I read the title and thought “Man, realtors and landlords will try anything.”

Where's the bait and switch? It's not like they're putting a filet mignon on the menu and then telling you it's not available but you can have meatloaf instead

Menu

Filet $60

Bill

Filet $62

Probably smokescreen or something on that line is more appropriate, not bait and switch. I’m mostly going for take out nowadays. That too by calling the restaurant rather than using any app.

Menu:

"We charge a 3% kitchen appreciation fee for all bills"

I believe they mean advertised prices, which a menu is (either in your lap or seen from the street). eg, if they have filet mignon on the menu for $30 but then the bill comes and there's a kitchen-appreciation-fee it's not really the fee-for-service that was advertised.

They could also mean they'd like to know if the money even gets to the kitchen, or if the fee itself is kind of a scam where the restaurant is just passing padding margins.

There are rules around how various restaurant staff can be paid, tipped out, etc. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe Kitchen staff cannot be legally tipped out of front of house tips. This fee serves the purpose of tipping out kitchen staff.

Are there any laws concerning how the kitchen fee is distributed?

I'm not sure.

Tiny print at the bottom. Below the shellfish and steak are trying to kill you.

just incorporate it into your tip. so if there's a 3% kitchen fee and you normally tip 20% then tip 17%

These restaurants are gonna put themselves out of business with all the fee-fucking. Tipping is bad enough.

They have to pay out the tips to front of the house staff. So reducing tips hurts the front of the house.

The kitchen fee that’s got no legal standing. There is no way to know where it goes.

Maybe they should call it an owner appreciation fee.

Yeah. Fuck those waitstaff and front of house workers. It’s totally their fault. /s

"It's the restaurant's fault that I didn't read the menu"

Fuck this kitchen appreciation BS. I've seen this slowly become mainstream where they'll tack it on your bill without telling you. It's supposed to be an option no one's going to ask for that to be taken off.

Pay your employees a real wage and stop asking consumers to pay this bullshit feel good tax.

I’ve worked for a few restaurants that have this now and honestly, there’s no way of knowing if the kitchen’s seeing [all of] the money. Supposedly it gets evenly distributed to whoever worked, ie similar to a tip pool distribution, and added to their paychecks. But who’s even tracking that? Who would know if they’re not getting the whole amount? It’s the same as getting a daily sales bonus… but not being told the day’s sales. Company’s just shrugs and says eh, you get paid what we give you. Take it or leave it.

My last job said it adds about $3/hour to the kitchen staff’s hourly pay. This is a place that also didn’t show FOH their tip pool, and it was like pulling teeth to get them to show us, if we wanted to see. Long story short: industry vet here and I don’t trust the kitchen fee, and I also agree that it’s being shadily snuck in as a triple asterisk in size 4 font and nearly cut off the bottom of the menu.

It’s really more annoying that they tack on some lazy fee that is “optional”

If it’s optional then give me options to not pay for the janitors heath insurance, the owners dividend, or the managements salary. I want complete control over which part of the business I get to tip. Maybe I am want to jilt the fish vendor that night!

Yeah this is bs. It further reduces price transparency in restaurants and should be stopped before it becomes the norm everywhere. Just increase the menu prices and call it a day ffs.

I’ve been doing this. 20% —> 17% and 15%—>12% where applicable.

I mean, the owners could just… appreciate the kitchen.

You could just not go to the restaurant it bothers you so much

is this still the menu talking or is this Bill?

At some point that may happen. But what it looks like is 30 dollar burgers and 50 dollar spaghetti and meatballs. Restaurants typically have extremely thin margins. When their costs go up so does the prices. This is just to mitigate sticker shock. Its the same inflation no matter how it looks on the bill

Taking that 5% kitchen fee and raising menu prices by 5% would not mean $30 burgers, the burger would already have to be ~$28.50.

I would rather know what I’m paying than have mysterious fees show up in the check at the end.

You might be able to tell them to take it off the bill. Similar to if you go out with a large party where they tack on a gratuity and have really shitty service you can tell them to remove it as they can't force you to tip.

This seems like the kind of thing that the Attorneys General office should be looking into so that they are prohibited or at least made abundantly clear before you go to eat.

If that becomes a thing, I will just split 20% into 10% for tips and 10% for kitchen appreciation fee. I tip 20% only to not feel like an asshole - there is no law that I have to. If everyone does that, the servers will take care of eliminating kitchen appreciation fees.

I’ve noticed some restaurants put it in as a line item on the subtotal, so it looks like the tax is being calculated on top of that + also the suggested gratuity includes tipping on top of the kitchen fee. That seems wrong to tip on top of a service fee? The goal of better wages for staff is great, but don’t feel like the kitchen appreciation fee is the best way to achieve it.

