This is true, in Illinois. However, restaurants can do whatever they like with “service charges”, though customarily those go to the service staff. Automatic gratuity is already illegal in Illinois, or at least illegal to enforce, so a lot of restaurants already apply a service charge on large parties… easy enough, and perfectly legal, to expand that and claim it as revenue.
And that’s just the legal route. Wage theft is rampant in this industry, at least in Chicago.
Source: Am current server in Chicago for over decade.
This is true, in Illinois. However, restaurants can do whatever they like with “service charges”, though customarily those go to the service staff. Automatic gratuity is already illegal in Illinois, or at least illegal to enforce, so a lot of restaurants already apply a service charge on large parties… easy enough, and perfectly legal, to expand that and claim it as revenue.
And that’s just the legal route. Wage theft is rampant in this industry, at least in Chicago.
Source: Am current server in Chicago for over decade.
You think it’s just in Chicago? Wage theft is the biggest type of theft in the entire nation. Dollar for dollar, it dwarfs the rest put together.
I don’t think it’s just in Chicago, but I can only speak to my experience, which is in Chicago.