Both the "bottle opening fee" and the "cup washing fee" that have been stopped by the relevant departments and the current service fee have repeatedly exposed the business inertia thinking of "profit is greater than service".

Recently, Ms. Chen, a Beijing resident, looked at the bill after eating in a restaurant and found that there was a "service charge of 11%" more than that in other restaurants. She asked, "Why didn't you tell me there was a service charge in advance?" The waiter took out the menu and pointed to a small line at the bottom of the menu, "11% service charge is added". Uncle Wang, a resident of Shanghai, took his grandson to visit Disney, ordered a 368-yuan Western-style set meal for himself and a 258-yuan children's set meal for his grandson. When he checked out, he found that there was a 15% service charge. Uncle Wang also has doubts: "Does the high vegetable price not include the service charge?" Why do you have to charge? " Is it reasonable to add service charge to the restaurant?

according to ordinary people's simple understanding, it should be considered unreasonable to charge a service fee for a restaurant. Because customers have paid for their meals, the meals have included the necessary expenses such as food cost, labor cost, rent cost, water, electricity and gas, and the service fee is obviously among the labor costs. It is the obligation of restaurants to provide quality services to consumers. How can consumers be required to pay the bill separately?

Some legal persons believe that although there is no legal basis for restaurants to charge service fees, there is no law prohibiting them at present. "Legally speaking, the behavior between civil subjects can be done without prohibition. The so-called restaurant service fee also follows this principle. " After all, the profit-seeking nature of merchants is in the first place, but compared with merchants, customers are weak and merchants are strong. To better protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, I am afraid that merchants should not be given the freedom to "do whatever is prohibited by law" and charge service fees at will.

to take a step back, even if "nothing is forbidden by law" is true in the service charge of restaurants, there is still a question of whether the charging standard is reasonable. Legally speaking, the law on the protection of consumers' rights and interests stipulates that consumers have the right to fair trade, and an important content of fair trade right is fair and reasonable price. In this regard, the standards for charging service fees for restaurants should adhere to the principles of fairness, reasonableness and consistency between quality and price. However, the catering industry is a very competitive industry, and the above-mentioned consumers are charged 11% service fee or even 15% service fee. The high fees are mostly the result of market competition, and it is hard to say that they are fair and reasonable, and the quality and price are consistent.

to protect consumers' fair trade rights, operators should also clearly mark their prices. According to relevant laws and regulations, consumers have the right to know the real situation of their purchase and use of goods and services, and have the right to ask operators to inform the prices of goods or services. Accordingly, restaurants should accurately and actively fulfill the obligation of informing before providing services to customers, that is, before customers consume, so that consumers can actually know that they will charge a service fee. Only by ensuring customers' right to know can their right to choose and fair trade be guaranteed. If you only use inconspicuous fonts on menus, desk labels or somewhere in the store, it is not enough to attract customers' attention, and you will only tell them when you check out. Such "confused fees" are suspected of infringement.

both the "bottle opening fee" and the "cup washing fee" that have been stopped by the relevant departments and the current service fee have repeatedly exposed the business inertia thinking of "profit is greater than service". However, in an open market, consumers are free to choose, and bad businesses can be punished by "voting with their feet". Instead of hurting consumers' hearts for petty profits, it is better to improve the service level and win the favor of more people. The service charge has caused consumers to complain and reminded operators that although the price of catering industry is regulated by the market and set by operators themselves, they can't ignore consumers and arbitrarily charge service charges.