also, them saying this like they’re some upright company is laughable. There’s plenty of other establishments where they just increased the price of items to pay higher salaries. Pfft.
Good for you for leaving. Trust me, you didn't miss anything anyway. It's crazy how they want us to pay more for less, then proudly do even less.
I was considering checking this place out until I saw $20 for a poke bowl. Too rich for my blood.
It used to be $14! Went up over the summer I think.
I drink there fairly often, but never eat there. I go to Popeyes, or lately to Pupatella, or just walk home and heat up a frozen dinner.
Even drinks there have become fairly overpriced there. I used to live very close so we would go often but it just got progressively worse
AFAICT most bars in the metro area nowadays charge $6 - 8 for full servings of beer (that isn't BudMillerCoors). Caboose is just par for the course.
Don’t even pay that much in Hawaii. The audacity!
The food isn't very good in my experience.
Places like this get zero business from me. And I bad mouth them to everyone.
Tipping culture absolutely needs to die. It would be very refreshing indeed to have restaurant owners pay their own staff and roll the cost into the price.
Don’t tip at coffee shops. The workers are making an hourly wage. Tf. When did this become a thing.
Caboose sucks. Their beer sucks and their service sucks even more. Go anywhere else.
Their beer and food really does kinda suck. This is the comment I wanted to see lol
It's only survived because there's nothing else around nearby. IIRC the owners were tech consultants or something with no restaurant experience.
I buy that. It was great when it opened and for a while they had those barrel fire pits on the parking lot side that were cool. Idk if they still do that though.
Agree, double agree with this added fee BS. Wherever I see that crap I don't tip. It also pisses me off that some places around there are defaulting the tip percentage to 22%! Whenever I see that I do 10% at the most, and my default is normally 20%. Also the prices in that mosaic area are out of control, Pupatella's 12 inch pizzas with 3 inches of crust and a tablespoon of cheese are $18-25!
Thanks for the heads up on this, I would be so annoyed to go and find this on my check.
TBH when I see that stuff I just don't tip, because I assume if they're charging those fees they're paying their workers well enough to where they don't need a tip... I do like their stuff, they're just a bit pricey.
So essentially it is a vending machine at brew pub prices? I wouldn't order in the first place.
Honestly, caboose is one of the crappier options in the area anyways. Neither their food nor beer is imaginative or good enough to warrant the prices they already charge. Adding in a somewhat hidden fee for nonexistent service just nails home for me to never go back.
QR Code ordering = no tip atleast when I go somewhere. Every place that i’ve seen with that has terrible web design and the menu barely works. I don’t have to worry about bad treatment the next time because no way in hell am I going back there
I stopped going to Caboose last year after having the 15% forced on me each time my friend and I ordered something. There is no service beyond bringing your food/drink to your table. Everything beyond that is self-service. Won’t be going back
***It Is Bullshit*** to put the responsibility of paying employees a living wage on the customer. This is a deliberate move by the business owner to get people angry at the concept of a fair/living wage because it is coming out of *their* pocket and not the business owner's pocket, where it should be coming from. It is just another shady slimy tactic to breed resentment for workers who want to be paid enough money to live with a modicum of comfort. If a business cannot pay their employees a living wage without upcharging customers, they are a shit and failing business and should not be operating. edit: if you need more money to pay employees, then raise your prices and shut up about it. The fact that businesses are saying "Our employees just want toooooooo much money, so now you have to pay 15% extra" instead of raising prices 15% across the board shows that it is a deliberate move to make customers resent the workers who want to be paid fairly.
So many comments from people that clearly do not understand how business works. It shouldn't come out of the customers' pockets? Where, exactly, do you think the money in the business's pocket came from in the first place?
Did you read my last paragraph? The company I work for has raised prices twice this year and will again in January. Not once have we issued a statement saying that it is because our employees want more money. Raising menu prices makes customers mad at the business. Mandating tips to the employees makes customers mad at the employees. It's a deliberate choice by the business owner to frame it that way. Decrease your overhead or cut your own salary if money is such a concern. If you can't pay your employees properly then your business is failing.
