Should we feel guilty about NOT paying restaurant service charge?

REWARDING good service by leaving a tip (Mail) should be discretionary, not mandatory. Restaurant owners use the ‘service charge’ to inflate the bill, and the waiter/waitress either knows the owner will keep the service charge or that they get a share of it anyway. So there’s no incentive to provide service worthy of a tip. Once, after an enjoyable dinner in the Hard Rock Cafe, Kuala Lumpur where the waiter had delivered good service, 10 per cent was added to my bill for ‘service’. When I complained, the manager said he couldn’t delete it as it was automatically added by their computer, but he offered to deduct the cost of a few drinks to reduce the bill accordingly. After paying the discounted bill by credit card, I left cash amounting to more than 10pc of the total bill for our waiter. I can’t understand why business owners don’t simply add 10 per cent to their advertised prices instead of sneakily using small print to advise ten per cent will be added to your bill for service. My answer is to walk out before ordering if any restaurant

confirms they will be adding 10 pc to prices seen on the menu. Remember: a tip is a gratuity. Never be intimidated into providing an additional 10 pc to the advertised prices by way of any ‘service charge.’

DEREK FLETCHER, London N11. I’Ve been in the service industry for 30 years and have, from time to time, benefited greatly from the generosity of others. the largest tip I ever received was £500, but I often get nothing or just a token sum — it goes with the territory. As a professional hotel and restaurant inspector, I’m faced daily with the tipping dilemma. Most establishments add a charge to the final bill, often without making this clear to the customer. I’ve rarely refused to pay a tip, but during a visit to a restaurant in london’s chinatown, the service was so poor and the waiter so rude that when I got the bill, complete with service charge, I crossed it off and deducted it, telling the owner in no uncertain words why. I do my best to reward good service, usually aiming at between 10 and 20 per cent, although not always on the total bill, which might well include a significant amount spent on wine, requiring little more than the waiter opening a bottle and leaving me to get on with it thereafter. the restaurant business is unpredictable. things do go wrong, and it can often be the ability of waiting staff, or the chef, to turn things around, averting disaster and turning a dismal evening into something splendid. Such skill should not go unrecognised, but as a customer, when I am faced with scruffy, untrained staff with a bad attitude and served with poorly prepared food, I can think of no reason to reward them. But we must not forget that restaurant employees are in the business of providing a service and should not automatically be rewarded for doing the job they are already paid to do. In agreeing to compulsory service charges, we are complicit in the practice of low pay. I’ve worked in a number of private, very wealthy households, where it was not unheard of for employers to purloin tips intended for domestic staff. My advice: give any gratuity straight to the person you intend to receive it.

LINDA PIGGOTT-VIJEH, Combe St Nicholas, Somerset.