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I just subtract this fee from my normal 20%, and then apply a 5% customer inconvenience fee. If they don't stop this practice, I hear that customer inconvenience fee might be raised to 8%.

They know 99% of people will be too embarrassed to ask to have it removed. It's a complete scam.

I’m now at the point where I ask when making a reservation if there are additional fees like this added to the bill. If they say yes, I say thanks but I’ll be eating somewhere else. Please let the ownership know that they lost a reservation because of it today.

That's why the AG should get involved, I'm sure there are laws about "hidden fees" or other consumer protection requirements that they could flex.

My guess is as long as it's disclosed before you order, it's legal.

I've already curtailed my restaurant visits because for all but the highest end places, the experience is not worth the price anymore. Shrimp scampi for $29 and an absurdly priced drink before tax and tip? No thanks. One benefit is that I've knocked the rust off my cooking chops and some good stuff is coming out of my kitchen lately.

Businesses get popped all the time for contracts that have fees or other onerous requirements buried in the "fine print" of a contract. So even though it's "disclosed" it's still prohibited to hide it like that as a deceptive practice. If the kitchen fee is a small footnote on the menu it could be considered deceptive in the same way because an "ordinary consumer" would consider the listed menu price to be the pre-tax total.

I agree with you. The restaurants are just afraid to do it first because its going to look bad in the menu especially when a competitor hasnt done it yet.

Better than tips though. I'd rather pay kitchen than people to bring plates.

…and let’s be honest: does anyone really think that fee is going to the kitchen staff???

At this point in the world, realtors and car salesmen are more transparent than the restaurant business 🙄

Now we're expected to tip those who aren't working for the tipped wage. God.

That only hurts the server, who has nothing to do with that policy/fee. It does not make any kind of "point" to the owner who is actually responsible.

If they are not paying their kitchen enough to the point where they force me to cover for them? I pay 20% for a service tip. Service includes bus people, servers, and kitchen staff. If they want to specify 3% if that for the kitchen, that is fine. But if you expect me to pay it in addition, I draw the line.

Are you fucking kidding me?! I don’t think the general public understand anything about kitchen staff…. Although they don’t get paid as little hourly wage as servers, they make about 4x less because they don’t get tips. Kitchen staff works onwards of 12-14 hours a day if lucky and gets absolutely shit on throughout service. The least the restaurant could do is offer a kitchen appreciation fee that is divided among the back of the house staff. And for anyone who questions the fee… I recommend you work in a kitchen for 1 day (if you can last)

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It depends. Are you a socialist?

It passes the buck on to the consumer to pay their staff better. However, if kitchen folk were rewarded for taking on busier shifts and sweating, it's a cool idea. Otherwise, they get paid the same per hour for a dead Tuesday lunch as a cranking Saturday night.

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Exactly! They have to give their servers all tips although they still don't. These fees are all gimmicks to pay more.

Kitchen staff should earn more. They should get more from their employers but I'll happily pay I eat the food. But no way are they getting this money.

restaurants are able to pass the CC fee on to you if they want, all they have to do is post a sign that says CC usage will result in 3% uncharge. Kitchen appreciation money is most likely designed to retain/recruit staff which is difficult these days

A lot of ignorance in this thread - I've served tables in fine dining in the Boston area for years & the majority of the time the kitchen appreciation fee is well intended. The fact is that tipped FOH staff (servers/bartenders) often make much more than very hard working BOH staff (chefs/cooks/dishwashers) solely because they do so well on tips.

Fees like this help the people who work just as hard if not harder make more money so you can have very tasty food....if an extra few dollars on your bill is really a dealbreaker for you, then you probably should not be eating out.

Why not just include the cost of paying the kitchen staff appropriately in the advertised price of the food.

But, kitchen staff are staff right? Not tipped staff. Hence they don't get the lower wage to begin with. So, somehow it's my fault that the owner's a miserly asshole now?

Lord, this is why I don't eat out often. I'm more than up for tipping, but every single person these days seems to think they deserve to be tipped, whether they're making 15, 20, or more an hour, whether they're the owner even, or whether they're actually getting the tipped wage (6 whatever it is in the new year).

And, it's even more annoying because I too get paid shit, but it is literally illegal for me to get tipped. So, yeah, fuck the bait and switch taxes. Because that what it is an owner instituted tax.

So the owner needs to raise the pay and include it into the price on the menu. Restaurant business is tough, but I do agree perhaps tipping needs to be less to FOH.

I think that’s how I’ll go about it in the future. Do you tip on the price of the meal or on top of the tax?