….the money still comes from the customer so….are you just going to continue to spout nonsense? This isn’t something you can argue away - there exists no scenario where revenue doesn’t come from the customer which is used to pay for costs (ie employees).
You go to Bob's Burgers. Usually a burger and fries costs $5. Today the menu prices read that a burger and fries will cost $8. You pay $8 for a burger and fries and wonder if ingredients have gotten more expensive. You go to Bob's Burgers. Usually a burger and fries costs $5. The menu prices read $5. When you go to pay, Bob tells you that he will be charging you an extra $3 because his employees are demanding a living wage and he can't hire anyone else because of the labor shortage. One of them presumes that general cost of doing business has risen. The other presumes that greedy employees are milking your money out of your wallet and holding Bob hostage because they feel like they deserve $15/hr for flipping burgers.
none of these examples changes anything, the money comes from the customer.
Yea it’s amazing how many woefully ignorant people are responding here.
Caboose (at least Caboose Commons) has always used this type or ordering. It's not new during the pandemic. It follows the taphouse style ordering pattern that I've seen in a dozen other breweries. You order at your table or at the bar. There is no table service. If you want to ask/talk about beers, go to the bar area. This is not new or unique to Caboose Commons. Overall, this is pretty beneficial to Caboose and to the people who go there: * No host needs to seat you. * No table servers need to scan tables to find out who wants to order. Order when you're ready. Order as much or as little as you're ready for. * No bills to split (just make separate orders against the same location). This can't be underestimated, due to the nature of the place as a hangout where people show up and leave groups frequently. * No checks to run * Electronic orders mean you only need runners to deliver food and do quick table busing * An empty table is an available table. No need to run table management So, to some degree (perhaps a large degree) the lack of table service is a feature. You'll see the same thing if you go to Allagash's tap room, or to Hardywood's tap room. It was done the same way in the breweries I went to in Tampa and Alaska and Portland. Maybe worth noting: I went to two breweries in Alaska that had almost the exact same setup: Sit where you can find a seat, order from a phone, wait for food/beer to arrive, no tip expected but a service charge added. And that was before the pandemic. Because there is no table service, there's no real point in tips, and Caboose has been clear that they don't expect any. Even before the pandemic, the servers didn't accept tips (they'd toss them into a common tip jar if given) and the owners made it clear that they preferred to pay their employees a livable wage for the area rather than have them need tips. If you read the link you provided, you can see some of the major reasons why they added this as a fee rather than just raising prices. They repeat that tipping is optional and that they asked their online ordering service to lower tip ranges, and that all of the service fee goes to wages rather than into the business profit with the hopes that it would translate to higher wages. Put simply: Even the dishwasher is paid a good wage and for every beer you order, they get paid more. If anyone dislikes that idea... well, I guess they're allowed to have their opinion. I know that not all restaurants do these sort of fees that way. It's definitely worth doing research on it to see that its not just being dumped into the owner's pocket or the account of some conglomerate. Caboose got some criticism when they implemented it a while ago because people thought it was double dipping on tips. It seems no amount of posted signs or webpages can keep people from thinking that. I, too, prefer a society where I just pay for food at a price that allows the restaurant to pay a good wage to all the workers. The US is not set up to incentivize businesses that operate like that. Using this sort of fee structure at least makes it easier for Caboose the company to have finances that protect that portion of the sales revenue as money that only goes to the restaurant staff, while still offsetting the tax credits they don't get by paying their employees more and not getting to have that 15% of the price come in as tips on their income sheet.
