Customer baffled after being forced to pay 20% in tips on takeout orders at restaurant: 'This is insane'

A restaurant customer posted a photo of a sign that showed a 20% surcharge on all takeout orders — a fee that’s partly listed as a tip for servers and partly a "to-go" charge. The image, shared to Reddit on October 20 by u/Yagirl27, gained 1.4k upvotes and displayed a sign that read: "A 20% fee is added to all 'To-Go' orders. 10% is paid to the server who prepares the order, and 10% is a 'To-Go' fee." The customer who posted it couldn’t believe it. "This is insane. You’re not eating in, and we won’t have to wait on you? Now you have to pay 1/5 more to eat our food because we deserve a tip, and our food is more expensive if you take it home, lol," they wrote. 

Tipping in restaurants has become increasingly complex in recent years. While diners traditionally leave 15 %-20 % as a voluntary "thank you" for service, many restaurants are now introducing mandatory service charges. A within-restaurant analysis by Lynn & Brewster found that when full-service U.S. restaurants replaced voluntary tipping with automatic service charges or service-inclusive pricing, online customer satisfaction ratings fell. The study reviewed 9,467 ratings across 41 restaurants and found that substitution of tipping with service charges was linked to a larger drop than substitution with service-inclusive pricing. It also showed that the negative effects were stronger in less expensive restaurants, as lower-tier establishments saw larger declines in satisfaction than upscale ones. 

The post resonated strongly with readers, many of whom argued that tipping culture has gone too far. u/esoteric82 commented, "These restaurants must want to go out of business. Absolutely ridiculous to charge a fee for takeout." u/Gullible_Analyst_348 added, "So if you sit in the restaurant and take up room and use their plates and utensils and make a mess you don't have to pay 20% extra?" u/Ok-Membership-5439 said, "The tip going to the server is so ridiculous. What all do they do — put the food in the bag? That should go to the chef who actually cooks the food!!!" "My brother spent $350 on take-out BBQ for a huge family reunion, and they charged a 15% 'take-out fee for the time it takes to pack it up.' Lol. Edit: We ordered it two weeks in advance. It wasn’t a surprise to the restaurant," shared u/Fantastic_Moment1726.

u/Grouchy-Lemon2350 penned, "Every restaurant in Miami Beach has been doing this for a few years now. The staff can now give you bad service and force an auto 20% tip on top of that, even if it’s takeout. Not going back to that place, that’s for sure." u/Aggravating-Hair7931 quipped, "I would order over the phone, go to Waffle House, if they insist on the 20%, I would turn around and leave. I bet it's not even a corporate policy. Probably printed by the owner or manager." u/Fun_Intention_484 chimed in, "There was a restaurant in my city that started with a mandatory 15% tip on all takeout orders — people just started to order the food for pick up via DoorDash and not tip — eventually the restaurant did away with the 15%." 

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