What does "plus plus" mean on a catering quote?

Every hotel and most caterers price a wedding "per person, plus plus," and write it as $100++. The two little marks are the most expensive punctuation in the wedding industry, because they stand for two percentages that are not on the page.

What the two pluses are

The first plus is the service charge, a percentage the venue adds to everything on the food and beverage bill. The second is sales tax, set by the state and county. A club trade magazine explains plus-plus pricing to its own members this way: the banquet event order "will list the base price—either per head, platter, or item—and will typically include the '++' symbol after the amount," with gratuity running "18 to 25 percent, depending on the club's practices" and sales tax "between six and eight percent."¹ A wedding marketplace's 2026 vendor data puts the service charge at 18 to 22 percent of food and beverage.²

Here is a real one. The banquet event order for the author's own wedding, at a Florida hotel in March 2026, closes with a single line: "Pricing Subject to taxable service charge (24%) and Tax (7%)."³ Every other fee on the order carries the same tail: the room-reset fee is "$500.00, plus applicable taxable service charge and sales tax," and overtime is "$250 per half hour, plus applicable taxable service charges and sales tax."³

The arithmetic, once

Read the word taxable in that line. It means the 7 percent is charged on the plate and on the 24 percent, not on the plate alone. Florida's rule says so: "Service charges, minimum charges, corkage fees, setup fees, or similar charges imposed by a restaurant, tavern, nightclub, or other like place of business as part of the charge for furnishing, serving, or preparing food products are subject to tax."⁴

Multiply your guest count by the difference between the first line and the last, and that is the size of the surprise the two marks were hiding. The percentages differ by venue and by state; the shape of the arithmetic does not.

Why the menu is written this way

Partly habit, partly tax. The same club magazine says the gratuity is listed separately because "by allocating the amount specifically for tips, the number is not charged an additional sales tax."¹ That is true in some states and only under conditions. New York does not tax a mandatory gratuity if it is shown separately, called a gratuity, and handed entirely to the staff.⁵ Florida taxes the whole charge unless it is separately stated and "the dealer receives no monetary benefit from the gratuity."⁴ A venue that keeps its service charge, as most do, has to tax it. That is why the word on a Florida order is taxable. The word is a confession.

The IRS is blunter than the trade. Its list of things that are service charges and not tips begins with the "large dining party automatic gratuity" and continues straight to the "banquet event fee."⁶ Whether any of that first plus reaches the people carrying your plates is the subject of the next bottle on this shelf.

What changes in Florida on 1 July 2026

Florida rewrote its notice law in 2025. From 1 July 2026, any food service business that adds an "operations charge," which the statute defines to include "service charges, automatic gratuities, credit card surcharges, and delivery fees," must print "the amount or percentage of the operations charge and the purpose of the operations charge" on the menu, on the "written contract," and on any ordering website, in type no smaller than the menu descriptions or the contract's general provisions.⁷ The receipt must carry "separate lines for gratuity, an operations charge, and sales tax."⁷ The bill was signed 2 June 2025.⁸ Until then, the two pluses could legally live in a footnote. If your venue is in another state, ask for the same three lines anyway; a venue that will not write them down is telling you something.

Why your mother cares

When your mother's generation booked a hall, the line on the bill said gratuity, and it went to the waiters. Somewhere between then and now the word became service charge, the percentage climbed from fifteen toward twenty-five, and the money changed hands. She will hear "twenty-four percent" and think you are tipping generously. You are not tipping. You are paying a fee with a tip's old name, and in Florida you are paying tax on it. Show her the line on the order. Then decide the actual tip together, if any, with the tip line in front of you.