I hate tipping. The last think I want to do after eating is math. And don’t get me started on the inefficient payment ritual we have to endure: flag down the waiter for the check, wait for the check, wait for them to take your cc, wait for them to ring it up and bring it back, then do some math. Unnecessary.
That said, minimum wage is minimum wage. If an employee doesn’t make that up in tips, the law is that the restaurant needs to make up the difference. So it’s a complete non sequitur that $2/hour isn’t a living wage.
If that isn’t happening, the article is burying the lede: the problem isn’t tipping, it’s rampant wage theft. And I don’t need the complete history of tipping to know that wage theft is bad.
throw310822 · 4d ago
> I hate tipping. The last think I want to do after eating is math
The math is not the problem. The problem is that it's a unspecified amount, therefore it's up to you to decide on the spot how much to pay the person in front of you. This creates a social pressure towards paying more, and the results are obvious: the expected tip keeps rising- and in fact it's already reached completely absurd levels.
testing22321 · 4d ago
Tipping is a disgusting practice of making others into servants.
It goes like this:
I have lots of money, you do not. if you wait on me hand and foot in just the right way and if I like it just right I might give you some money. Or not. But you have to dance to find out.
Utterly disgusting, and of course it is normal in a country with severe income disparity - people who have so much money they can waive it around to get people to dance for them while the people dancing don’t even have healthcare, maternity leave or other basic human rights.
The fact some establishments require female servers with certain physical attributes to dress in extremely skimpy clothing just reinforces this. It’s utterly vile.
(Some people will point out this is just like work and pay on general, but there are laws in place forcing the employer to pay a certain amount for a given amount of work. Not so with tipping)
janalsncm · 3d ago
Hooters could still exist if the waitresses were paid a salary or an hourly rate. Tipping isn’t the problem.
> there are laws in place forcing the employer to pay a certain amount for a given amount of work. Not so with tipping.
The laws apply a minimum pay to a fixed amount of time working. Not an amount of work. If you do 2x the amount of work as a coworker in the same amount of time, you will be paid the same.
I think you might also be confusing tipped minimum wage with actual minimum wage, and I think the article did no one any favors there.
testing22321 · 3d ago
> Hooters could still exist if the waitresses were paid a salary or an hourly rate. Tipping isn’t the problem.
There are two problems. Requiring an employee to wear extremely skimpy clothing, and tipping.
> I think you might also be confusing tipped minimum wage with actual minimum wage, and I think the article did no one any favors there.*
I am not, I understand the difference perfectly.
gnopgnip · 4d ago
An employer only needs to pay more if tips don’t make up minimum wage over the pay period. So that 2x 30 mins every shift spent cleaning is paid at $2.13 an hour
janalsncm · 4d ago
It’s still paid at a minimum of 7.25 per hour. Yeah cleaning time increases the denominator for the overall pay rate but I see the issue more as 7.25 is way too low or COL is too high.
Put another way, if a waiter gets zero tips their pay calculation reduces to what a fast food worker makes.
throw310822 · 4d ago
I don't understand, what's the pay period? One day? Doesn't it mean that they're paid at least the minimum wage per day?
Taek · 4d ago
Usually 2 weeks.
throw310822 · 4d ago
Thanks. Does this basically mean that waiters are entirely free for restaurants and cafes (as I doubt any fails to reach the minimum wage in tips)?
NoahKAndrews · 4d ago
The $2.13 they mentioned is the minimum hourly rate the restaurant has to pay in that circumstance (federally, it varies by state)
> And don’t get me started on the inefficient payment ritual we have to endure: flag down the waiter for the check, wait for the check, wait for them to take your cc, wait for them to ring it up and bring it back, then do some math. Unnecessary.
Most of the sit down restaurants I frequent now use mobile pay terminals so at least that bit is less awkward. They leave the terminal at the table and leave, so you can pay at your leisure.
mbirth · 3d ago
Pizza Express here in the UK has the best model IMHO. While ordering works as usual and you still have the option of paying the traditional way, you can also use their app. Select the restaurant, type in your table number and you’ll see what you had ordered and can pay for it. It even has options to split the bill.
No need to flag down a waiter, tell them you want to pay, yes, by card, and then watch him getting flagged down by 5 other guests until he makes it back to you with the card reader 10 minutes later.
thfuran · 3d ago
Wage theft is rampant. Something like $10-20 billion a year in the US.
janalsncm · 3d ago
I totally believe it, which is why my main gripe with the article is that it spends so much time talking about why tipping culture is disrespectful that it essentially glasses over the wage theft it enables.
It also muddies the waters around tipped minimum wage and minimum wage in unhelpful ways. You can see many people in this thread are confused about it.
A more helpful thesis would be tipping leads to wage theft which is bad.
thfuran · 3d ago
It's also bad because the list price should be the actual price. It only seems normal because all the stores in the US also don't list tax in the price.
sans_souse · 4d ago
Ok but, do you tip? Or, you hate tipping so you just don't do it?
janalsncm · 3d ago
I tip a flat 20% at sit down places. Which is why I hate the whole ritual designed around tipping. It’s a waste of time.
tptacek · 4d ago
Servers at a lot of restaurants don't expect to make minimum wage, so don't let "the owners will have have to true comp up to minimum wage" function as an excuse not to tip. If you don't want to tip, don't dine at full-service restaurants in America.
conductr · 4d ago
Servers are typically loving the current state because they frequently make way more than minimum wage(after tips). They all know they’d make the equivalent of back of house/fast food wages if the employer was paying it in full.
Despite this the general attitude is such that most people are cheap for anything less than ~20%, I’ve heard that even the servers running the take out stand expect these types of tips. The sense of entitlement is crazy, it’s such a low skill job and I’m so rarely actually impressed by the service or even attention I receive (there’s a general/generational degradation of all service that’s occurred in past say 15-20 years).
rocqua · 4d ago
Yes, for some people the current situation works great.
But for plenty of others, the current situation sees them being exploited and payed less than minimum wage. It isnt a rare few either. I'm not okay with a situation where a large group is being exploited below the poverty line, just because it works out better for another large group.
amrocha · 4d ago
Nobody gets paid less than minimum wage. The employer needs to make up that difference if tips don’t cover it.
conductr · 4d ago
Agree. I think this is nearly an imaginary problem. Although plenty of crappy restaurant owners and the economics of the industry make scamming employees an occasional occurrence. Thankfully all those employees usually have the ability to pick up a new job anytime anywhere. So, it’s not like we have a perpetually entrapped underclass of people getting paid peanuts and being exploited
rocqua · 3d ago
And all employees know of those rights, and all employers freely give them?
Personally, I don't believe that at all. I do conceed that, if this were the case, things would be fine.
amrocha · 3d ago
I think employees know about it, but don’t say anything because it marks you as a low performer, and it’s very easy to fire low performers.
At the same time, employees know that tips are incredibly lucrative for them, and would rather have a sub minimum wage day every once in a while for the on average above minimum wage pay. There’s a reason servers don’t want to get rid of tips.
That being said, none of this is my problem as a customer. If you choose not to pursue your rights that’s on you at the end of the day. I’m not going to feel bad that your scheme to have me subsidize your wages failed.
janalsncm · 3d ago
I think they are saying that employers are breaking the law.
amrocha · 3d ago
Ok, so bring it up with the NLRB.
No comments yet
netfortius · 4d ago
So here you are w/the American society: blame one category of people (in this case consumers) for when another category doesn't benefit of a minimum for subsistence.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF · 3d ago
> If you don't want to tip, don't dine at full-service restaurants in America.
Whenever I dine at such a place, I give a 100% tip because it’s easier math and it incentivizes me not to patronize such businesses. (I only go with friends and I never make the suggestion.) Just saying that because I disagree with this perspective; do go to these restaurants and don’t tip if that is your choice.
Tipping used to be a gratuity. It’s a way to say, “Your effort was exceptional and I want to show you how grateful I am for it.” Tips are no longer exceptions, nor gratuitous: they have become an obligation, as you say. I reject this; I am not responsible for the wage of someone I did not hire. I’m not even responsible for the success of the business, except that I owe them what I agreed to pay when I ordered. It’s like every restaurant prices their menu incorrectly and they expect their customers to correct them.
(There is a Prisoner’s Dilemma for the restaurants: if I start paying my staff well, I have to raise (advertised) prices but people still think tipping is necessary so they’ll see my increased prices in that context and be more likely to go to one of my competitors. I don’t mean to say restaurant owners have an easy out, just that the answer to patronize these businesses regularly, while also tipping generously, perpetuates the situation.)
