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Why some US restaurants are banning tips

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Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am french, living in the US: yes, service is always included in France, but service is usually not that good. At least, definitely not as good as in the US.

Many countries have far better service without tipping, China and Japan come to mind.

Yes, and South Korea too.

Efficient service, good food, good prices (for a foreigner), no tipping expected or even possible.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#92
post #31

The biggest barrier to ending tipping in the USA is that restaurants are almost always over staffed there. The owner wants the maximum ratio of servers to customers possible. In the typical USA system, being paid primarily in tips means the server is highly incentivized to upsell the customer as much as possible and do everything they can to increase the total bill, and therefor increase their tip. Essentially a comm…

LMFAO, have you ever been to a restaurant in Europe? The service is horrific. Sit down and wait 15 minutes for the menus, another 15 to place a drink order, another 10 for the drinks to get there, another 10 to place food order. Now you finish the meal, good luck getting the waiters attention to bring the check. European dining is the worst, every time I am back stateside I feel like im being waited on in the white h…

In the Netherlands this has been my experience many times. By the time they finally come to take your order (which is always "what would you like to drink?", requiring me to say "actually I'm ready to order the food as well") - I would have already been eating in many other countries.

The reason I think is a mix of things: firstly people really want to make a night of it, seeing the whole dinner as an experience, and secondly the amount of staff (both waitstaff and in the kitchen) won't support a faster process.

Edit: it's not a case of better or worse, just different expectations going in

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#93
post #31

The biggest barrier to ending tipping in the USA is that restaurants are almost always over staffed there. The owner wants the maximum ratio of servers to customers possible. In the typical USA system, being paid primarily in tips means the server is highly incentivized to upsell the customer as much as possible and do everything they can to increase the total bill, and therefor increase their tip. Essentially a comm…

> The owner wants the maximum ratio of servers to customers possible. In the typical USA system, being paid primarily in tips means the server is highly incentivized to upsell the customer as much as possible and do everything they can to increase the total bill, and therefor increase their tip.

I don't think so. The biggest upsell of a US-style tipping culture is that restaurant owners have a no-downside free pass in exploiting workers. They are literally allowed to have people working for them for barely any pay and performing a role aimed at increasing throughput and demand. Therefore there is no incentive whatsoever for a restaurant owner to stop exploiting their staff.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#94
> The people breaking their backs and minds in the kitchen - often the least visible and the least celebrated - were taking home a fraction of what the front staff made on tips for the same hours

Why not put all tips into a pool and just share it out between everyone?

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#95
post #31

The biggest barrier to ending tipping in the USA is that restaurants are almost always over staffed there. The owner wants the maximum ratio of servers to customers possible. In the typical USA system, being paid primarily in tips means the server is highly incentivized to upsell the customer as much as possible and do everything they can to increase the total bill, and therefor increase their tip. Essentially a comm…

LMFAO, have you ever been to a restaurant in Europe? The service is horrific. Sit down and wait 15 minutes for the menus, another 15 to place a drink order, another 10 for the drinks to get there, another 10 to place food order. Now you finish the meal, good luck getting the waiters attention to bring the check. European dining is the worst, every time I am back stateside I feel like im being waited on in the white h…

People over the Atlantic just have a better concept of social gathering as opposed to neediness of being served and staffed with food.

People come to a place to have fun and talk for a few hours or their free time. Drinks and food coming and going is just a small nuance. 10 minutes (often way less of course) for drinks to arrive is mostly okay. Nobody is busy waiting for them.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#97
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Japan has a lot of the same things, but no tipping. Although the tradition of "checking in" to see if you need anything seems to not be very prevalent - instead people either press a button or call out for the staff if they need something.

SUMIMASEN!!

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#98

We need to at least normalize not tipping for counter service. Given the current wage structures and labor laws in the US and Canada, if I sit down at a table and I receive table service, I'm going to tip 15% unless the service was abhorrent. I am not going to tip if I order and take my food from a counter and serve myself (and then almost certainly clear my own table as well), or I buy any other form of product stan…

And you are tipping before you even see the service in that case, as you pay before the food.

Of course, the staff also see how you tio before they prep your food...

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#100
post #60
post #43

> the problem of going tip-free is that customers struggle to get their heads around the maths. Maybe they should show the price "without tip" next to the full price, so people can compare. Paying employees with tips is an insane concept, fundamentally abusive. If it wasn't, then the owner would also get paid from tips. "The meals are all free, and we count on you to pay them through tips". Obviously no owner would t…

> If it wasn't, then the owner would also get paid from tips. Actually it's quite common for owners to take some of the tips, even though that's not legal.

I meant "solely from tips", obviously.

And yeah, on top of abusing the employees by not paying them (and relying on the customers to pay the employees directly), stealing from the tip is even more abusive.

And let's not even talk about those delivery (and similar) apps that also abuse the tips in their algorithms.

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