Steak chain slashes waiters’ share of service charge – and gives it to head office

A steak chain with restaurants across the UK is slashing the share of the service charge its waiters receive and using it to bump up pay for workers at head office instead.

Waiters at Gaucho received 45% of the charge last year, but that dropped to 37% and will now fall further to 29.4% or 25.45% depending on length of service, according to a letter to staff.

Newly employed waiters will get just 17%, while bar staff have seen their share drop three points from 20%.

WMT Troncmaster, a specialist hired to manage the distribution of the service charge for Gaucho, told employees the service charge would now be shared with “staff located at non-public places of business such as head office and central production units”.

Gaucho, which has 20 restaurants in places like London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Cardiff, automatically adds a service charge of between 12.5% and 13% to customers’ bills.

A spokesperson for Gaucho said the new distribution had been set by an independent troncmaster following industry benchmarking across its employees.

“The new distribution takes into consideration all our front- and back-of-house colleagues. It is an equitable solution for all of our excellent people. 

“The employee costs borne by the Gaucho business remain as before and the business itself does not benefit in any way from the amended tronc system.”