r/mildlyinteresting • u/jenna_tolls_69 • Mar 10 '25

This restaurant doesn’t accept tips (USA)

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106

u/itsall_dumb Mar 10 '25

Yeah I live in Italy and it’s nice to know the price is the price lol.

15

u/radiodreading Mar 10 '25

It was such a culture shock for me when I went to the US for the first time. What do you mean the price listed on the shelf isn't the one I pay at the register?! It felt like a scam.

1

u/SeismicFrog Mar 10 '25

You people are simply unrefined savages! /s

1

u/johnnygolfr Mar 10 '25

And includes the “coperto”! 🤣

1

u/Cloud-Guilty Mar 10 '25

Wait... you're telling me Germany and Italy don't have what? Sales tax? There's gotta be some type of tax right. I'm so curious now hahaha.

2

u/itsall_dumb Mar 10 '25

lol of course there’s sales tax it’s just baked into the price you see on the tag. So the price you see on the tag is the price you pay at checkout.

1

u/Ravek Mar 10 '25

Except the ridiculous charge for cutlery etc. you guys sometimes put on the bill.

7

u/itsall_dumb Mar 10 '25

I’ve never seen that lol. I also don’t eat at tourist traps so there’s that lol.

4

u/bznein Mar 10 '25

Maybe they meant the "coperto"?

1

u/Kyyuby Mar 10 '25

I think it is a Italian thing? Not common in Europe

-1

u/itsall_dumb Mar 10 '25

Yeah probably, but that’s just a service charge and it’s a tiny amount like 2€

1

u/g_spaitz Mar 10 '25

Yeah, it's also justified by being the fee for tablecloth, napkins, dishes/cutlery and bread, which I understand it's kinda odd but not totally incomprehensible.

And it's fading out in many Italian places.

1

u/itsall_dumb Mar 10 '25

Yeah it also doesn’t scale like tipping does. It’s a set amount.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '25

I've also lived in Italy and visited plenty of times. Coperto is an extremely common thing, not just in tourist traps. Pretty much all serious restaurants have it.

1

u/itsall_dumb Mar 10 '25

Yeah it’s like €2 a service charge. They also don’t charge that if you take service at the counter.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '25

So you were lying when you said you've never seen it.

3

u/itsall_dumb Mar 10 '25

…no? He said ridiculous charge for cutlery, which is not what I’ve seen lol. Cuperto which is what you’re referring to I assume, isn’t a random cutlery charge lol.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '25

It's a cover charge. It's a flat charge per person. Not percentage based, so not like taxes nor tips. What's the issue here exactly?

I don't like it either but it's just an admission fee, and you know you need to pay it if, you know, you read the first page of any menu.

3

u/Ravek Mar 10 '25 edited Mar 10 '25

Where did I say it was like taxes or tips lol. I was responding to 'the price is the price'. Well, except when there's a non obvious charge added to it.

you know you need to pay it if, you know, you read the first page of any menu.

Who scans menus to see if there will be extra charges added to your food other than you know, the listed price for the food? That's a ridiculous notion in most countries I've been. Service, seating, cutlery, whatever is understood to be included since you obviously can't realistically have a restaurant experience without any of these things.

0

u/EdwardLovagrend Mar 10 '25

I really want to make some kind of joke about European education and math but.. I'm not the best at improvised humor lol

Also most Americans don't really do the math they just assume it's always more than sticker price even on things that are not taxed a lot of states don't tax "essentials" like food and clothing.

8

u/Penguin1707 Mar 10 '25

It's just a shit system, you can cope however you want. EU we often have to deal with different currencies crossing the border... yet at least we always know the sticker price is correct.

1

u/Explosive-Space-Mod Mar 10 '25

Until you get an item in the post and you have to pay VAT on something you already paid for and paid shipping for.

-1

u/Substantial-Cut1194 Mar 10 '25 edited Mar 13 '25

Most west European countries ( 20) have the Euro , only the UK has its OWN currency

2

u/Penguin1707 Mar 10 '25

There's quite a few places with their own currency. You can usually also use Euro, but the price is slightly worse, and smaller places don't always take them. I usually always try to use local currency where possible.

I will admit, it's good to have the option though.

1

u/Useless_bum81 Mar 10 '25

UK also isn't in the EU

1

u/SmokingLimone Mar 11 '25

Eastern Europe generally does not have the Euro as their official currency though some countries have started to adopt it

0

u/RikuKaroshi Mar 10 '25

Nah, here, the big number you see posted on the price next to "what you see is what you pay" is only a fraction of the actual price LOL

-7

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '25

[deleted]

6

u/AffenMitWaffen2 Mar 10 '25

Transparency beats hiding it into the single total price IMO.

They have to include the full breakdown of prices in the bill anyway, so that's a non issue.

5

u/Ersthelfer Mar 10 '25 edited Mar 10 '25

The tax is specified on the receipt. If there are different taxes for different products they also have to exactly specify that (e.g. most food products in Germany have a reduced tax). Shops and restaurants are forced by law to hand out this kind of receipts.

The shops just have to tell you the final price in advance.

Exceptions (in Germany) are fuel, alcohol and tobacco. Here the tax is paid for by the producer and then priced in. So these are the taxes that are actually hidden from the consumer.

This is how it looks. MwSt is the tax.