Nickel and Dimed. What would you do?
 

I recently had dinner at a fine dining establishment. Party of 3, 2 bottles of wine, and lots of great food. The service was good, nothing spectacular but good, and we had a great time. I get the check which comes to $450.......everything looks good. No complaints. I was feeling a bit thirsty after all that wine and asked for some club soda. The waiter takes the tab and brings it back with the club soda and $4.75 added. The soda was not from a bottle or can but from a soda gun at the bar. I was dissappointed and surprised to say the least. I usuallly tip 20% and decided to give only 10%. I then thought some more and decided to give 15% and never go back. What would all of you have done??

When I order food or drink from a restaurant, I expect to pay for it. I'm sometimes comped things, which come as an unexpected surprise.

I kind of see where you're coming from but I'm not sure I'd take the disappointment on not being comped out on the server - for all you know, management is pretty strict with that kind of thing and the server could get into trouble for doing it.

If you feel strongly about this, give the manager a call. Maybe the server made a bad judgement call, and the manager would like the opportunity to correct it.

For me, I don't see much of a difference between a $450 or a $455 tab, so the inclusion of the soda on the bill probably wouldn't even hit my radar.

Nickel and Dimed. What would you do?
 

Not the waiter's fault. If the restaurant's policy is to charge for club soda, then that is what he has to do. If the charge was a concern for you, you should have asked first before ordering. If I were you, I would go back and give the waiter the remainder of his tip and apologize for stiffing him.

Since when is 15% "stiffing"

This is fairly standard, I'm not sure why you felt "nickel and dimed."

The OP mentions that the service provided wasn't excellent. In that case I feel that 15% was an appropriate gratuity. If I'm spending that much on a meal then the service had better blow me away.

The OP wasn't stiffed. The staff were simply following instructions given by the management to charge for items ordered.

A tip of $67:50 for unexceptional service? Why? This approach also encourages mediocre service because they get the tip whatever they do. They don't even notice or appreciate it in many cases. So what is the point?

This does however rather throw up the whole question (again) about gratuities being "automatic" and also based on a percentage. I know that in this approach the tip should be split between all people - but I don't see why you should "appreciate and thank" the waiting staff substantially more for delivering a steak rather than delivering an omelette. And why give a tip to anyone in the kitchen?

I still like to leave an appropriate cash table tip for the wating staff not based on a percentage but based on what I think feels right and normally rounded up. This often means more than 20% on small bills and less on more expensive ones. IMHO it should be a personal thank you between the people that deal with you personally and go out of their way to make you happy - rather than an impersonal additional charge that passes through the hands of management and distributed how they decide and in many countries is taxable at source.

:)

How much does the restaurant charge for the item OP ordered? If it's $4.75 (hardly unusual for a high-end place which OP says it is), that's what OP should have been charged. If the restaurant wanted to comp the item, that's fine too.

But, stiffing an employee because he charged the price that the establishment charges? That's unfair.

If OP cared to ask, he could have asked whether there was a charge for the soda and then dealt with the issue later.

I understand where the OP is coming from on this one. When you've spent that much, especially once you already have the bill, adding to it for a non-alcoholic drink seems a bit cheap.

On another thread, I posted about placing a take-out order at the bar at a location, and being asked if I wanted anything to drink while I was waiting. I ordered a Diet Coke, and was a bit annoyed that I was charged for it, in part because IME, most bartenders will comp a soft drink while you are waiting for take-out.

To some extent, restaurants must balance keeping customers happy (comping soft drinks when people are finished with their alcoholic drink or waiting for take-out) and making a profit (soft drinks tend to cost the establishment pennies, but are marked up substantially).

I'd order tap water.

I'm with you on this. My pet peeve is that 20% is the "new norm". In my opinion, 15% on a large bill for only 3 people people is plenty. Now if it was a party of 5-6 and up, then there might be some upward wiggle room.

Also, in the OP's case, if he ordered 2 bottles of wine, I would deduct those out to some extent since I don't believe someone should be paid more simply bc they poured me a glass from an $80 bottle and not a $20 bottle.

The club soda charge was a bad case of nickle and diming imho. Not much can be done but it woudl effect my opinion of whether or not to return to that establishment.

End rant. :D

I don't consider a charge for club soda to be unreasonable. But as kipper and wpxstar mention, a restaurant often has to make the choice between being right (charging for something they are reasonably entitled to charge for) and making money (by leaving the customer satisfied and eager to return). To ignore this is to step over pounds to pick up pennies.

OP, you might have had a better outcome if you had explained to the server that you didn't realize that the club soda was chargeable. A well-run restaurant would have cheerfully removed the charge and left you with a positive impression of your experience at the restaurant.

The only immediate, direct response you have is the tip. The tip you did give was a nice size tip. All that stuff about calling the management later, who has time for that?

The OP's story was a case of policy trampling good sense. Very often, if I'm drinking at a bar and ask for a Diet Coke to close after three or so beers, the soda doesn't show up on the bill. To the bar, it's about three pennies' worth of product, and the bartender insures him/herself a good tip. Much smarter than appending a rather large dining tab with a $4.75 club soda charge. That said, the waiter probably didn't have the discretion most bartenders do, so shouldn't suffer a smaller tip.

That's how I feel, although if it did come from the bar, the server probably did not have much discretion, as they probably needed to enter it into the register to have it generate an alert for the bartender.