Is it wrong for someone to order carryout from such a full-service restaurant and not tip? If so, what would they be tipping for? If not, how does the wait staff get paid from the order when they’re primarily paid with tips?
janalsncm · 3d ago
There is a restaurant I ate at recently that applied an automatic 20% gratuity to the bill instead of requiring a tip, which I liked because it didn’t require math on my part.
It’s not quite “the price you see is the price you pay” but it’s progress.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF · 3d ago
Agreed. I’ve experienced similar things with large groups at some restaurants and it was welcome if for no reason other than it being an improvement. I’d only caveat that they should to be upfront about it to avoid accidental double tips.
vldmrs · 4d ago
As a European, I can safely say that tipping in American restaurants is one of the most unusual things I remember about America. The amount of tips is huge and they are demanded of you everywhere
NitpickLawyer · 4d ago
While we used to have "rounding up" tipping here as well (closest 5 or 10, depending on where you lived), it's sadly becoming norm to ask for percentage based tipping in europe as well, especially in the more touristy places.
This is what I don't get about tipping percentage based. It makes no sense to me. The serving effort is exactly the same between a 10$ salad and a 100$ steak. Take plate, bring plate, place plate on table, smile and check back. That's it.
It gets even more obnoxious when dealing with drinks. A 20$ bottle of wine requires the same effort as a 200$ bottle of wine. (well, except that pretentious bs about breaking the glass, but that's ridiculous anyway)
Same goes for drinks at bars. 5$ shot of your cheapest whiskey takes the same effort as a 50-500$ of a top shelf / ridiculously rare whiskey. Tipping a percentage of that makes absolutely no sense at all, and people defending it with "you get better service" really should visit high end restaurants in London / Paris etc. and see what "great service" really means.
xoa · 4d ago
>This is what I don't get about tipping percentage based. It makes no sense to me.
Of course it makes sense and I think you understand it even if (very reasonably!) you don't like it: it's a rough but effective effort at a progressive taxation/extractive pricing scheme. They're trying to extract the maximum amount of money from each customer for each individual transaction [0], orthogonal to effort or value. They aren't a government of course though and don't have full visibility of anyone's exact income or personal psychology. But as a simple proxy somebody buying a $200 bottle of wine is more likely to either have a lot more money or (just as good here) simply be in a mood/occasion to splash out and due to how humans tend to judge relative expenditures they're a lot easier to convince a $30 tip is acceptable if it's 15% of the price instead of 150% the price. Even if they aren't rich and/or are typically value-oriented, on a "special occasion" it's probably going to be easier to squeeze them harder while not framing it as getting squeezed. Once people commit to paying higher numbers that frames the rest of their economic decision making for the transaction.
And clearly it does work for a lot of places, at least in the short term, same as other exploitive human economic hacks (like the predatory rise of microtransactions in video games). It lets the businesses (including not just owners/managers in this case but many employees as well) make a lot more money.
----
0: Ie, treating it as a non-iterated game theory situation, which probably is rational for a lot of restaurants and particularly tourist ones where odds may be that they will only ever see any given customer once (or perhaps single digits, close enough) in a lifetime. In an iterated game, where a large/critical percentage of business depends on local repeat customers, it can make more sense long term to build loyalty by not feeling exploitive and have lower-per-transaction profits that are steady over years/decades. And I have seen that play out to some extent. Some places may also split the difference, such as by offering special local discount scheme sort of things, or having very different pricing/offerings certain days of the week when statistically very few tourists are there vs locals.
dguest · 4d ago
As a European have you noticed a recent increase in tipping in Europe as well?
In Switzerland a lot of the restaurants that have moved to tablets for payment, and the payment screen pops up a "suggested tip" window with a few options. They might be a bit lower than the standard American tips but it's still there and it never was before.
rustcleaner · 4d ago
As an American, may I suggest you Europeans start a social media movement to boycott all businesses in Europe which have that tip screen on their card terminals, before the cancer solidifies its foothold in your home? We won't get rid of tipping here until we get a superdepression for a number of years and no restaraunt operates anymore because literally nobody can afford it.
switch007 · 3d ago
Tipping has existed for decades, just not on the level as the US. It hasn't become a cancer.
rustcleaner · 3d ago
Oh you just wait. The camel sticks its nose in the tent: if you fail to swat it, you will soon find the whole camel in the tent with you.
hiq · 4d ago
Sometimes it's ridiculous enough that the waiter is the one pressing "0%" to switch directly to payment, e.g. when you get your order at the bar yourself and the amount of service is minimal.
L-four · 4d ago
I think it's software is made with the American market in mind. And local businesses use it as is and profit.
dguest · 4d ago
Yeah that was my assumption as well.
There's no custom of tipping that much at any of these places, but I feel cheap just clicking the lowest (no tip) of 4 options. Maybe all the time I've lived in the US plays a role here but it seems like it might just be the decoy effect [1] applied to tipping. It will be interesting to see if consumers see this as a dark pattern and push back.
In Sweden a lot of the software with tipping option is made by Swedish companies who only operate on the Nordic markets.
vldmrs · 4d ago
I haven’t noticed such thing, but maybe you are right. I think that Switzerland is completely different than other parts of Europe and it is hard to compare with.
ponector · 4d ago
For me ridiculous is the fact you are tipping only person who brings the plate.
You dining experience is affected more by other people: person who actually prepared the dish and person who cleans the toilet. Their poor work can easily ruin your dinner experience, but tips are expected to the person walking with plates.
jasode · 4d ago
>you are tipping only person who brings the plate. You dining experience is affected more by other people
A lot of restaurants have "tip sharing", "tip out", "tip pool" where the waitstaff share some portion of their tips with the hostess, foodrunners, cooks, etc. So the customer is really tipping all the workers except the managers.
Never heard about tip sharing with kitchen and especially with cleaning staff. Usually they share only with people working around the tables.
Poor latinos are working overtime on minimal hourly wage as dishwashers, basic food prep, etc and no tips for them.
That is my experience, it would be great if other places are more fair.
itsthejb · 4d ago
You will no doubt have noticed that with the proliferation of mobile Epos, tipping is increasingly being crowbarred into daily life over here too. For godssakes Just Say No
scotty79 · 4d ago
It's weirdly named. But it's all because the person servicing you is pretty much not paid by their employer. Instead they are "hired" and paid by you directly to service you. You don't have much control in this business relationship between you and your server, however you are expected to pay for it. Look at servers not as employers but as freelancers and it'll be easier.
stevenwoo · 4d ago
It is such a relief to go out to eat in Europe versus the USA where you have to negotiate a fair wage for the service employees at what seems like every food service business at the register. I prefer the solution other countries have where the price already includes a fair wage, I don't want to have to think about it with every meal or snack.
penguin_booze · 3d ago
Tell them that tipping is against your religious beliefs. They can't question nor challenge it--because, hate crime. Checkmate.
TipsForCanoes · 2d ago
You're not wrong if you adhere to the Bible.
Tipping appears nowhere in the Bible. However, the practice of fair and honest trading appears many times.
switch007 · 3d ago
That and disappearing with your card, swiping it with only some kind of implicit authorisation, doing some kind of pre-auth (?), which is then released/finalised once you add the tip and sign the receipt ? (If I understood it correctly)
tptacek · 4d ago
Correct. They are demanded of you everywhere.
shermantanktop · 4d ago
And European tourists are notorious for not tipping, because they have not taken the time to understand our bizarre customs which we don’t even like.
Combine that with the fact that tourists everywhere are more difficult and time-consuming to deal with and it’s a recipe for resentment.
Just last week I saw a group of Spanish visitors to NYC create a confusing maelstrom of orders at a coffee shop and then override the tip to zero, all while shouting across the room to each other.
scarface_74 · 4d ago
I frequent a bar in a tourist area with many international tourists. They finally just by default added an 18% service charge and a line for an additional tip.
The servers and bartenders are always very explicit about the tip being included.
This feels much more fair to me.
ndsipa_pomu · 4d ago
Here in the UK, it's common for a "service charge" to be added to bills which is the equivalent of a tip, but considered mandatory for large groups. I think the next step is to just roll the tips/service charge into the food prices and thus not be pushing employee wage issues onto customers.
nasmorn · 4d ago
That is simply a markup and should be reflected in the price. Euro style tipping is annoying enough but percentages in the US are huge. It is really not an afterthought to the whole transaction. Imagine you bought a car and the dealers profit would be totally optional for you to decide. The situation is frankly ludicrous
scarface_74 · 3d ago
If they say up front on every menu that the tip is included and the servers/bartenders are up front and you can actually remove it (I guess you can put less on the bottom line), what’s the issue?
Taxes also aren’t included in the menu price.