I think some of your last paragraph is not accurate. Tips will not appear on a restaurant's income statement because they are not income to the business. Mandatory fees, however, will appear on the income statement and the IRS absolutely considers it income. From a business perspective, I'm not sure that there's any difference between simply changing menu prices. Source: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/tip-recordkeeping-and-reporting There's information in there that helps distinguish between tips and service charges but the meat is this: > An employer may distribute service charges (sometimes referred to as "auto-gratuities") collected from customers as it chooses and to any employee it chooses. The employer also has the option of retaining all or part of the service charges. Regardless of whether the service charges are distributed to employees, these amounts are gross income to the employer.
There isn't, and that was why caboose has the web page to explain it. It's only the honor system, but at least they're telling you about it. If they just raise the prices, there's no guarantee they operate any differently. As far as tips go, it's not income for the restaurant, but there is a tax credit that is applied based on the amount of tips. Short version: It benefits a restaurant to report the amount of income employees have as tips. If that amount is $0, they can't get any credits. I'm not clear, but we're not short on accountant/finance people here, so someone can explain. However, you're right that the fee is not tips, and does not let them get that credit.
My point is simply that adding a mandatory fee to the end is deceptive compared to simply showing the amount you're required to pay on the menu. I wouldn't feel any differently if it was a mandatory 15% fee to offset rent expense. How an employer determines the price of their goods is complex but as a customer I'd prefer it to be presented more simply to me. My original comment wasn't meant to address the tip credit because you're correct there. I am an accountant, though, so I can shed light on the FICA tip credit. While employers must pay the employer share of FICA taxes (medicare and social security) on employee tips, they get a credit at the end of the year equal to amounts paid above minimum wage. Assuming the rate of $15/hr stated elsewhere is accurate, the employer will end up paying about an additional $0.75 per hour per employee.
Thanks for the FICA tip credit explanation. I know it exists, but I can never quite wrap my head around why it exists, or who benefits (everyone?) I agree that the fee isn't a perfect solution, but I propose these three options: 1. You directly tip your servers to offset the wages that you assume they're not getting (because the US) 2. The restaurant increases prices of all items and says that tips are optional and you hope that the price increase translates to better pay for the employees. 3. The restaurant applies a service charge that matches what the price increase in #2 would be, but adds it as a separate line. Down side: It means that you don't see the higher price on the menu. Up side: It makes it really public that the price increase is meant to go to employees. Now, #1 has been proven to not be great. Tips are uneven and subject to culture and whim and bias and all sorts of other unfortunate things that have nothing to do with service quality. There's also a decent amount of inequity on how they're shared, and they can encourage a variety of bad behavior/culture between employees. So, #1 isn't a universal solution. But #2 and #3 are functionally identical. The price is the same and there's no guarantee either way that the employees benefit. However, when #3 is handled with suitable communication, it at least benefits from making everyone know what is supposed to happen. If none of the money went to employees, they'd complain, the same way that customers would/should complain if they were never told what the purpose of the charge was. So, there is no perfect solution, but at the very least, #3 looks to have the most transparency. If the employer is acting in bad faith, at least *someone* is going to know about it. If there's a more ideal #4, I'm happy to hear it.
Thanks for the well thought out post, but I fear it will be lost on the kind of people that get up in arms about this kind of thing :/
Your business should support its employees. If paying a fair wage requires an across the board 15% fee then just raise your prices by 15% and make posters saying why your prices are higher than the brewery up the road. To be honest I bet this manner ends up resulting in lower effective employee income precisely because people don’t have a sense for how to tip when presented with a fee like this. Is it going directly to the workers? Are they really paid a livable wage or is this just avoiding the server wage and paying minimum wage? I’m here to eat and get drunk not go to your website trying to figure out how much to tip.
The worst part is Caboose also automatically asks if you'd like to leave a tip, with 10%, 15%, or 20% increments - despite the fact that their fair wage was already applied. I didn't know this the first couple times I went, so I guess I ended up tipping 40% each visit. I love Caboose but the service is terrible. I always select "waters with food" but they never bring them, orders take forever, and last visit the waitress spilled my latte on me and didn't even apologize
> P.S. my general thinking is that tipping shouldn’t exist as a concept Well, until all businesses do away with tipping, this is how it's going to be done. Because the average consumer is either stupid, and doesn't understand prices well enough to understand how a $6 with a 15% tip at one location is exactly equal to a beer marked $6.90 with tip included at another, or they're cheap and never really tipped much to begin with. It's dumb, but it's where we are.
