Tipping point: The restaurants scrapping ‘discretionary’ service charge

As some begin to adopt the French model of including it in the overall bill, Clare Finney asks who is this benefiting and is it just confusing diners more?

To tip, or not to tip? Now many restaurants, like Oklava in London, have made the decision for you (Oklava)

On 7 May this year Jeremy King, co-founder of the London-based Corbin and King restaurant group, made an impassioned plea to all the customers on the mailing lists of their restaurants, which include The Wolsey, Fischers, Brasserie Zedel and The Delaunay.

An announcement had been made that “came like a knife that struck to the heart of the catering industry,” he said on a pre-recorded video. “Tronc, or service charge, could not be included in the calculation of wages [paid to restaurant staff by the government’s furlough scheme]. This represents to many staff as much as 60 per cent of their earnings, and is their chosen way of receiving remuneration… and means that rather than receiving 80 per cent of their income, as promised, many staff are looking at 40 per cent of their salary to feed and house their families.”

Despite earnest entreaties from King and other restaurateurs who were aghast that taxi drivers, hairdressers and others could claim on all their income while their staff couldn’t, the Treasury was “standing firm”.