I can’t imagine any of the servers who don’t like the status quo or that would come out better even if they made $20 an hour.
gambiting · 3d ago
>>Taxes also aren’t included in the menu price
That's insane as well. Why aren't they?
>>If they say up front on every menu that the tip is included and the servers/bartenders are up front and you can actually remove it (I guess you can put less on the bottom line), what’s the issue?
Nothing. Some restaurants in London started doing this now, the menu says a service charge of 10% will apply unless you ask to remove it and very few people have any issue with it.
scarface_74 · 3d ago
Taxes are hardly ever included on ABY prices in the US.
gambiting · 3d ago
Ok, same question applies - why? It's not like the restaurant doesn't know what the taxes are.
scarface_74 · 3d ago
Because if one restaurant or retailer in general added taxes and no one else does, it makes their prices seem higher. Everyone in the US knows that taxes aren’t included.
edent · 4d ago
The service in most American restaurants isn't good; it is obsequious. It is disturbing how many Americans don't notice this.
neilv · 4d ago
> obsequious
You might've hit what bugs me about dining out (in the US).
My favorite place for first dates was this particular cafe-restaurant, where a server would come to your table for your order, eventually, but otherwise didn't bother you.
For example, they did none of the apparently standard barge-in of your conversation, 10 minutes after you're served, asking how everything is.
Also, in restaurants in general, some servers have mastered the art of refilling water glasses like a ghost, and somehow asking if you want to refresh your drinks without interrupting your conversation.
But others either aren't able to do that, or come from a school of thought that the top priority is that guests be conscious of the server's willingness to serve.
I tip 20%+ in any case, but I wish more servers would be more subtle.
ponector · 4d ago
>I wish more servers would be more subtle
Why would they change their behavior if you tip anyway?
neilv · 4d ago
I think it would be jerky to give feedback notes to a server, and almost no one will do it, so the message wouldn't come across that way.
I'd guess what's needed is to promote a different school of thought via broadcast (e.g., through lifestyle articles and restaurant trade publications).
Though it might be that I'm not representative, and more US diners want to go through the rituals of being served conspicuously, as part of the experience.
ndsipa_pomu · 4d ago
Personally, I wouldn't bother trying to educate the server, but would instead choose somewhere else to eat.
hectormalot · 4d ago
I think that is a result of the economics with tips.
Restaurant owners need to balance between overstaffing (and thus spending too much) and understaffing (and having service suffer). The optimal point is different if your opportunity cost is $2 vs $15 per hour.
Thus, in a US restaurant, on average, you’ll see more waiters than in most EU places, given the same amount of tables.
eru · 4d ago
Still better than being ignored like eg can often happen in German restaurants.
KingOfCoders · 4d ago
I'd guess it depends where you live in Germany.
Berlin Mitte: Agree, yes, atrocious service, many arrogant people, no credit cards because of tax fraud (Lived the startup life in Berlin for 20 years, "Monsieur Vuong" was IMHO the worst for service and arrogance - but then there is "Il Pane e le Rose", lovely people, went there for 20 years, or "Restorani Tbilisi", my favorite restaurant in Berlin, most excellent food and service).
Nice city somewhere else: No. Here in Stralsund we go to 5 restaurants regularly. All are nice, have excellent service, people are friendly, prices are fair (But I so miss Georgian food).
dm270 · 4d ago
I agree with you. Haven’t had very bad experience with service.
I for example am perfectly ok with flagging down a waiter to order extra drinks.
The US make me feel uncomfortable with their almost obnoxious wait staff asking you 100 times if everything is ok…but hell breaks loose if you’re done with your meal and you just wanna sit with your buddies and have one more drink or finish your beer.
Then wait staff manages to make you feel very uncomfortable in my opinion. Much worse than default German service.
mbirth · 3d ago
Because in Germany the waitstaff isn’t expecting a tip and they’re usually happy with their salary.
Whereas in the US, it’s all about the tips. And once you’re done with your meal, you’re just delaying the next tip.
eru · 3d ago
Why would they be 'happy' with their salary? More pay is always better.
One random idea that I had for a while to replace tips: when I get a bill, that's the total amount I need to pay. There should be a line asking me to fill in a percentage. That percent of my bill goes to the service.
And most importantly, set the percentage limit to 50%, so owner would have to raise menu price by 100% if they want to simply offset it.
This way, customer don't feel like they are paying twice, the service team still get tips to supplement their lower income.
Of course the restaurant owners won't agree to this because now they are the ones subsidizing the waiter's salary instead of the customers. Just like it should have been.
Gud · 4d ago
I have even more radical idea:
Use the agreed upon price set in the menu.
HDThoreaun · 3d ago
restaurants have tried this, all the servers quit. It is the servers who are forcing tips on us because they make way more money than they would on wages.
rustcleaner · 3d ago
I would explicitly patronize a cafe with a counter I had to walk up to if it had a sign up explaining that they banned tips and offered 30-50% over min-wage but nobody applies. I would chalk it up to entitled service workers who really should be converting material taken out of the ground into something useful instead of waiting tables.
We won't see any real increases to our standards of living in the US again until we bring electric prices down and we start converting more things in the ground into things which make our lives even easier. Climate Change™ has been a wonderous success in slowing down Western inertia, though don't mistake my sentiment as faith in the current administration (lol).
gambiting · 3d ago
So what, America is stuck and nothing can ever change from now until eternity?
Gud · 3d ago
Did they try paying fair wages? Because in your scenario, they were obviously paid less than they were before.
mbirth · 3d ago
There’s a huge gap between a fair wage for some untrained employee that just has to carry around food without stumbling over their own feet; and the amount of $$$ some cute young blonde waitress goes home with after every shift.
ramesh31 · 4d ago
Ask any server if they want to get rid of tips, even given an hourly wage that would be comparable, and the vast majority will say no. Those regulars who come in and slip you a $50 bill every now and then blows any kind of "fair wage" a restaraunt could pay you out of the water.
It's like working on comission. Americans are rich (comparatively, globally). For all of our gripes we still have the highest disposable income by a long shot. Many can and do enjoy tipping their waitsaff gratuitously in exchange for their service. It's the only way serving can possibly ever be anything more than low wage drudgery, given the margins of food service.
If you can't afford to tip, you cant afford to eat out, plain and simple. Go to the grocery store.
torlok · 4d ago
How many servers do you know to make such a bold assumption? I can't imagine somebody rational picking a roulette wheel over a "comparable" steady income. IMHO "if you can't tip, don't go" ends in a loss of customers, and unemployment.
HDThoreaun · 3d ago
> How many servers do you know to make such a bold assumption?
All of them. I ask most that I meet. None are willing to give up tips
joshstrange · 4d ago
Not OP but I work in food festival payments and my suggestion that they raise their alcohol prices by a dollar or two and pay that to the bartenders instead of tips was shot down immediately and it was explained that they could not hire bartenders without tips.
I can’t speak to if that’s true but what I can tell you is that on credit card transactions they saw a 7.6% tipping rate. The drinks at this festival ranged from $8-15/ea so depending on the price, a $1-2 increase that was shared with the bartenders would net them _more_.
One missing data point here is cash, cash payments accounted for half of the credit card payments and I don’t track cash tips (it would be worthless to try). Maybe people are dropping $20/$50/$100 bills in regularly that blow out my calculations.
All that said, I assume the truth is somewhere closer to this being a collective action problem. Individual server might think that they can beat the curve (perhaps correctly, my numbers are averaged) which causes them to advocate for tips instead of more consistent wages.
Either way, it's a sad state of affairs further complicated by bringing drugs (alcohol) into the mix. I'm sure tips flow more freely when people are cognitively impaired, which is a gross thing to prey on IMHO. Also add in the "I'll make this a heavy pour if you tip me more" (aka stealing).
TipsForCanoes · 3d ago
I know a few people who work in food service and make close to 6 figures with tipping. Without tipping they'd be at or close to minimum wage. Of course they are in favor of tipping.
One friend shared with me in detail how she plans and practices every customer interaction to maximize tipping. The more I learn about this the more the restaurant industry feels like a scam to me.
For example, if someone orders a mixed vodka drink, she will ask "do you want that with Absolut or Stoli?" two of the higher priced vodkas they offer. She won't even mention that you can also choose the well vodka for much less.
She also told me of another trick she often uses, especially with large parties on busy nights. When she first goes to the table she will ask "has anyone been by yet? No? Oh this isn't my section but I'll be happy to take care of you since you've been waiting..." Only it really is her section. According to her this always results in higher tips because it gives the impression that she is going out of her way.