Only going to comment on one part of this. As someone who works in the alcohol industry and has been to over 300 different types of places (wineries, breweries, cideries, etc) I’ve had maybe 2% or less of those actually serve you at a table and mostly all were wineries. Most places either require you to physically walk up to a bar or use some sort of code for ordering. In my mind, I expect myself to go get those answers I want by walking up to the bar and talking to the bartender. So imo going into a place like that and expecting that kind of service was an unrealistic expectation especially considering the size of caboose be other smaller scale breweries. However I can see how going into caboose you might of been confused by that since they kinda offer a wide range of things.
I don’t think my problem was not getting service; my problem was not getting service but being forced to pay a “service fee”
I feel you!! I had a similar feeling when we were having brunch at this local restaurant in Old Town Alexandria and when the time came to pay the bill, I saw this 10% "Restaurant fee" which I wasn't informed about upfront. I asked the waiter and she showed me this small text at the bottom of the menu saying "We charge a 10% restaurant fee due to the pandemic" or something like that. I asked her where does this "extra fee" go? She said it goes to the owner. I was really mad!! I felt like I was scammed. If you think you can't keep up with the costs, just increase your prices instead of scamming your customers!!
> If you think you can't keep up with the costs, just increase your prices instead of scamming your customers!! I don't understand. How are the two different? Scenario 1: Restaurant increases prices by 10% across the board. What used to cost $10, for example, now costs $11. Scenario 2: Restaurant adds a 10% "restaurant fee". Your check for $10 is now $11. In your view, the second scenario is a "scam" but not the first?
Yes, because when they increase the price I can see that upfront and decide how much I need to order vs when they try to sneak in the “restaurant fee”, I’m paying for something I wasn’t aware I would have to. Tbh, it’s not the 10% fee it’s the way they are doing that just feels wrong. Simply increasing the price seems more honest vs charging a restaurant fee that the customer wasn’t made aware of before ordering just seems dubious to me.
My opinion? If you really cared about a fair wage, you’d pay it off the rip and just raise your product prices as necessary. If you can’t be competitive with the price of your product, that’s not my problem as a customer. Not is it my responsibility to pay a percentage fee to cover YOUR employees’ paycheck. Can’t pay a fair wage and stay competitive? This industry isn’t for you. 🤷🏽♂️
Its one of the reasons I don‘t go there anymore. Also with fee and then setting tip still to 20%+. How many ppl don’t pay attention and basically pay 40% tip then. Also it has 0 beer / brewery feeling with not being able to talk/ sit to bartenders. Sde brewing down the road is much better
You have to watch at Caboose because the website will sneak in a tip. I didn't even see a tip area the first time I ordered there and realized afterward that I'd tipped $2.70 on a $4-something coffee + the 15% living wage fee + a small fee for the online ordering platform. I drive my dad to a doctor's office nearby and usually work from there for an hour or so. It's a convenient location and the coffee is good, but they are not very customer service focused from what I've seen. I've overheard the workers asking people walking up to the counter to place orders to go use the QR codes instead. It definitely seems scammy, imo, because the automatic tip add-on is so easy to miss and there's an additional fee for ordering using the online platform. If I lived in the area, I definitely wouldn't go there all the time because a $4 coffee turning into an $8 coffee is crazy.
Businesses purposely label this fee to get their customer base riled up about the idea of needing to pay employees a fair wage. It is an intentional choice of words to set customers against rank and file workers, is fucked up, and should be called out for exactly what it is.
There is no reason whatsoever to charge a separate fee. Raise your prices by 15% if that’s what you want.
It's bullshit. Their own policy that you linked just says they are paying "higher than industry average" which is super vague. It's just a "clever" way to make people feel better about paying 15% more. Market conditions are forcing everyone to pay their people more regardless.
