Tipping point: is the end of the service charge near?

Diners on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly withholding tips

A waiter brings a coffee and the bill to clients
Dining out 'should be a pleasure, not a guilt-ridden obligation' said one commentator
(Image credit: Frank Perry / AFP via Getty Images)

More than a fifth of UK diners are refusing to pay optional service charges in restaurants as the nation reaches a "tipping point" on gratuities. The "national penchant for avoiding a fuss" has "finally met its match" in the form of a "sneaky" 12.5% now "routinely tacked onto the bill", wrote Hannah Twiggs in The Independent.

Ethical gymnastics

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.