My reaction to this and the escalating tip expectation has been to pretty much stop going out to restaurants. Instead, I've learned to cook and host dinner parties. I enjoy it so much more (and I refuse any attempt to tip me ;)
ramesh31 · 3d ago
>All that said, I assume the truth is somewhere closer to this being a collective action problem. Individual server might think that they can beat the curve (perhaps correctly, my numbers are averaged) which causes them to advocate for tips instead of more consistent wages
Precisely. Notice that I said "vast majority", certainly not all. Some people see serving as a labor to perform. Others (rightfully) see it as hospitality, and act acccordingly. It's no surprise who earns more, and who feels resentful of that. At the end of the day you are shucking and jiving to make more money than your physical labor is worth, and some people just don't get that. But the ones who do would never want to give up tips because it is an outsized form of income that a wage could never touch. Your festival example is a bit nontypical as they generally rely more on regulars at a fixed location, which is why servers will usually negotiate a higher hourly rate for things like that.
Ylpertnodi · 3d ago
>If you can't afford to tip, you cant afford to eat out, plain and simple. Go to the grocery store.
Absolute bollocks, but I do like the idea of tipping at the grocery store, rather than just paying an advertised price that i can consider before entering.
gambiting · 3d ago
It's just incredible how the entirety of the American public got brainwashed into believing that it's their responsibility for subsidising restaurant staff instead of the company that hires them and ultimately reaps the reward of their work. It's so pervasive it's impossible to even have any kind of reasonable argument about it, at best it just ends with "well it is what it is".
AStonesThrow · 4d ago
For a long, long time, I ate at whatever restaurant was nearby. And for delivery, I had a huge stack of menus at home, and I'd order whatever tickled my fancy that day.
Since I suffer from PTSD, it has been very difficult for me to discern when I was receiving bad service, disrespect, outright contempt from "the help" because of who I am or what I look like, or what my name/address was. I really just put up with it every day, as an unavoidable fact of life.
And it really came to a head during the pandemic; I was using GrubHub extensively and they were systematically stealing my drinks. I'd order one drink--missing. I'd order two drinks--missing. I was having a meltdown during each reimbursement call, 3 times a day every day!
And my friend counseled me that perhaps I just shouldn't return my business to a place that treats me like that. And I was like, hmm, could it be that easy?
And I began to test it--I switched to DoorDash and they've been fair and honest every day.
I began returning to restaurants where I had noticed they smiled to me and treated me kindly, like a human being. And the difference was amazing.
Of course this worked out to mostly Catholic proprietors around town, whether Italian, Vietnamese, many Latino-run kitchens, whatever.
And yes, "obsequious" sort of describes the experience sometimes. They really do value my business, especially at the struggling Irish Pub downtown, or when I pay cash to the elderly Vietnamese lady on borrowed time in the dilapidated shopping center.
I can still sort of put up with thinly veiled hate when I walk into a really basic fast-food joint. But I've really curtailed my explorations of new restaurants.
And I feel much better tipping the drivers and the waitresses who really do give me good service, and you know, treat me as a human person. I had begun to think it just wasn't possible.
shmerl · 4d ago
Really bad practice. Prices should be flat without any expected extra payments and workers should be paid fair wages.
amrocha · 4d ago
Workers are already paid fair wages. The employer needs to ensure workers make minimum wage at minimum.
insane_dreamer · 3d ago
I tip because I know that the servers are getting shit pay because business owners are counting on tips to make up the rest.
But I hate it. It's not "tipping" - which is to give some extra to show appreciation for service. It's an underhanded guilt trip to make you pay more than you thought you were going to pay for your meal.
I especially hate "tipping" for cases where no service was provided. It's really just a surcharge on the coffee/whatever.
Raise prices and drop the tipping.
I ate at a restaurant recently where they did just that. They had a little sign on the table that said something along the lines of "we've raised our prices 20% to pay living wages and we don't encourage tipping". I left a small tip anyway, but it was a true tip.
sireat · 3d ago
As a European I visited US last December for the first time in 11 years.
What was shocking how many places I would say 80-90% have the "tip before service" payment terminals.
Many of these type of places were those I would not associate with classical service tipping - food counters, bagel, donut, coffee places where you pick up the order from counter.
Then there were some serious restaurant style places with this same type of payment system.
My American friends informed that technically you can skip tipping in these places.
Still this "tip ahead"" seemed really a bit of dark pattern - you feel like if you do not tip you get Tyler Durden clam chowder treatment.
mbirth · 3d ago
Today, there was a great video from Honest Guide about the tipping situation in the US compared to the Czech Republic:
One of the reasons often given for why one must tip in US restaurants is the rampant wage theft in that industry.
In law the restaurant must make up the difference if tips fall short of the minimum wage but, we are told, wage theft is so common that most restaurants simply don't pay it. Some will even fire staff for falling short on tips.
Why are we supposed to just look the other way while we tip to support criminal wage theft?
Fair and honest pricing would remove a huge enabler to this wide spread criminal activity.
joshstrange · 4d ago
I hate tipping. Especially the practice of tipping _before_ service is rendered.
I hate even more that “taking a stand” against tipping doesn’t solve anything and just hurts the people I’d like to be helping.
I work for a POS company, I hate tipping screens, but there is no way to not offer that feature.
I run my own food festival payments company, I was forced to add tips for Bar payments but managed to hold firm on not adding tipping to the food vendors (even though they complain constantly about it, the entitlement is insane “how am I going to get people to work without tips?”, uh, pay them more?).
My sister owns a bakery, they added tipping because they couldn’t entice people to come work for them even at $15-16/hr unless they also could make tips. This front of house we are talking about, not the people actually making the products (though tips are pooled for back of house), they are talking items out of a case and putting them in a box to hand to customer. Why that deserves a tip I’ll never know, especially since most can’t be bothered to do anything to increase sales and thus their tip.
For the _first_ time in my life I clawed back a tip from a delivery app about a week ago. I’ve had many bad deliveries and bad shoppers but turns out my line in the sand was: 7hr late delivery and the meat and cheese was 70F when it arrived. I hate that _this_ is the only thing that’s caused me to remove a tip. Maybe I should be quicker to clear the tip when the delivery person messes up (happens often).
briandear · 4d ago
> However, even if a tipped worker provides excellent service, studies have shown that certain biases can affect tipping, especially against women and women of color. Tipping creates a dining system where people of color, elders, women, and those of foreign descent get worse service.
Because those groups typically tip less or not at all. Although I never found that to be true with women. And “people of color” in the article really means black people. Asians and Hispanics seem to tip normally in my experience.
And for those thinking “omg how racist” — you clearly never worked in the restaurant business in the United States before.
One of the linked studies has the following (emphasis mine):
> Server race has also been shown to affect tipping. Black cab drivers
receive smaller tips on average than do white cab drivers ... This is true regardless of the race of the tipper – both black and white tippers give white drivers larger tips than black drivers
That's about cab drivers but I don't see why the case would be very different in restaurants.
disantlor · 4d ago
i wouldn’t say this reddit thread clearly makes the point you think it does
cycrutchfield · 4d ago
You sure you want to post your racist generalizations on a public forum with your real name attached to it?
tptacek · 3d ago
HN threads on tipping turn me into the Joker. This stuff is so hard for me to read.
Yes, you can trace tipping back to demeaning pre-enlightenment service worker dynamics. But you can do that with almost anything. Talk to a socialist Google worker about the morality of their $350k comp package. As I have learned the hard way trying to convince a local polity that zoning is fundamentally racist (it is), to confront a system you have to address what it is today, not what it was historically.
And yes, tipping is widely abused, especially in the fast-casual and low-mid casual segments of the market. You want to set a N0% plus-up over minimum wage on front of the house jobs? I'm here for it. We're going to put a lot of restaurants out of business together with this plan --- the most abusive sectors of the restaurant business operate on the knife's edge of profitability --- but maybe that's for the best.
In high-end casual and fine dining, though, tipping has nothing to do with master-serf relationships, or really any kind of exploitation. A fine dining server's comp package looks a lot like that of a sales account manager: an untenably low base with a variable comp package on top. The reasons are the same in both cases: because of principal-agent problems. A flat salary for servers (the "living wage" system) breaks incentives: if you're going to make the same money whether the restaurant is packed or empty, why would you ever want to work a Friday? Put differently: tipping gives service staff exposure to the gross upside of the business, and aligns that exposure to the server's own agency in the business --- managing the customer relationship, monitoring the products being delivered from the back of the house.
This is part of the reason that expert servers quit when fine dining restaurants try to flip to no-tipping models.
People complain about how manipulative or stressful tipping is. I think that's pure applesauce. Divide the check by 10 and multiply by two. Or double the sales tax. Your check probably has the 15-20% line figured out for you already. You go into an American restaurant knowing you're on the hook for the tip, like adults in America have done for generations. If it's a scam to fool you into thinking prices are lower than they are, we've all had more than enough time to metabolize and work around it.