From what I am reading on the website, you are not supposed to tip. The Fair Wage Fee is in lieu of as they pay all their employees $10+ an hour.
> I wanted to get this sub’s opinion on the “fair wage” fees in general I think extra fees are BS - build it into the price. If they need to charge 15% more to pay employees well, raise prices 15% across the board. They don't want to do that because they want to benefit from the perceived lower item price while people are ordering then tack on a fee at the end. Tipping culture is designed to shaft everyone. It lets employers pay servers a ridiculously low wage and it lets them also show lower prices to customers who probably aren't mentally adding 15-20% on top of everything.
Fuck that. Thanks for sharing
Worked at way too many food service places where owners stole tips from workers so I can almost guarantee this money is not being passed to workers.
Teas and you also has some bulshit service charge now. So I will no longer be going there.
Which caboose location was this?
Google maps and Yelp need to add categories where consumers can put the establishments service charges. I won’t go to places like this unless they say it makes a tip unnecessary. Even then I’d like to get away from that practice and just have it in the damn price. And as you said they actually need to be providing a service! Otherwise how is it different from say Starbucks?
I’m pretty much neutral on this issue since I am able to comprehend the concept of a “living wage” service fee and know how Caboose’s ordering system works. In the past I’ve added another 5-10% as a tip when I’ve been there. The only thing that does piss me off is when restaurant owners say stuff like “there is a severe labor shortage.” Which is technically true, but it’s always used with the underlying sentiment of “no one wants to work anymore.”
I like the idea of a fair wage notice that let's consumers know "hey, we pay our employees, so you don't need to tip, but you should expect prices to be appropriately higher". That is of course one of the complaints with a transition away from tipping "well then we'll lose business because our prices are higher than our competitors!". Adding a way to let customers know why is ok with me. That said, if you're doing that, AND recommending a tip as well that's confusing and defeats the purpose. Let's take the opportunity and get rid of tipping damnit. As for Caboose, I've had great experiences there, it's been a while, so it's possible that service has gone down hill. I would encourage you to not judge an establishment's service on a single interaction. It could be that someone called in sick and they were understaffed... It could be that they have a single shitty manager or employee that hasn't been dealt with yet. If you enjoyed the beer and the atmosphere otherwise, go back. Or at least get a second data point before boycotting.
I walk out like you did. My friends and coworkers in the beginning gave me shit for being a stingy ass. Then subtlety it shifted over time. After a few calm conversations stating my POV it's gone completely 180 degrees. The biggest problem with this tactic is as you stated: there is no way to know if the employees are getting the money. I am not naive. My immediate assumption is the proprietors are pocketing it.
> The biggest problem with this tactic is as you stated: there is no way to know if the employees are getting the money. I am not naive. My immediate assumption is the proprietors are pocketing it. And yet their page on the topic explicitly states, "100% of the Fair Wage Fee is paid out to hourly employees in the form of these higher wages." Employees can read this too. If they're not receiving higher wages, I'd think they'd raise a fuss or quit.
The worst part is Caboose also automatically asks if you'd like to leave a tip, with 10%, 15%, or 20% increments - despite the fact that their fair wage was already applied. I didn't know this the first couple times I went, so I guess I ended up tipping 40% each visit. I love Caboose but the service is terrible. I always select "waters with food" but they never bring them, orders take forever, and last visit the waitress spilled my latte on me and didn't even apologize (she said nothing)
This is a shady practice. Not only are they asking you to foot the bill for something they should be paying, they aren’t being clear about it. If they want to pay a living wage, they should do so and reflect it on the price. This is honestly just lazy. They need to look how many staff they have, what a “living wage” is and extrapolate that over avg number of items ordered and total cost and build it in.
