Is service charge a tip?

Like others have said, ask your venue. Ours is charging a 20% service charge, and when I asked they said it does not include gratuity but it allows them to pay the servers working a rate of $15/hour. We plan to tip the servers on top of this as well.

View Quoted Comment This is still a service charge. They are miss using the term 'gratuity' as gratuity literally means 'free to give'. The reason for doing this is do that it appears as a tip fiscally. The driver is still entitled to the 'gratuity', this is most likely the bulk of their pay. I know that many places use this term, but it is used incorrectly.

View Quoted Comment Yes it seems as though the service charge is used to pay hourly workers.

View Quoted Comment Same, I asked and they pretty much said the same thing.

View Quoted Comment My venue said that it is used to pay the workers hourly.

View Quoted Comment Yes, as we established in our previous discussion. I was responding to another person. Words matter, gratuity is not something you can force. They are using this word to avoid paying certain taxes. However, gratuity literally means 'free to give'. It is still a service charge because you cannot opt out of paying it.

This depends on the company and what their policy is. I would ask them specifically, but most of the places I have reached out to say it’s for transportation to deliver (like general vehicle wear and tear and insurance on the vehicles), general wear and tear on equipment, liability for the servers/staff, and other things not covered by venue fees. I’m a generous tipper, so even if it was a gratuity, I would give what I could, but most places that have a service charge use it to cover extra costs (this goes for things other than what you’re talking about as well).

View Quoted Comment I already talked to the venue, it’s used to pay the workers and hourly wage. Thank you!

Service charges are basically to help pay the staff for use of their time, amenities that were used at the Venue, and tax purposes for them as well. Depending on how much the whole Venue cost, depends on the size of tip. We know that the Service Charge goes to help with paying everyone that worked the event, but the tip is something extra. I would ask about how many people are going to be working the event, then figure out the extra cost (or service charge) and how that will split up between everyone, and then tip accordingly. For us, we are doing a tip thats separate, but no where near the amount of the service charge (ours is about that much as well) We are figuring about 3 to 400 dollars extra for a tip, this way our host (or the team we are able to use the day of) knows how much we appreciate them for giving in extra time to make sure everything goes right for our special day

View Quoted Comment Thank you!