I’m from Manchester and it’s the main place I go out, hence posting on here, but I know this definitely isn’t just a Manchester thing.
For anyone working in hospitality, have you actually noticed an increase in tips over the last few years since service charge started getting automatically added onto bills everywhere?
Personally, I’ve always intended to tip and I’m more than happy to if the service is good (which it usually is). There’s only been a tiny number of times I’ve ever asked for service charge to be removed. But before this became common, there were definitely times I’d either not have cash on me, forget to add a tip when paying on card, or just not properly think about it in the moment.
Whereas now, because it’s just added on automatically, 9 times out of 10 I’ll pay it without even thinking twice.
So I’m genuinely curious whether people in hospitality are actually seeing more money come through because of it? And also, what’s actually preferred nowadays - paying the service charge or tipping cash separately?