Food Gratuity

Yes, you should still tip.

View Quoted Comment I intend to tip, I’m looking for recommendations on how much to tip....

The service charge is the tip, so no additional amount is needed. And technically it’s not 28%. They’ll charge you the 20% service charge on your total amount spent, then the 8% sales tax is charged on what your total spent plus service charge is

Like PP says, the tip is in your service charge. If your staff does a great job you can tip them more. For example our bartender was amazing so we gave him an extra $300 for the night since he worked so hard and they wouldn’t allow tip jars.

My contract clearly states my service fee is not a tip. But my buffet will also have servers. so I’m coming up with an extra 20% of the food bill.

View Quoted Comment Per the quote I received, “2019As gratuity is appreciated, it is not mandatory nor included. The taxable 20% service charge is strictly a Service and Labor Charge, does not represent a tip or gratuity.”

Yeah a service charge is definitely not the same as a tip. I would tip 10%-20% depending on the service. If it helps, you could base your percentage off of the subtotal before the additional service charge and tax on top of it.

So getting back to the true question.... what do you recommend I tip????

View Quoted Comment

10%-20% based on service quality.

I would tip 15-20% depending on service.

View Quoted Comment That’s really odd.. honestly it sounds like your venue is overcharging you. I’ve never heard of a place doing that

View Quoted Comment Sorry, I misunderstood, but I agree with PP’s 10-20 percent.

God, that sounds like a lot... If that's the case I'd just stick to 15-20%

I am not tipping based on a percentage of my food/beverage bill because that would be astronomically too much per person. That makes no sense. You could go by a set amount per server/bartender/attendant whoever. May I ask how much your food is per head?

For instance, my food estimate with the amount of rsvps I got back is $7,000. 20% of that is $1,400 split between 7 servers (IF we even have that many with a now smaller guestlist) is $200 per person. That's entirely too much.

I found this online, "Another way to tip is offering $50 to $100 for each chef and $20 to $50 per server."

Sounds like you’re paying way too much to have some servers be cafeteria ladies. My venue has 23% service fees but that’s for plated service and does include gratuity. Sounds like a bad deal to me.