being outside of London, Richard noticed that many of his guests find the very idea of service charge objectionable. "They notice it, they try to take it off the bill and all the rest of it, and I find they moan about it quite a lot – with the idea of having it," he said.
He found it impossible to have a service charge without complains and, by not adding it to the bill, found that they could take a stance he enjoyed - a 'If you feel you’ve had a great time and you’ve enjoyed your whole experience, then tip what you want’ approach.
“We find a lot of the time it ends up being more than 12.5 percent on people’s bills anyway, then we have an even distribute between all the team who are working together.”
The Big Machine behind a meal
Both Jeremy and Richard agreed that whether or not you do a service charge it should be equitably spread throughout the whole team. Something that they mentioned isn't universally accepted, or understood by the customer.
Jeremy said: “There’s a big machine to this. I think there’s always been a weird/strange anomaly of this 12 and a half percent service charge going to the person who’s doing the table, when there’s an enormous great machine that facilitates that person and indeed for the people sat at the table.”
Richard agreed and said: “A restaurant isn’t that one person serving your table – there’s a whole army of people: from the kitchen porters to the cleaners, to the people in the offices, to the chefs, all of that coming together. I think it’s fair game that they all benefit from somebody wanting to give a nod to the restaurant.”