Tipping subsidizes owners. But everything you spend in a restaurant subsidizes owners. You're where all the revenue in this industry comes from.
This not the system I would design if I was the Pope of Chili Town. But it's not the moral calamity nerds like us make it out to be, either.
rustcleaner · 3d ago
Tie pay to performance then. As for Fridays, start a baserate bidding market for your workers and the lowest asks win the given shift. If pay for the shift scales with number of plates served (without tips) AND Fridays pay more because the lowest ask on Fridays is typically higher than on other days, then it should not be much different than now except your customers don't feel mugged. Just ban customer tipping!
Probably best to tie this all together in a "Lowest listed price is final price" law that includes a hotline for customers to report businesses/staff who retaliate over no tipping. Mainly it's so the agency can send secret shoppers of their own to test for social retaliations/pressure.
tptacek · 3d ago
You could devise some contraption ("baserate bidding market") that is +/- 5% more {fair, transparent, predictable} than tipping, in the same way that you could improve or degrade sales compensation by eliminating commissions, yes.
Sverigevader · 4d ago
Tipping has been forced into Sweden for around 10-15? years now. I do not like it one bit. No one pays by cash, so they baked the tipping into the payment terminals. They usually come with 4-5 pre-made options with percentages, and _sometimes_ a "no gratuity" option, which will input your original total. IIRC it's always possible to skip it by pressing the (usually) green button to "continue". It'll always input your total and you can skip the entire thing and just blip your card.
Some customers started to input their PIN code (which you sometimes have to do) instead of their total when this was a new thing. It made for some hilarious totals.
One of the most egregious examples I can remember was a restaurant where you order digitally, and when done, you go and get your food/drinks yourself from the serving window. And they asked for tips... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sigh... I do sometimes tip though, never for lunch, but sometimes for dinner.
sans_souse · 4d ago
Always tip for quality service, and tip with cash, directly. This way you know it is going to the person who rendered the service (and the person who likely needs it, as opposed to the owner of the business)
ndsipa_pomu · 4d ago
I don't understand why I should have to be judging just the "service" which is usually just taking the order and delivering the food. I find other aspects of restaurants to be more important such as the food quality, the comfort of the furniture and often the noise level (I don't want to have to be shouting to get heard above loud background music and everyone else having to shout).
If there's any logic behind it, why don't people tip their post delivery people for their service?
sans_souse · 14h ago
What does your SERVER have control over? That's the person getting any tip you leave.
hiq · 3d ago
> If there's any logic behind it, why don't people tip their post delivery people for their service?
Well this does happen actually, I don't know how prevalent this is and whether this is getting more widespread, but given the current trends I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes fully normalized eventually.
mjevans · 4d ago
1) I want all restaurant workers to just get a fair proper wage...
2) So that tipping is no longer subsidizing the restaurant owners.
3) Also, FFS, when demand is inelastic, the only way to lower prices is MORE SUPPLY (where it's needed). Build the housing, do not stop, just keep going until after we all die.
amrocha · 4d ago
Restaurant workers already get a fair wage. At minimum they make minimum wage. If you don’t think the minimum wage is fair then fight to raise it. Otherwise you’re gonna have to start tipping at a lot more places than just restaurants.
If workers make less than minimum wage from tips, then the employer needs to make up that difference.
TipsForCanoes · 4d ago
I think this could be solved with two small legal changes.
1. Abolish lower minimum wages for so called "tipped" workers and raise it to a fair value.
2. Make it illegal for any business to solicit tips.
If a customer wishes to tip then they certainly can but no business should be allowed to pressure you (and just asking is pressure) into paying more than the price they are listing for an item.
scotty79 · 4d ago
> Build the housing, do not stop, just keep going until after we all die.
China did exactly that. And ended up with 3 apartments per each citizen. Most of them perpetually empty because real estate is still expensive there.
tptacek · 4d ago
Tipping doesn't subsidize the restaurant owners.
n4r9 · 4d ago
I'm guessing they mean that without tipping, more of the restaurant's revenue would go towards wages.
abdullahkhalids · 4d ago
Which is likely incorrect. Suppose currently a meal costs 20, and the average tip is 15%, so that the customer pays 23. This means that the restaurant knows that customer is willing to pay 23 for a meal.
Now, get rid of tipping. The restaurant will raise prices to 23 per meal. And instead of that 3 ending up in the waiter's pockets it will instead be split between the owner and the waiter. Most likely, the worker's wages will be likely suppressed down to minimum wage and the owner will get whatever remains of the 3.
You will need to do more interventions beyond removing tipping to ensure waiters get more than minimum wage.
If we assume that the restaurant owner pays the minimum possible wage out of the revenue, then the claim is correct.
tptacek · 4d ago
Sure, but the prices would also be commensurately higher.
xoa · 4d ago
>but the prices would also be commensurately higher.
No, the prices would be more transparent, not higher. You've made clear in other comments ITT that you believe tipping to be mandatory ("If you don't want to tip, don't dine at full-service restaurants in America"), which means you consider prices 15% or more higher then sticker price to already be the rule. Requiring that to be part of the advertised price instead of hidden is purely good for free market efficiency. Anything that isn't fully optional should be part of the advertised price. The employers and employees have superior information for correct decisions, and once a transaction (dining) has already been committed to a superior position of power as well.
tptacek · 4d ago
I mean, you can not tip. It's contemptible behavior in the US, but you can do it.
tossandthrow · 4d ago
Thisnis one of these counter arguments you often hear in favor of low wages in general.
And it is a horrendous argument.
You are literally actively arguing for greater inequality.
If a company can not cover their costs with their revenue, then they need to cease to exists.
And ofcause they need to pay fair market wages.
No comments yet
n4r9 · 4d ago
Does that make it not a subsidy? We say that the US govt subsidises oil companies even though petrol prices would be higher if they stopped.
10000truths · 4d ago
The consumer already paying the "higher price" through tips. I much prefer transparent pricing with no hidden expectations or fees.
samastur · 4d ago
They already are, it's just expected you calculate yourself the real price.
rustcleaner · 4d ago
Excellent service above expectations - tip.
Normal service as to expectations - no tip.
Service below basic expectations - manager.
How hard is it to make this the standard?
Stratoscope · 4d ago
(deleted)
pixelatedindex · 4d ago
To be fair, tipping on top of sales tax never made sense. Tip is always calculated from a pre-tax amount. And somehow the tip percentage has gone up - when I was young 15% was the norm. Precovid it was 18%. Now it’s 20%? Why is this being inflated? The prices have already gone up, so even at 15% the tip has ballooned.
I also don’t understand why we have to tip waitstaff that is paid minimum wage - places like WA, CA, etc cannot have wage that is lower than the state minimum wage.
I’ve worked many a retail job and have had to deal with rude customers, clean up after their mess, etc. Why pay more just because someone told me what the special is and brought me the food? Isn’t that what their job is?
I don’t understand it and I just don’t eat at sit down places anymore. Take out, counter service, or bust.
rocqua · 4d ago
Tipping percentage migrates up because it is a status game. tipping 'below average' is socially bad. Tipping above the meta is expensive, bit makes you look generous. So the meta shifts over time as more people tip above average than people tip below average.
throw310822 · 4d ago
> To be fair, tipping on top of sales tax never made sense
That's a bit funny. Why doesn't it make sense? There is no meaningful relationship between the amount you spend, fixed brackets like 15%, 20%, 30% etc, and the job the waiter did bringing you the food. It's all made up and unnecessary. You can be expected to pay it before taxes, after taxes, 0%, 80%, only for desserts, only on your birthday... It's completely arbitrary.
pixelatedindex · 4d ago
Tipping is for service. It’s a charge and like all charges, it’s levied on the subtotal.
If I calculated tip after tax, I’m paying a portion of my tips to the state, and they are already getting their share via sales tax.
throw310822 · 4d ago
Hm. Tipping is not a charge, is a gratuity- which means that its amount and even whether you give it or not is up to you. You can decide to tip 20% before taxes or 16% after taxes- it's exactly the same. It all depends how much you want to risk being seen as stingy by the waiter in front of you.
AStonesThrow · 4d ago
I am confused about what you consider “chintzy”.
Pre-tax subtotal has always been my starting point for calculating the gratuity. In fact, if you’re ordering drinks with lunch, I was taught to deduct the bar total as well, and go by food served.
15% a bog standard percentage and completely fair. Especially if it were “many years ago”.
I have taken note that many receipt printers now try to “cheat” us by displaying tip calculations on the after-tax. Even worse, once they run your card, they may withhold that itemized receipt, so you have no information but the grand total! It’s really unfair.
