To tip or not to tip: It’s up to YOU

160525 Cape Town Waiters at Doppio Zero Restaurant. Photo by Michael Walker

160525 Cape Town Waiters at Doppio Zero Restaurant. Photo by Michael Walker

Published Jun 25, 2016

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Cape Town - South Africa is sticking to its tipping practices as other countries move to revamp or regulate their gratuity policies.

Some restaurants in the US are ditching tips and replacing them with a fixed gratuity, while the UK is rethinking the practice of adding a discretionary service charge to bills.

The Telegraph reported that the government planned to remind consumers they do not have to tip when eating out.

The UK was launching a consultation on tipping amid concerns restaurants were confusing customers by not being transparent about the charges and who actually received tips.

An option put forward from the consultation was to declare service charges illegal.

In Cape Town tipping is largely unregulated and varies from restaurant to restaurant.

Most restaurants charge a service fee when there are five or more diners at a table.

They have policies on how to divide this fee between staff members.

Chairperson of the hotel segment at Fedhasa Cape Jeff Rosenberg said service fees were used to ensure staff members received a tip.

“The public must understand this is the livelihood of young people who work in restaurants,” he said. “In a lot of restaurants, they get a basic salary and they live off their tips.”

But inconsistent tipping practises sometimes leaves customers and waiters angry and frustrated.

Dominique Swartz-Martin, spokeswoman for the Food and Allied Workers Union, said: “We advocate for a basic wage plus tips. No person should be made to work for tips and be expected to make a decent living out of it.” Rosenberg disagreed, saying tipping practices in South Africa had been consistent for decades.

“If you get good service, leave a tip. If not, don’t leave one,” he said. “It’s part of the experience of dining out.”

Most restaurants said there was not much they could do regarding tipping because it was up to the customer. Catherine Poole, a manager at Aubergine, said the staff used a system that helped protect them from non-tipping customers.

“We pool tips and distribute them among all staff on a monthly basis, according to their performance,” she said. “In this way, no individual is immediately impacted on by a non-tipping customer.”

Poole said service charges were added to the bill at Aubergine when the party was larger than five.

“It is stated on our menu and clearly indicated on the bill.”

Without service charges, Poole said prices would need to increase.

“The service would need to be worked into our prices to absorb the reduction in staff income in order to maintain a high level of service,” she said.

At La Mouette Restaurant, staff members are assigned a section of the restaurant at the beginning of their shift. They take home all the tips they earn from that section over the night.

“Tips are 100 percent discretionary and is stated as such on the bill,” Mari Vigar, co-owner of La Mouette, said. “Guests tip as they see fit, with no obligation.”

In fact, Tammy Richards, the assistant manager of La Mouette and a former waitress, said foreign customers often tipped more than what was expected because they were used to tipping etiquette in the US, where the rate is 20 percent for dinner.

“When I was a waitress, I had good experiences. I made pretty good money,” she said. “But it’s hard to say because not everyone’s experiences are good. Whenever anyone has a bad experience at our restaurant, we talk about it.”

For parties of 20 or larger, La Mouette includes a 12 percent service charge with the bill.

Vigar said this is discussed during the booking of the table and included in terms and conditions the customer booking the table must agree to.

If service charges were banned by the government, Vigar said this would not affect the number of tips received by her staff.

“We pride ourselves on our service delivery and I feel that our guests would continue to tip our staff for their service, whether the service charge was included by law or not,” she said.

“Should a guest behave less than courteously to our staff; the waiter will hand over the table to our managers, who will then endeavour to discreetly wrap up the service as soon as possible on this particular table.

“Our waiters have been in our employment on average between two and four years, so we will go to every length to protect them.”

Sunday Argus

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