Texas Roadhouse diners expose sneaky tipping trick and warn other chains are at it too

Like many other restaurants, Texas Roadhouse now asks customers to make a tip selection on the payment screen after they pay

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Texas Roadhouse customers are preparing for a tipping takedown.

The iconic steakhouse may be losing favor with Americans who say its latest tipping prompts inflate how much customers are nudged to leave.

Like many other restaurants, Texas Roadhouse now asks customers to make a tip selection after paying, either on a screen or a paper check.

One diner explained what happened after the tipping screen popped up to request 15, 18, 20, or 25 percent gratuity after their $80 meal.

The percentage amounts themselves were not shocking. Nowadays, customers are accustomed to restaurants, bars, and even coffee shops asking for a 20 percent tip — often more.

The real shock came in the small print on the bill: ‘Tip is calculated after tax and before discounts.’

A cardinal rule of tipping culture is that the gratuity should be a percentage of the pre-tax total, and not on taxes they never received service on.

‘Texas Roadhouse suggestions are out of control,’ the customer wrote on Reddit.

How diners say they’re beating it

Frustrated customers shared a few simple ways they avoid inflated tips:

Always tap ‘custom’ and calculate the tip manually
Base the tip on the pre-tax subtotal, not the final total
Ask for a paper receipt so you can see the breakdown clearly
Pay cash when possible to avoid screen-based pressure

The customers went on to do the math themselves, and found that the suggested tip amounts did not line up clearly with either the pre-tax or post-tax total.

In fact, the 15 percent suggested tip was neither 15 percent of the total before or after tax. It was was actually 16.67 percent of the total after tax.

Other Reddit users were equally horrified by the restaurant’s tipping system. One wrote: ‘Calculated after tax? F that!’

‘Yup. Almost all places are doing the tip calculations after tax now which is completely wrong,’ another said.

‘On top of the math not mathing, the fact that their default suggested tip is calculated after tax is so unethical. You’re not receiving service on the meal taxes you’re paying,’ a different user wrote.

‘This has been a trend, some places are just randomly adding a dollar or two hoping people wouldn’t notice. Not sure how is this legal,’ said someone else.

Texas Roadhouse told the Daily Mail that ‘a free appetizer of $8.99’ was the cause of the all the confusion, but even still the math did not add up. The restaurant also confirmed that its tip suggestions are indeed calculated after tax.

Texas Roadhouse is not the only restaurant to be in hot water over tipping recently.

Earlier this month an Italian restaurant in Las Vegas was slammed for adding tip onto the receipt before handing it to the customers, and then requesting another tip on top of that.

Not long before that, customers at a casual seafood eatery in Maryland were outraged when they received their bill for a $260 meal with the 15 percent tip option scribbled out by the server.

The diners had been eating at G&M Restaurant Linthicum Heights and said their waitress was friendly and service was ‘decent enough’, though ‘nothing excellent’.

But when the check was returned, the 15 percent gratuity — amounting to $36.75 — had been scratched out. It made it appear, the diners said, as though it ‘wouldn’t be good enough for her’.

The waitress had also written ‘Thank you’ on the receipt in advance — a move the diners described as ‘entitled’ and ‘infuriating’.

In another recent example, a Reddit user said they were shocked to be effectively forced to tip when ordering a pizza for pickup.

As they were paying, they were hit with a message saying ‘Don’t forget a tip!’ and given options of 15, 20 or 35 percent.

There was also a ‘custom’ box, but no option to leave nothing.

However, when the customer attempted to make the custom amount $0, the screen wouldn’t allow the order to move forward — displaying a bright red message: ‘Please enter a valid tip amount.’

‘How can it be a tip when I don’t have a choice,’ the customer asked on Reddit. ‘Well I did have a choice and went elsewhere,’ they wrote.

These incidents are all examples of so-called ‘tipflation’ — the expanding expectation to tip more often, in more places, and at higher rates than ever before.

A survey last year found that three-quarters of Americans believed tipping culture has gone too far. The research also found that two in three Americans often ‘guilt tip’ — where they feel forced to add gratuity by prompts at check-out machines.

The Daily Mail has reached out to Texas Roadhouse for comment.

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Original Article: Texas Roadhouse diners expose sneaky tipping trick and warn other chains are at it too