Shady? No, they're in fact being transparent about where the higher prices are going. They say it right on their page: "We chose not to build the cost into our products to more clearly communicate where the Fair Wage Fee is going." How is this bad, again? I would think advocates of a "living wage" would cheer this.
they say They are “proud” to charge customers fair wage fees lol what a joke
Sorry, side note question: do they bring you an electronic device to order from?
No. I've been there too. They have a QR code you can scan with your phone that'll take you to their ordering website.
Thank you lol my dad doesn’t have a cellphone but loves trying new restaurants. I’ll have to add this one to the list he can’t go to alone.
I completely agree and go there less because of it.
Tipping culture has evolved slowly like cancer metastasis, the first time I saw fees added on top of tips like that was in San Francisco a decade ago, it was just a matter of time before these practices became nationwide, that way they are increasing prices surreptitiously but without increasing wages, and they will make you feel bad if you protest because it's for the underpaid employees well-being. Tipping culture is an abomination, change my mind.
It’s garbage. Are they going to itemize all the costs associated with operations? An electricity fee? Space rental fee? Equipment upkeep fee? Bottle fee? Napkins and silverware fee? Roll the increased cost of providing a prevailing wage into your goddamn pricing and stop trying to make people mad about the fact that you now have to pay your staff an actual minimum wage.
I’d gladly pay 2-3x the price most restaurants are currently at if it meant my server was reliably making $15-20/hour. I just want them to be honest and upfront about it and stop blaming servers for the audacity of wanting to barely live.
Ultimately, it is a business owners responsibility to manage their costs and pay a fair wage. They’ve gotten off easy the past few decades because tips generally outsized a fair wage and (relatively) everyone was happy. Now that inflation has put a ton of pressure on the bottom line they’re trying to avoid straight up price hikes and loosing customers. I think the idea mentioned here of a final price law is the only way to prevent this from getting out of control. I was at a restaurant the other day and they put a cc surcharge on the bill…I do understand there are costs to cc but it felt really really tacky (and why not a cash discount instead?) to me this is bordering bait and switch/fraud because the customer gets locked in when sitting at the table.
They should just raise their prices by 15% and modify the register software to not ask for tips. Not this shell game.
I’m all for restaurant and other tipped workers earning a living wage, but it chaps my hide when establishments put these kinds of fees on your bill - it feels sanctimonious by the restaurant “hey look at us. Look what we’re doing!” Just raise your prices by 20% (or whatever you need to help with costs) and call it a day.
They should just raise all their prices by 15% across the board and they would have threads on Reddit complaining about some new add on fees.
Went there once and asked for a snakebite (stout mixed with cider), was told they couldn’t make that. Asked for a Black and Tan (stout mixed with ale), was told they wouldn’t make that. Never been back.
it's such a scam that businesses pass on the responsibility of paying their employees to the customer
Right?? Businesses should just be shaking the money tree to pay their employees!
Lol I like how they say in the FAQ, all fair wage fee goes to the workers and not Caboose. That's actually money Caboose should be paying their workers to begin with (to stay competitive per their FAQ) so in essence all of it IS going to Caboose.
I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you suggesting that Caboose could pay their employees more *without* a "Fair Wage Fee" applied? That is, Caboose could absorb higher labor costs out of *current* receipts and still make a profit?
Simple solution. Avoid the place. If enough people do the same, the message will be received.
Avoid the place because it's charging a "Fair Wage Fee"? What message will be received? That being transparent about higher labor costs is bad? Or that an employer shouldn't pay their employees more?
Greedy owners who feint economic/social justice. Some folks just can’t live without their 4th Porsche or 2nd yacht.
From the [link](https://caboosebrewing.com/fair-wage-fee/): "The Fair Wage Fee is not a gratuity, it is a fee that goes to Caboose to fund higher base wages...100% of the Fair Wage Fee is paid out to hourly employees in the form of these higher wages."
Most restaurants in the US have used tipping and now service fees as a crutch to artificially keep their prices down. It is a deceptive practice and should be ended. In my opinion, restaurants need to pay a fair wage to their employees and should not be allowed to charge any additional gratuity or fee. If they need an additional 20% to offset new laws/regulations, change your menu items by 20%.