And don’t forget, a rich woman does not become wealthy based on her generosity. Think about it. It’s about how much she can hold onto.
rishav_sharan · 4d ago
I think the lady was right here. Tipping is what you have today, because you all support it fully
eru · 4d ago
You can just not tip. If you feel guilty, give the amount you save to any of the effective charities suggested by GiveWell.
Aunche · 4d ago
California doesn't have a separate tipped minimum wage, has a high minimum wage, and mandates larger restaurants to provide health insurance benefits, so 15% sounds about right. The higher minimum wage gets baked into the menu prices, so you're basically tipping for the privilege of giving them higher wages.
Stratoscope · 4d ago
I deleted my parent comment because it stirred up such a contentious debate.
I don't care about the loss of karma, I have plenty to spare.
I do care about encouraging positive discussion, and I am afraid I failed badly here.
blitzar · 4d ago
If I buy expensive bottle(s) of wine with the meal I also deduct most of that too. A $300 meal with $1000 of wine gets comfortably less than $100 tip.
That said, minimum wage is minimum wage. If an employee doesn’t make that up in tips, the law is that the restaurant needs to make up the difference. So it’s a complete non sequitur that $2/hour isn’t a living wage.
If that isn’t happening, the article is burying the lede: the problem isn’t tipping, it’s rampant wage theft. And I don’t need the complete history of tipping to know that wage theft is bad.
The math is not the problem. The problem is that it's a unspecified amount, therefore it's up to you to decide on the spot how much to pay the person in front of you. This creates a social pressure towards paying more, and the results are obvious: the expected tip keeps rising- and in fact it's already reached completely absurd levels.
It goes like this:
I have lots of money, you do not. if you wait on me hand and foot in just the right way and if I like it just right I might give you some money. Or not. But you have to dance to find out.
Utterly disgusting, and of course it is normal in a country with severe income disparity - people who have so much money they can waive it around to get people to dance for them while the people dancing don’t even have healthcare, maternity leave or other basic human rights.
The fact some establishments require female servers with certain physical attributes to dress in extremely skimpy clothing just reinforces this. It’s utterly vile.
(Some people will point out this is just like work and pay on general, but there are laws in place forcing the employer to pay a certain amount for a given amount of work. Not so with tipping)
> there are laws in place forcing the employer to pay a certain amount for a given amount of work. Not so with tipping.
The laws apply a minimum pay to a fixed amount of time working. Not an amount of work. If you do 2x the amount of work as a coworker in the same amount of time, you will be paid the same.
I think you might also be confusing tipped minimum wage with actual minimum wage, and I think the article did no one any favors there.
There are two problems. Requiring an employee to wear extremely skimpy clothing, and tipping.
> I think you might also be confusing tipped minimum wage with actual minimum wage, and I think the article did no one any favors there.*
I am not, I understand the difference perfectly.
Put another way, if a waiter gets zero tips their pay calculation reduces to what a fast food worker makes.
Most of the sit down restaurants I frequent now use mobile pay terminals so at least that bit is less awkward. They leave the terminal at the table and leave, so you can pay at your leisure.
No need to flag down a waiter, tell them you want to pay, yes, by card, and then watch him getting flagged down by 5 other guests until he makes it back to you with the card reader 10 minutes later.
It also muddies the waters around tipped minimum wage and minimum wage in unhelpful ways. You can see many people in this thread are confused about it.
A more helpful thesis would be tipping leads to wage theft which is bad.
Despite this the general attitude is such that most people are cheap for anything less than ~20%, I’ve heard that even the servers running the take out stand expect these types of tips. The sense of entitlement is crazy, it’s such a low skill job and I’m so rarely actually impressed by the service or even attention I receive (there’s a general/generational degradation of all service that’s occurred in past say 15-20 years).
But for plenty of others, the current situation sees them being exploited and payed less than minimum wage. It isnt a rare few either. I'm not okay with a situation where a large group is being exploited below the poverty line, just because it works out better for another large group.
Personally, I don't believe that at all. I do conceed that, if this were the case, things would be fine.
At the same time, employees know that tips are incredibly lucrative for them, and would rather have a sub minimum wage day every once in a while for the on average above minimum wage pay. There’s a reason servers don’t want to get rid of tips.
That being said, none of this is my problem as a customer. If you choose not to pursue your rights that’s on you at the end of the day. I’m not going to feel bad that your scheme to have me subsidize your wages failed.
No comments yet
Whenever I dine at such a place, I give a 100% tip because it’s easier math and it incentivizes me not to patronize such businesses. (I only go with friends and I never make the suggestion.) Just saying that because I disagree with this perspective; do go to these restaurants and don’t tip if that is your choice.
Tipping used to be a gratuity. It’s a way to say, “Your effort was exceptional and I want to show you how grateful I am for it.” Tips are no longer exceptions, nor gratuitous: they have become an obligation, as you say. I reject this; I am not responsible for the wage of someone I did not hire. I’m not even responsible for the success of the business, except that I owe them what I agreed to pay when I ordered. It’s like every restaurant prices their menu incorrectly and they expect their customers to correct them.
(There is a Prisoner’s Dilemma for the restaurants: if I start paying my staff well, I have to raise (advertised) prices but people still think tipping is necessary so they’ll see my increased prices in that context and be more likely to go to one of my competitors. I don’t mean to say restaurant owners have an easy out, just that the answer to patronize these businesses regularly, while also tipping generously, perpetuates the situation.)
Is it wrong for someone to order carryout from such a full-service restaurant and not tip? If so, what would they be tipping for? If not, how does the wait staff get paid from the order when they’re primarily paid with tips?
It’s not quite “the price you see is the price you pay” but it’s progress.
This is what I don't get about tipping percentage based. It makes no sense to me. The serving effort is exactly the same between a 10$ salad and a 100$ steak. Take plate, bring plate, place plate on table, smile and check back. That's it.
It gets even more obnoxious when dealing with drinks. A 20$ bottle of wine requires the same effort as a 200$ bottle of wine. (well, except that pretentious bs about breaking the glass, but that's ridiculous anyway)
Same goes for drinks at bars. 5$ shot of your cheapest whiskey takes the same effort as a 50-500$ of a top shelf / ridiculously rare whiskey. Tipping a percentage of that makes absolutely no sense at all, and people defending it with "you get better service" really should visit high end restaurants in London / Paris etc. and see what "great service" really means.
Of course it makes sense and I think you understand it even if (very reasonably!) you don't like it: it's a rough but effective effort at a progressive taxation/extractive pricing scheme. They're trying to extract the maximum amount of money from each customer for each individual transaction [0], orthogonal to effort or value. They aren't a government of course though and don't have full visibility of anyone's exact income or personal psychology. But as a simple proxy somebody buying a $200 bottle of wine is more likely to either have a lot more money or (just as good here) simply be in a mood/occasion to splash out and due to how humans tend to judge relative expenditures they're a lot easier to convince a $30 tip is acceptable if it's 15% of the price instead of 150% the price. Even if they aren't rich and/or are typically value-oriented, on a "special occasion" it's probably going to be easier to squeeze them harder while not framing it as getting squeezed. Once people commit to paying higher numbers that frames the rest of their economic decision making for the transaction.
And clearly it does work for a lot of places, at least in the short term, same as other exploitive human economic hacks (like the predatory rise of microtransactions in video games). It lets the businesses (including not just owners/managers in this case but many employees as well) make a lot more money.
----
0: Ie, treating it as a non-iterated game theory situation, which probably is rational for a lot of restaurants and particularly tourist ones where odds may be that they will only ever see any given customer once (or perhaps single digits, close enough) in a lifetime. In an iterated game, where a large/critical percentage of business depends on local repeat customers, it can make more sense long term to build loyalty by not feeling exploitive and have lower-per-transaction profits that are steady over years/decades. And I have seen that play out to some extent. Some places may also split the difference, such as by offering special local discount scheme sort of things, or having very different pricing/offerings certain days of the week when statistically very few tourists are there vs locals.
In Switzerland a lot of the restaurants that have moved to tablets for payment, and the payment screen pops up a "suggested tip" window with a few options. They might be a bit lower than the standard American tips but it's still there and it never was before.
There's no custom of tipping that much at any of these places, but I feel cheap just clicking the lowest (no tip) of 4 options. Maybe all the time I've lived in the US plays a role here but it seems like it might just be the decoy effect [1] applied to tipping. It will be interesting to see if consumers see this as a dark pattern and push back.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoy_effect
You dining experience is affected more by other people: person who actually prepared the dish and person who cleans the toilet. Their poor work can easily ruin your dinner experience, but tips are expected to the person walking with plates.
