Post To Big Apple Eateries: “Keep The Change”

One day after a Post exclusive uncovers evidence of the automatic tip, the Post gets all sanctimoniously third person about it and reveals further infractions:

Here’s a tip for Big Apple eateries — stop fleecing clueless tourists and New Yorkers who know better with illegal gratuities on their checks.

A day after The Post reported that SoHo restaurant Aquagrill tacked the tip on a French-born New Yorker’s check because “foreigners don’t tip,” more steaming customers recounted similar tales of horror.

Jill Davis, 43, is as American as a double Whopper, but that didn’t stop one Hell’s Kitchen pub from “gratting” her — the industry term for slapping a gratuity onto the bill.

Davis stopped at Smith’s Bar for a quick burger this past summer, and was stuck with a 15 percent gratuity on her $10 bill.

“I said, what the hell is this?” she recalled. “[The waiter] said, ‘Well, we have to make up for all of the Europeans that don’t tip.'”

. . .

[Department of Consumer Affairs] rules state that restaurants can only add a 15 percent tip to parties of eight if it’s clearly explained on the menu.

In fact, most restaurants — where it’s routine for parties of six or more to be charged 18 percent gratuity — seemed unaware of the rule.

“I’m going to change [our policy] to what Consumer Affairs says,” said Mitchell Rosen, the manager of City Crab.

Currently, the eatery charges 20 percent gratuity to parties of five or more — but he said those days are over after he read The Post’s article Tuesday.

One Times Square restaurant manager admitted that she’s stuck the tip on some hapless tourists’ table for two.

“I would only do it if I knew for certain that they weren’t from here,” said the proprietress.

“You never know if you’re going to make money,” said Ana Reisner, a bartender at Tracy J’s in Gramercy Park, but doesn’t add gratuities onto parties even if they’re easy marks.

Waitress Beate Keiser, 24, said she’s adept at spotting non-natives. “I’m just trying to pay my rent,” the Union Square Heartland Brewery server said.

“If I see someone who can barely speak English and has maps all over the table, I’ll add the tip.”

Also: for your edification, courtesy the waiter.