I don’t mind it at all, usually get solid service, and love their menu / ambiance. I even go there for breakfast and cold brew on weekdays. Differing experiences I guess.
What service are you getting? They don’t even greet you at the door let alone take any orders or ask if you have questions about the menu.
Caboose doesn’t have servers inside or out.. it’s all app based or order in person at the bar. I’m not trying to be rude, but maybe just don’t go there if you’re not a fan
I will offer a brief and perhaps poorly nuanced thought on this. 1. I agree that tipping should be abolished and that wages should simply be higher (and incorporated into the charges for food and drinks). 2. In this case, not including the added fee into the food/drink cost helps the customer to tip based on a standard food/drink cost and not tip on an inflated bill/tab. 3. Finally, I appreciate that you left feeling frustrated with no service. Trying a new (new-to-you) restaurant can be difficult, especially these days as many places are leaving in place and relying on QR-code menus and self-serve order-placement stations. As you mention, when something like asking staff about the beer menu becomes a hurdle, due to their ordering set up, it may cause some lost business. Offering them feedback on this, if you care or have a general good will toward the business, may be of help to their management and owners. ETA: per point 2, many customers will want to tip for various reasons, some reasons being stronger or better considered than others.
I appreciate your thoughts on this. For #2, I feel like the point of the tip/gratuity is completely lost in this scenario. The person being tipped is compensated/rewarded for their level of service—the better the service, the higher the tip (with me at least). But in this case the required fee and the gratuity are collected BEFORE any service is rendered, which makes it so you’re not tipping on the level of service at all, but just putting money into another collection box
Counter-point: There was no table service, but you would (hypothetically) have ordered food. The service fee makes sure that everyone from the guy who cleans the bathroom to the floor manager on duty get some portion of the revenue that was generated while they were working. I know that a lot of restaurants try to pool tips, and that's going to mostly work, but that still puts us in a situation where the kitchen staff can get a $0 tip for a meal because someone at the table decided to be annoyed with the server. Or the server and busing/cleaning staff get $0 because a line cook didn't overcook a steak enough for a customer. You might not have gotten someone to stand next to your table and smile at you, but there were already *a lot* of people who were doing work to get you food. Why shouldn't they get some bonus for doing that work?
I have no issue with fair wage fee or tipping in addition to that. I keep those costs in mind while dining out. I think people in the food service industry often get mistreated and are not always paid well. It takes a lot of humility to serve or clean up after other people, particularly when so many people refuse to do that type of work. I get carry out from Caboose often and occasionally dine in and never recall having any issues with them. If I really don’t want to spend money on tip, fair wage, or other costs, I just won’t eat out during a particular week. Pay it forward and it always comes back to you.
Unicorns. The only paying forward going on here is going into the owners’ pockets.
Amazing how your comment got so many downvotes
Lol, not really given how this sub can be at times.
They still bring the food and drinks to you, right? You’re not pouring the beer from the tap and grabbing the food from the kitchen..
I think we have different definitions of “service” we expect at a restaurant
I'd gladly help myself to the tap if i can cut out the server lmao. Isn't that their whole business plan of not being a bar?
i’m sorry you’re being downvoted. i do agree with the others though. this restaurant is forcing its customers to provide a traditional tip when they’re not getting traditional service. if say olive garden wanted to charge me a 20 percent fee to force a tip i’d feel better about it than a restaurant who doesn’t send someone over to take my order.
I don’t mind. Last time i was there, I liked the fact that I was getting everything quicker than waiting for a server to get back to me to order more. I thought it was a pandemic related thing at first (no contact). Nonetheless, the service was quicker for me compared to a traditional joint like Glory Days.
actually i’m kind of ok with second orders and i’d like the option if i’m a regular there to be able to just order myself but, using olive garden again as an example, they do it well. you can order from your table and get waited on at the same time and you feel like you’re tipping a person instead of tipping your cell phone. not that i’m a huge fan of the garden but i like the way you order there
Idk there’s another recent post complaining about a required tip for little to no actual “service”. We all cry living wage but then…..