A lot of restaurants have "tip sharing", "tip out", "tip pool" where the waitstaff share some portion of their tips with the hostess, foodrunners, cooks, etc. So the customer is really tipping all the workers except the managers.
https://www.google.com/search?q=waitstaff+share+tip+share+ti...
Poor latinos are working overtime on minimal hourly wage as dishwashers, basic food prep, etc and no tips for them.
That is my experience, it would be great if other places are more fair.
Tipping appears nowhere in the Bible. However, the practice of fair and honest trading appears many times.
Combine that with the fact that tourists everywhere are more difficult and time-consuming to deal with and it’s a recipe for resentment.
Just last week I saw a group of Spanish visitors to NYC create a confusing maelstrom of orders at a coffee shop and then override the tip to zero, all while shouting across the room to each other.
The servers and bartenders are always very explicit about the tip being included.
This feels much more fair to me.
Taxes also aren’t included in the menu price.
I can’t imagine any of the servers who don’t like the status quo or that would come out better even if they made $20 an hour.
That's insane as well. Why aren't they?
>>If they say up front on every menu that the tip is included and the servers/bartenders are up front and you can actually remove it (I guess you can put less on the bottom line), what’s the issue?
Nothing. Some restaurants in London started doing this now, the menu says a service charge of 10% will apply unless you ask to remove it and very few people have any issue with it.
You might've hit what bugs me about dining out (in the US).
My favorite place for first dates was this particular cafe-restaurant, where a server would come to your table for your order, eventually, but otherwise didn't bother you.
For example, they did none of the apparently standard barge-in of your conversation, 10 minutes after you're served, asking how everything is.
Also, in restaurants in general, some servers have mastered the art of refilling water glasses like a ghost, and somehow asking if you want to refresh your drinks without interrupting your conversation.
But others either aren't able to do that, or come from a school of thought that the top priority is that guests be conscious of the server's willingness to serve.
I tip 20%+ in any case, but I wish more servers would be more subtle.
Why would they change their behavior if you tip anyway?
I'd guess what's needed is to promote a different school of thought via broadcast (e.g., through lifestyle articles and restaurant trade publications).
Though it might be that I'm not representative, and more US diners want to go through the rituals of being served conspicuously, as part of the experience.
Restaurant owners need to balance between overstaffing (and thus spending too much) and understaffing (and having service suffer). The optimal point is different if your opportunity cost is $2 vs $15 per hour.
Thus, in a US restaurant, on average, you’ll see more waiters than in most EU places, given the same amount of tables.
Berlin Mitte: Agree, yes, atrocious service, many arrogant people, no credit cards because of tax fraud (Lived the startup life in Berlin for 20 years, "Monsieur Vuong" was IMHO the worst for service and arrogance - but then there is "Il Pane e le Rose", lovely people, went there for 20 years, or "Restorani Tbilisi", my favorite restaurant in Berlin, most excellent food and service).
Nice city somewhere else: No. Here in Stralsund we go to 5 restaurants regularly. All are nice, have excellent service, people are friendly, prices are fair (But I so miss Georgian food).
Whereas in the US, it’s all about the tips. And once you’re done with your meal, you’re just delaying the next tip.
German service (not just in restaurants) is proverbially bad, even among Germans. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servicew%C3%BCste
And most importantly, set the percentage limit to 50%, so owner would have to raise menu price by 100% if they want to simply offset it.
This way, customer don't feel like they are paying twice, the service team still get tips to supplement their lower income.
Of course the restaurant owners won't agree to this because now they are the ones subsidizing the waiter's salary instead of the customers. Just like it should have been.
Use the agreed upon price set in the menu.
We won't see any real increases to our standards of living in the US again until we bring electric prices down and we start converting more things in the ground into things which make our lives even easier. Climate Change™ has been a wonderous success in slowing down Western inertia, though don't mistake my sentiment as faith in the current administration (lol).
It's like working on comission. Americans are rich (comparatively, globally). For all of our gripes we still have the highest disposable income by a long shot. Many can and do enjoy tipping their waitsaff gratuitously in exchange for their service. It's the only way serving can possibly ever be anything more than low wage drudgery, given the margins of food service.
If you can't afford to tip, you cant afford to eat out, plain and simple. Go to the grocery store.
All of them. I ask most that I meet. None are willing to give up tips
I can’t speak to if that’s true but what I can tell you is that on credit card transactions they saw a 7.6% tipping rate. The drinks at this festival ranged from $8-15/ea so depending on the price, a $1-2 increase that was shared with the bartenders would net them _more_.
One missing data point here is cash, cash payments accounted for half of the credit card payments and I don’t track cash tips (it would be worthless to try). Maybe people are dropping $20/$50/$100 bills in regularly that blow out my calculations.
All that said, I assume the truth is somewhere closer to this being a collective action problem. Individual server might think that they can beat the curve (perhaps correctly, my numbers are averaged) which causes them to advocate for tips instead of more consistent wages.
Either way, it's a sad state of affairs further complicated by bringing drugs (alcohol) into the mix. I'm sure tips flow more freely when people are cognitively impaired, which is a gross thing to prey on IMHO. Also add in the "I'll make this a heavy pour if you tip me more" (aka stealing).
One friend shared with me in detail how she plans and practices every customer interaction to maximize tipping. The more I learn about this the more the restaurant industry feels like a scam to me.
For example, if someone orders a mixed vodka drink, she will ask "do you want that with Absolut or Stoli?" two of the higher priced vodkas they offer. She won't even mention that you can also choose the well vodka for much less.
She also told me of another trick she often uses, especially with large parties on busy nights. When she first goes to the table she will ask "has anyone been by yet? No? Oh this isn't my section but I'll be happy to take care of you since you've been waiting..." Only it really is her section. According to her this always results in higher tips because it gives the impression that she is going out of her way.
My reaction to this and the escalating tip expectation has been to pretty much stop going out to restaurants. Instead, I've learned to cook and host dinner parties. I enjoy it so much more (and I refuse any attempt to tip me ;)
Precisely. Notice that I said "vast majority", certainly not all. Some people see serving as a labor to perform. Others (rightfully) see it as hospitality, and act acccordingly. It's no surprise who earns more, and who feels resentful of that. At the end of the day you are shucking and jiving to make more money than your physical labor is worth, and some people just don't get that. But the ones who do would never want to give up tips because it is an outsized form of income that a wage could never touch. Your festival example is a bit nontypical as they generally rely more on regulars at a fixed location, which is why servers will usually negotiate a higher hourly rate for things like that.
Absolute bollocks, but I do like the idea of tipping at the grocery store, rather than just paying an advertised price that i can consider before entering.
Since I suffer from PTSD, it has been very difficult for me to discern when I was receiving bad service, disrespect, outright contempt from "the help" because of who I am or what I look like, or what my name/address was. I really just put up with it every day, as an unavoidable fact of life.
And it really came to a head during the pandemic; I was using GrubHub extensively and they were systematically stealing my drinks. I'd order one drink--missing. I'd order two drinks--missing. I was having a meltdown during each reimbursement call, 3 times a day every day!
And my friend counseled me that perhaps I just shouldn't return my business to a place that treats me like that. And I was like, hmm, could it be that easy?
And I began to test it--I switched to DoorDash and they've been fair and honest every day.
I began returning to restaurants where I had noticed they smiled to me and treated me kindly, like a human being. And the difference was amazing.
Of course this worked out to mostly Catholic proprietors around town, whether Italian, Vietnamese, many Latino-run kitchens, whatever.
And yes, "obsequious" sort of describes the experience sometimes. They really do value my business, especially at the struggling Irish Pub downtown, or when I pay cash to the elderly Vietnamese lady on borrowed time in the dilapidated shopping center.
I can still sort of put up with thinly veiled hate when I walk into a really basic fast-food joint. But I've really curtailed my explorations of new restaurants.
And I feel much better tipping the drivers and the waitresses who really do give me good service, and you know, treat me as a human person. I had begun to think it just wasn't possible.
But I hate it. It's not "tipping" - which is to give some extra to show appreciation for service. It's an underhanded guilt trip to make you pay more than you thought you were going to pay for your meal.
I especially hate "tipping" for cases where no service was provided. It's really just a surcharge on the coffee/whatever.
Raise prices and drop the tipping.
I ate at a restaurant recently where they did just that. They had a little sign on the table that said something along the lines of "we've raised our prices 20% to pay living wages and we don't encourage tipping". I left a small tip anyway, but it was a true tip.
What was shocking how many places I would say 80-90% have the "tip before service" payment terminals.
