The controversial tipping culture in the States has typically never been popular among customers, especially when the business owners or workers involved are toxic about it. But it’s one thing to pressure or guilt-trip someone into tipping, compared to straight-up forcing a customer to tip via auto-charging. If that’d happened to anyone, they’d be rightfully upset, just as one husband visiting Burdell in Oakland, California, for his wife’s birthday felt after the restaurant sneakily charged him 20% for its “service fee.”
“There were no signs mentioning this service fee, nothing on the menu mentioning it, etc. They auto add on 20%,” the husband remarked on r/EndTipping, posting a photo of the receipt at Burdell. The total was already well over $150, but then the “service fee” and taxes sent the bill beyond $200. Now, the husband does mention that he visits nice restaurants on a regular basis with his wife, so this sort of pricing wouldn’t have been too much of a surprise. The shock factor with the tip is its excessive percentage of the total bill, including how it’s forced onto customers.
Later on, the husband eventually realized the “secret service fee” is actually printed at the bottom of Burdell’s menus, although neither he nor his wife noticed the small fine print. That said, it wasn’t mentioned once to him during his visit, and “It’s still deceptive to put a little comment at the bottom that the majority aren’t going to read,” he stated. “This is the same as just upping the menu 20%,” remarked a commenter. “Problem is I don’t think Op knew it would happen before the bill came which is the scummy part.”
Another Redditor compared the concept to buying groceries, renting a movie, or buying a computer, but the customer gets charged an extra 20% without their approval. “It’s all the same thing. The price that you pay for something should include the cost of paying employees to get it to you,” they explain. “It’s just a form of false advertising. That’s all it is. Should not be tolerated.”
The poster and the commenters in this Reddit weren’t the only ones upset at Burdell. Several online users took to Yelp and Tripadvisor to express their distaste for the restaurant’s disagreeable tactic. “So instead of paying your employees a livable wage yourself, you just want to depend on other people’s forced generosity…. Yeah… not looking good for yall,” says one reviewer. “The forced 20% tip? Are you kidding me?” exclaimed another. “20% service charge for crappy service? Uhhhhhh no thanks,” groaned a third.
On the other hand, the Californian husband posting to Reddit and other reviewers have praised Burdell’s food for being pretty tasty. It’s a shame that the restaurant has to hurt its reputation by employing such a bizarre and annoying means to dig deeper into its customers’ wallets.