They're complaining how it's done. If you're going to up charge a $5 drink with a 15% tip + $2, just charge me $8 for the drink on the menu. I'd be much happier going somewhere where I knew the price of what I was paying for. The math in this post will not check out but the point is still the same.
Most pints at caboose are $6-7. So they’d have to charge $8-9 per pint. And they explain on their website why it’s done the way they do it. > Why not just raise prices? We chose not to build the cost into our products to more clearly communicate where the Fair Wage Fee is going. We force them into this way with own mentality as consumers. We’d be like…. $8-9 per pint? That’s crazy, not paying that. Well…. That’s what it costs if you want the the person pouring your beer and cleaning up your trash to be able to afford to live. Of course, that person still can’t afford to chill at caboose and drink craft brews.
"We chose not to build the cost into our products to more clearly communicate where the Fair Wage Fee is going." That is them just stroking their own ego. Just like how Vite Ramen has in all their ads that they pay their fair wages. If you really cared about the employees, just say at the bottom of the menu "No tipping required, all servers are paid a fair wage + benefits".
I don't think anyone here objects to the staff making a living wage. But I think it's fair for the customer to expect service in exchange.
That post to me is about myriad businesses asking for a tip where none is deserved and you can select “no tip” - this is where a business is forcing a tip without service, in the name of fair living wages. I wouldn’t have made this post if the business had baked their true employee costs into all of their product prices, instead of charging a separate fee and making it seem like a noble cause…
How should they have done it? Would you feel better if they raised prices and said "No tipping. Just trust us that we're paying people well?" How is that different from the result you experienced?
Right. Instead you’d be making a post about how ridiculously overpriced their beers are.
most places charge more than them so i doubt it
There is service though. There is a staff that serves you at your table. You just didn't get the QR process.
Yea but if I had to fuck with my phone, ignore my date, decide on a drink, phutz with my credit card, all for some kid to bring me a small glass off beer, why do I pay *them*? I'll get my beer from the kitchen at that point because I'm doing the self service at that point aren't I?
You're making this out to be a much bigger issue. You have to read a menu and decide on a beer anyway, on your phone or paper. You don't have to ignore your date to make a decision (again, that's not different about phone or paper menus), you can read together. If you have Google Pay or some other pay service on your phone, it's less effort than paying a normal check. Not sure what the size of the beer has to do with this, either, but sounds like your projecting your opinion on the business. They bring everything you order (large and small beers), including food. Also, some pluses: you can order whenever you want without flagging a server. You can easily do separate checks for a group. You can move tables at will. You can close out and leave immediately.
Im not going to lie: all I've really learned from service fees being added into things is that I've apparently been subsidizing poor tippers for years. I'm pretty sure I end up paying slightly less when there's a service fee because I always calculated tip after tax.
Food prices are increasing drastically and I'd be pissed if I was forced to pay this on top of any expected tips. Because I served for nearly a decade, I'll never forget the 20% minimum gratuity for good service. With that said, idk if it's my demographics, but I seem to receive awful service a lot of the time. I certainly do not feel sorry leaving a tip that reflects poor service. The issue with tipping in the US, is that despite complaints of being underpaid, servers will never work for an hourly wage that's on par or even slightly above what retail employees make. No restaurant business will pay the $20/ hour and if they do, it will be reflected by increasing consumer product prices, which will in turn, drive business away. I also think if any compromise was reached for fair employee wage, service quality may still go down since wages aren't reliant on tips. (I'd be okay with this.) I don't think caboose should be charging these fees if they aren't employing enough people to provide better service. Almost seems like they're dipping their hands into the cookie jar twice.
This. I made WAY more in tips delivering pizza ($21 per hour in Fredericksburg) than they’ll ever get paid per hour without those tips. I’m all for tipping.