Service charges instead of tips? Some Bay Area restaurants give it a try

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

Diners at a handful of Bay Area restaurants are being asked to pay a new kind of service charge at the end of their meals: fees instead of tips.

Long a tradition in Europe, where restaurant bills include a fixed percentage for service, the idea of replacing optional tips with a service charge is being tested out here as a way to absorb rising labor costs and more evenly distribute gratuities among staff.

Restaurant owners in Oakland's Rockridge and Uptown districts are joining others in Berkeley and San Francisco who are experimenting with the service fee, triggered in part by increases in the minimum wage that are putting pressure on prices.

In Oakland, the minimum wage is set to jump 36 percent in just one year when the new $12.25 per hour goes into effect in March. Effective Jan. 1, the minimum wage will become $11.05 in San Francisco and $10.30 an hour in San Jose.

Someone has to pay for higher labor cost mandated by government.