Is Gloria in Shoreditch the only restaurant that charges you for the priviledge of paying your bill?

by jakubkonecki

14 comments

  1. Finally, someone names a scummy restaurant.

    Edit: seems they’ve got form

    > The code app menu /billing is an interesting concept.
    > When paying the bill I decided to pay the highest suggested tip as we had a great and friendly servive.so I was very surprised to note that I was also charged a 12.5% service charge when I checked the bill later.

  2. Anyone else had to pay a “checkout fee” before?
    This isn’t a service change / tip which I’m happy with. This is a charge for using a self-service checkout website!
    Not only do they save by not having to engage the waiter to bring the terminal to the table and print the paper reciept, but they charge yyou extra for it.

    Feels so cheap of them.

    What next? 50p for the toilet? Extra charge for actually heating your food?

    I really hope this doesn’t become norm…

    PS. Sunday is the name of the website they use, not a day of the week. The bill is from Tuesday.

  3. This might explain it:

    Sunday, which only launched in April 2021, grew at breakneck speed on the back of the Covid-induced transition to paperless restaurant experiences. Sunday’s app allows customers to view restaurant menus on their phones and pay their bill faster via a QR code, promising restaurateurs a cut on the commission they pay on transactions. 

    [Restaurant payments app Sunday pulls out of four markets | Sifted](https://sifted.eu/articles/sunday-payments-quits-four-markets)

    Maybe that fee is the app’s fee not the restaurant?

  4. I don’t understand the need to highlight that charge in the bill. Why not just implement the cost by just slightly increasing the price of other products/services?

    This would just make me ask to remove the service charge since it just feels like another way to squeeze the customer.

  6. No they are not the only place that uses it. I just ask for them to bring me the bill instead of paying with the QR code.

    In other news, I tried to leave a tip for a delivery driver and that app was going to charge me; I didn’t end up leaving a tip.

  7. This needs stamping out fast before it spreads. I hope the restaurant gets boycotted until they see sense.

  8. I noticed this too and said I want to pay the normal way (ie, they bring a terminal) and they did.

    The tech they use for the QR payment is handy, easier to split etc so I get it – but passing this charge onto customers is a disgrace.

  9. I swear to god I will never understand the hype around the Big Mamma restaurants across London. Just another example of how they are overpriced joints for wannabe influencers.
    They’re not even Italian (French group), a lot of their food isn’t even authentic and you can find MUCH BETTER Italian cuisine in the city for half the price.

  10. It actually borders tacky. Would put it on their google reviews, they might not be aware that it shows up like that, or that it just ruins the whole experience. They might see it and reconsider.

    People are sick to the back teeth of booking places, bonkers service charges and still expecting tip, and now stupid things like this. It’s for their own good they know about this!

  11. They’ve called it a tech fee, but really it’s just a random charge that they had to give a label. The aim is profit pure and simple. It’s small enough that most people won’t complain or make a scene, even if they’re annoyed. But it’s large enough to increase profits by a significant amount.

    The restaurant has 150ish covers and is open for lunch and dinner, so lets guess conservatively they serve 600 people a day with average 3 per table. That would give them £2.99×200 a day, meaning £600 a day, and *over £200K a year*.

    I think we will start to see more of this from other restaurants. It’s cleaner and simpler to implement than price increases – and there’s no VAT involved, so it’s more lucrative.

    btw I notice they don’t mention it on [the menu](https://menu.bigmammagroup.com/gloria?service=all) (the service charge is there), which is cheeky.

  12. OP I’ll give you your answer, Gloria is part of the Big Mamma group, and guess who created Sunday? Big mamma.

    > Co-founded by victor lugger and tigrane seydoux, the brains behind big mamma

    https://sundayapp.com/en-gb/who-we-are/

    So not only do they own the restaurant, they own the payment service that they charge you a stupid fee with (also note how that page has a big banner discouraging you from viewing it, it’s almost like they’re aware of their shitty tactics)

  13. I worked in hospitality FOH and Head office, so I might be able to explain.

    When we were setting up those QR order & pay shit, naturally, there is a charge to use their services – a percentage of the bill.

    In this case, this £2.99 is ~1.30% of the bill (unless it is a fixed charge)

    Therefore, I would suspect that this shit charge is the restaurant trying to cover the QR code company’s charge by charging the customers

    In fairness, it does not justify, if they decide to use QR code was their option – what is strange is for being on ‘on Sunday only’

    But in short, fuck you Gloria Shoreditch

  14. Can confirm, Sunday is scummy. I used to work there and is ran by some toxic individuals. The owner of Sunday also owns Big Mamma Restaurants which own all of Ave Mario, Gloria, Circolo populare.

    This is a new feature, likely pointing to them still struggling so using their sister company to drive revenues with this fee to appease investors

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