I'll take the price of the food and tax, multiply it by 0.2, and then subtract whatever addition restaurant fee they charge. If they charged an additional 20% kitchen fee, I would leave nothing. If only 3%, I'd leave a 17% tip (or 15% if I am feeling taken advantage of)

I'll take the price of the food and tax, multiply it by 0.2, and then subtract whatever addition restaurant fee they charge. If they charged an additional 20% kitchen fee, I would leave nothing. If only 3%, I'd leave a 17% tip (or 15% if I am feeling taken advantage of)

So you tip on top of tax? I didn’t know that was a formal thing in general. If you look at the suggested tip options it used to be most were before tax now that’s changing — more and more the suggestion includes the tax. In addition to tipping on top of the BOH fees frequently you tip on top of the tax. Whenever I see that suggestion I subtract another 5%

I think not including tax is standard, but as I accumulated more wealth I started to include tax as well.

This is a straw man argument. Companies typically put their most vulnerable as the face of the company, so any impact to the company is felt first on the face of those companies.

No, kitchen staff are not being paid the $2.63/hour that serving staff are, but all included with tips servers/bartenders probably make upwards of $30-50/hr while cooks/dishwashers are making <$20 - so these type of fees are a good way to show appreciation to employees who often come in much earlier, work much later, and inn many cases work much harder for less money.

It is not their fault that you don't get paid well, or that it is illegal for you to be tipped (whatever it is that you do) - so it's pretty petty to hold that against them. There is no bait and switch (when the kitchen appreciation fee is actually being used as intended) the extra money is simply split and paid out to back of house staff in their paychecks.

Yes, this is an option that many restaurants choose or consider - the main thought process is that when you raise the price of menu items, the consumer does not understand the reason for it or where that money is going whereas when you do implement a kitchen appreciation fee at least the consumer understands that that portion of their bill is going directly to hardworking individuals instead of in the owner's pocket. On the contrary when I go out to eat, I am happy to see a kitchen appreciation fee rather than $38 entrees instead of $32 entrees because I understand the money is going to a good cause.

I think many people misunderstand how costly it is to run a restaurant - from increased rent to higher costs of the ingredients used to make the dishes you enjoy so much, the current economy makes it very difficult for restaurants to pay well, turn a profit, and ultimately survive. These reasons are why restaurants out of almost all types of businesses have the highest % of failing/closing down after being opened.

Wow you tip on the taxes subtotal? I never do.

Same I thought it was a rent add on for having a kitchen lol

Who analyzes their restaurant bills to the point they would even notice a $1 increase to all items across separate visits?

Same…can’t tell if I’m just becoming a grumpy old person or what, but now its $300-500 for dinner/drinks/Uber/babysitter. That’s a shitload of money.

Agreed but then you’re going to have the same schmucks complain that the prices are too high… it’s a lose lose for the consumer. I’ve always liked the “beers for the kitchen” addition to the menu… just shows everyone that a little goes a long way for the team in the back…

2.63.... yeah, considering I just saw a news item saying it's going up to 6.25 or something along those lines in 2023, the rest of your post isn't even worth it to read. But, keep believing that I should be paying, instead of the workers walking away when they’re treated like crap. Or instead of the idiot owners are supposed to do, include the price of the prep in the food.... likes been done for 100 upon 100 of years...l

Zero substantive points, minimal literacy, using emotion as an argument - you just don't seem like a very intelligent individual (and are probably a nightmare to serve when you do go out to dinner).

Well they are too high just fricken admit it. Don’t play games adding boh fees. That’s just how it is. It’ll all balance out soon because as a consumer I used to got out much more, now I am more price conscious and cool in more.

How much do you tip your landlord?

Do you know how much cost of food has gone up since Covid?! 10%-20% higher than before… this means that your $17 dollar dish (which cost around $5 at a 30% cost) is now $20-$22… doesn’t seem like much but those 3-5 dollars steer people away. Not only that but, the cost of rent, electricity, gas, insurance, operating fees, and upkeep are all going through the roof.

So, if you took the 30% cost of the $20 dish (which IMO is high) you spend $6 on food… leaving you with $14 which if you divided it evenly (which isn’t the case) you have roughly $2 per dish sold to cover each expense including wages…

So tell me that the system is flawed without getting upset over pricing… you can’t and wont.

What’s your point about boh fees? I will say I’ve found ways in my personal cooking to save money. Changing a recipe or eating other foods.

My point is… if you add a few it’s essentially a tip to the kitchen because nobody tips them out ever… the added feee would hopefully deter the consumer from tipping more to the FOH and the BOH would get their slice of the pie.

Go ahead, eat at home and change your recipes. That’s your prerogative. But for those that eat out, they need to understand the circumstances of what the other half of their dinner deals with. It’s a shame that cooking is glorified and everyone gets in a tizzy when they have to pay a small fee for the BOH to get a little respect.

Its a BS