Many of these type of places were those I would not associate with classical service tipping - food counters, bagel, donut, coffee places where you pick up the order from counter.
Then there were some serious restaurant style places with this same type of payment system.
My American friends informed that technically you can skip tipping in these places.
Still this "tip ahead"" seemed really a bit of dark pattern - you feel like if you do not tip you get Tyler Durden clam chowder treatment.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=KHDpVPKuwjY
Also, this is my favourite skit about tipping:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=KHDpVPKuwjY
https://youtube.com/shorts/rEQhA-JJlH0
In law the restaurant must make up the difference if tips fall short of the minimum wage but, we are told, wage theft is so common that most restaurants simply don't pay it. Some will even fire staff for falling short on tips.
Why are we supposed to just look the other way while we tip to support criminal wage theft?
Fair and honest pricing would remove a huge enabler to this wide spread criminal activity.
I hate even more that “taking a stand” against tipping doesn’t solve anything and just hurts the people I’d like to be helping.
I work for a POS company, I hate tipping screens, but there is no way to not offer that feature.
I run my own food festival payments company, I was forced to add tips for Bar payments but managed to hold firm on not adding tipping to the food vendors (even though they complain constantly about it, the entitlement is insane “how am I going to get people to work without tips?”, uh, pay them more?).
My sister owns a bakery, they added tipping because they couldn’t entice people to come work for them even at $15-16/hr unless they also could make tips. This front of house we are talking about, not the people actually making the products (though tips are pooled for back of house), they are talking items out of a case and putting them in a box to hand to customer. Why that deserves a tip I’ll never know, especially since most can’t be bothered to do anything to increase sales and thus their tip.
For the _first_ time in my life I clawed back a tip from a delivery app about a week ago. I’ve had many bad deliveries and bad shoppers but turns out my line in the sand was: 7hr late delivery and the meat and cheese was 70F when it arrived. I hate that _this_ is the only thing that’s caused me to remove a tip. Maybe I should be quicker to clear the tip when the delivery person messes up (happens often).
Because those groups typically tip less or not at all. Although I never found that to be true with women. And “people of color” in the article really means black people. Asians and Hispanics seem to tip normally in my experience.
And for those thinking “omg how racist” — you clearly never worked in the restaurant business in the United States before.
Here is an interesting thread about black people and tipping: https://www.reddit.com/r/Serverlife/s/MGkkDmZgYq
> Server race has also been shown to affect tipping. Black cab drivers receive smaller tips on average than do white cab drivers ... This is true regardless of the race of the tipper – both black and white tippers give white drivers larger tips than black drivers
https://static.secure.website/wscfus/5261551/uploads/Busines... (p19)
That's about cab drivers but I don't see why the case would be very different in restaurants.
Yes, you can trace tipping back to demeaning pre-enlightenment service worker dynamics. But you can do that with almost anything. Talk to a socialist Google worker about the morality of their $350k comp package. As I have learned the hard way trying to convince a local polity that zoning is fundamentally racist (it is), to confront a system you have to address what it is today, not what it was historically.
And yes, tipping is widely abused, especially in the fast-casual and low-mid casual segments of the market. You want to set a N0% plus-up over minimum wage on front of the house jobs? I'm here for it. We're going to put a lot of restaurants out of business together with this plan --- the most abusive sectors of the restaurant business operate on the knife's edge of profitability --- but maybe that's for the best.
In high-end casual and fine dining, though, tipping has nothing to do with master-serf relationships, or really any kind of exploitation. A fine dining server's comp package looks a lot like that of a sales account manager: an untenably low base with a variable comp package on top. The reasons are the same in both cases: because of principal-agent problems. A flat salary for servers (the "living wage" system) breaks incentives: if you're going to make the same money whether the restaurant is packed or empty, why would you ever want to work a Friday? Put differently: tipping gives service staff exposure to the gross upside of the business, and aligns that exposure to the server's own agency in the business --- managing the customer relationship, monitoring the products being delivered from the back of the house.
This is part of the reason that expert servers quit when fine dining restaurants try to flip to no-tipping models.
People complain about how manipulative or stressful tipping is. I think that's pure applesauce. Divide the check by 10 and multiply by two. Or double the sales tax. Your check probably has the 15-20% line figured out for you already. You go into an American restaurant knowing you're on the hook for the tip, like adults in America have done for generations. If it's a scam to fool you into thinking prices are lower than they are, we've all had more than enough time to metabolize and work around it.
Tipping subsidizes owners. But everything you spend in a restaurant subsidizes owners. You're where all the revenue in this industry comes from.
This not the system I would design if I was the Pope of Chili Town. But it's not the moral calamity nerds like us make it out to be, either.
Probably best to tie this all together in a "Lowest listed price is final price" law that includes a hotline for customers to report businesses/staff who retaliate over no tipping. Mainly it's so the agency can send secret shoppers of their own to test for social retaliations/pressure.
Some customers started to input their PIN code (which you sometimes have to do) instead of their total when this was a new thing. It made for some hilarious totals.
One of the most egregious examples I can remember was a restaurant where you order digitally, and when done, you go and get your food/drinks yourself from the serving window. And they asked for tips... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sigh... I do sometimes tip though, never for lunch, but sometimes for dinner.
If there's any logic behind it, why don't people tip their post delivery people for their service?
Well this does happen actually, I don't know how prevalent this is and whether this is getting more widespread, but given the current trends I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes fully normalized eventually.
2) So that tipping is no longer subsidizing the restaurant owners.
3) Also, FFS, when demand is inelastic, the only way to lower prices is MORE SUPPLY (where it's needed). Build the housing, do not stop, just keep going until after we all die.
1. Abolish lower minimum wages for so called "tipped" workers and raise it to a fair value.
2. Make it illegal for any business to solicit tips.
If a customer wishes to tip then they certainly can but no business should be allowed to pressure you (and just asking is pressure) into paying more than the price they are listing for an item.
China did exactly that. And ended up with 3 apartments per each citizen. Most of them perpetually empty because real estate is still expensive there.
Now, get rid of tipping. The restaurant will raise prices to 23 per meal. And instead of that 3 ending up in the waiter's pockets it will instead be split between the owner and the waiter. Most likely, the worker's wages will be likely suppressed down to minimum wage and the owner will get whatever remains of the 3.
You will need to do more interventions beyond removing tipping to ensure waiters get more than minimum wage.
If we assume that the restaurant owner pays the minimum possible wage out of the revenue, then the claim is correct.
No, the prices would be more transparent, not higher. You've made clear in other comments ITT that you believe tipping to be mandatory ("If you don't want to tip, don't dine at full-service restaurants in America"), which means you consider prices 15% or more higher then sticker price to already be the rule. Requiring that to be part of the advertised price instead of hidden is purely good for free market efficiency. Anything that isn't fully optional should be part of the advertised price. The employers and employees have superior information for correct decisions, and once a transaction (dining) has already been committed to a superior position of power as well.
And it is a horrendous argument.
You are literally actively arguing for greater inequality.
If a company can not cover their costs with their revenue, then they need to cease to exists.
And ofcause they need to pay fair market wages.
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Normal service as to expectations - no tip.
Service below basic expectations - manager.
How hard is it to make this the standard?
I also don’t understand why we have to tip waitstaff that is paid minimum wage - places like WA, CA, etc cannot have wage that is lower than the state minimum wage.
I’ve worked many a retail job and have had to deal with rude customers, clean up after their mess, etc. Why pay more just because someone told me what the special is and brought me the food? Isn’t that what their job is?
I don’t understand it and I just don’t eat at sit down places anymore. Take out, counter service, or bust.
That's a bit funny. Why doesn't it make sense? There is no meaningful relationship between the amount you spend, fixed brackets like 15%, 20%, 30% etc, and the job the waiter did bringing you the food. It's all made up and unnecessary. You can be expected to pay it before taxes, after taxes, 0%, 80%, only for desserts, only on your birthday... It's completely arbitrary.
If I calculated tip after tax, I’m paying a portion of my tips to the state, and they are already getting their share via sales tax.
Pre-tax subtotal has always been my starting point for calculating the gratuity. In fact, if you’re ordering drinks with lunch, I was taught to deduct the bar total as well, and go by food served.
15% a bog standard percentage and completely fair. Especially if it were “many years ago”.
I have taken note that many receipt printers now try to “cheat” us by displaying tip calculations on the after-tax. Even worse, once they run your card, they may withhold that itemized receipt, so you have no information but the grand total! It’s really unfair.
And don’t forget, a rich woman does not become wealthy based on her generosity. Think about it. It’s about how much she can hold onto.
I don't care about the loss of karma, I have plenty to spare.
I do care about encouraging positive discussion, and I am afraid I failed badly here.