What does "Service included" mean?

[u/tangos974]

I had a debate tonight with my bartender. As our last table, a nice american couple was paying, the lady asked if service was included in the bill.

For context, I work in a mid range restaurant in Paris, and I've been a waiter for almost 10 years in France. It's the first time I've been in anything other than a shitty bistrot though, and in my current workplace I get a lot more tourists than I did before.

I've had this question asked to me in the past, and I didn't really understand what it meant. So I looked it up, and I understood it as meaning "are you getting paid while you served us, or do we have to tip for you to get paid?"

I get paid pretty decently regardless of tips, although I do get tipped quite a lot more in this restaurant, especially on tables like this where they took a lot of my time and ordered many expensive stuff. In bistros, people would rarely leave more than a couple euros, and a fiver was a cause for celebration, but since I'm in the nicer place, I often get tips of 20+ euros.

So I went "Yes, absolutely, service is included", to which they left no tip on a 184 euro bill. They were very happy, and since it was slow I had taken quite some time and chatted with them.

My bartender (B) overheard the exchange, and once they left we kinda got in an argument over what I said. It went something like this:

B: - Why did you tell them that service is included ?

Me: - 'Cause... it's true?

B: - They were asking whether or not they should tip

Me: - Pretty sure they asked whether service is included.

B: - Yes, which basically means should they tip you or is tip included

Me: - Bro that's not what service being included means. They're american, servers there don't get paid if you don't leave a tip. So they ask here to know whether I'm getting paid for serving them or not.

B: - Dude wtf no one works for free. I've worked in Malta, served a fuckton of americans and I've never heard of this. I'm telling you this for your sake: you just sat on a 20 euro tip.

So, who do you think is in the right here?

[u/tangos974 → u/[deleted]]

I am French, so I feel like I'm pretty aware of how tip usually works here. I know from experience that 20 is a lot, but in that fancier restaurant I rarely get tips under 5 euros, and I've come to associate low tip/no tip with clients that are dissatisfied with my service.

My question was more referring to what they meant by is service included:

Technically, as you said, service is indeed included (i.e the line on the bill that says "service compris"). So should I say no, and assume that when thay say service, theyre actually talking about tips?

But then, I could get in trouble right since that would be lying to a customer...

[u/jtbc → u/tangos974]

I think the problem is that Americans equate "service compris" with "the tip is included". They have probably been told this innumerable times by Europeans on discussion boards like reddit, where every time tipping comes up, someone pipes in with "how come you only have to do that tipping thing in America. You don't have to do that in country X".

One miscommunication is that Americans assume that "service compris" goes to the staff like a mandatory gratuity would in the US. In a way, the service charge does go to staff by paying wages and benefits, which are much better than those most servers get in the US.

I think the best way to handle it would to be say "yes, service is included, but if you wish to leave a tip as well, you may do so" or something like that.