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Why some US restaurants are banning tips

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Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#151

Post by dofm »

yostrovs wrote: post #105
elyobo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that why US service ("checking on the customer every few minutes") is so incredibly annoying...

No. After you've ordered, it is rare to order anything else. You might ask for a refill of a beverage or something like ketchup, but the waiter is not expecting more ordering. It's simply expected by diners that their waiter is there and will help with whatever they need. In Europe you'll wait 20 minutes to get the attention of a waiter for salt or ketchup until your food is cold. Also in Europe this will be describe…

> In Europe you'll wait 20 minutes to get the attention of a waiter for salt or ketchup until your food is cold.

You could ask for the salt or ketchup when the meal arrives.

Also Europeans are not, I think, accustomed to asking for salt, or ketchup, on already seasoned food. So your request is actually unusual.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#152

Post by hammock »

ricardobayes wrote: post #59
rock_artist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends and also is culture based. In Spain you can find some places (eg coffee place) with 1-2 workers. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to get your order at rush hours, but the culture tolerates patience and waiting.

One of the biggest cultural differences - for Spain - is that servers are seen as equals, not as a client-provider relationship. This reflects heavily in the language often used - "when you can, bring me X". Just one of the quirks of a low gini coefficient society.

Easily attributed less to Gini coefficient and more to the difference between a Western European approach to hospitality (structured management, technical precision and formal) and a Mediterranean one (warmth, relational connection, informal) as seen in Xenia, islamic tradition, etc

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#153

Post by Symbiote »

arjie wrote: post #19
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow the "tip culture" is spreading over here too, especially in touristy areas, even the POS terminals now ask you for a tip.

Interesting. What POS terminals are common there? I am curious about culture spreading through technology defaults and wonder if it's effectively driven by whatever Square chose and whomever else decided to ape the incumbent or whatever.

It's configurable on any terminal that supports it — obviously the terminal is designed so it can be used in a restaurant, or for paying in a shop, or paying a fee to the government. (To give an example of where even Americans don't tip.)

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#154

Post by arjie »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #32
arjie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. What POS terminals are common there? I am curious about culture spreading through technology defaults and wonder if it's effectively driven by whatever Square chose and whomever else decided to ape the incumbent or whatever.

There's a bunch of them, but the tip offers are usually on the newer touchscreen (probably android based) ones. The old ones (never seen the tip option on those... for now): https://www.simple-shop.si/en/pos-terminal-tcpip-en and eg https://www.unicreditbank.si/si/podjetja/upravljanje-z-denar... The new ones: https://www.sumup.com/sl-si/karticni-citalec-terminal/ and https://besteron.com/si/pos-terminali/ (both suppo…

Thank you.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#155

Post by gnz11 »

hammock wrote: post #115
rock_artist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends and also is culture based. In Spain you can find some places (eg coffee place) with 1-2 workers. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to get your order at rush hours, but the culture tolerates patience and waiting.

I would rather have to tip, than lower my standard of living like that

Your standard of living eschews patience and waiting?

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#156

Post by catoc »

raincole wrote: post #114
catoc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> European dining is the worst Europe has 40+ countries with what, a million, restaurants… let’s conflate them all! Horrible! The whole continent! 1 star (and not a Michelin one)!

This is literally what the grandparent comment was doing. > In the typical USA system... > European restaurants typically... But the interesting thing is that no one ever complains when people group things by continents like that if the theme is bashing the US and praising Europe. Only when talking bad about Europe it's suddenly an issue.

It wasn’t about Europe but about the conflation.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#157

Post by arjie »

Scaled wrote: post #137
jorvi wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You them everywhere. Most insane are the bars where you have to walk up from your seating to the bar to order, the bartender plops the drinks on the bar and immediately moves on to another customer, and the terminal still displays default tip amounts and you have to do custom → €0. What the hell am I tipping you for? At this point I'm waiting for supermarket self-checkout to add a default tip amount.

Self service checkout in some airport shops do have tip option already, unfortunately

Hahaha, I was surprised by one of those in Newark/EWR. I can't believe it's real haha. Who gets the tip? I just tipped the self-service worker in cash ;)

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#158

Post by vages »

QuantumNomad_ wrote: post #63
rock_artist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends and also is culture based. In Spain you can find some places (eg coffee place) with 1-2 workers. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to get your order at rush hours, but the culture tolerates patience and waiting.

At least they don’t demand a bunch of extra tips. I’m European (well, Scandinavian, which some Europeans consider European and some don’t) and my rule of thumb is that if I go out I tip 10%. If the service is extra good I might tip extra. If the service is very bad (unreasonably slow, or staff forget or mix up the order in a significant way, or they are very rude), I tip 0%. Of course everyone can mess up things a li…

I'm also Scandinavian (Norwegian), and I never tip when going out.

I can't think of any long-term outcome of a tipping culture that is efficient for the workers and employers, even if the amount the customer tipped was correlated with quality (the research I've read shows it's got more to do with looks). It is simply more efficient that both parties know what they are agreeing to up front when (1) the worker still has to go to work for 3 months when they resign and (2) the employer has to pay them (and their replacement) full wages during training.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#159

Post by myrmidon »

xyzelement wrote: post #101
ricardobayes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the biggest cultural differences - for Spain - is that servers are seen as equals, not as a client-provider relationship. This reflects heavily in the language often used - "when you can, bring me X". Just one of the quirks of a low gini coefficient society.

Just yesterday there was a story on HN about Spain's dying villages and a commenter who I assumed was Spanish attributed theow beth rate to income inequality. Which is it - low gini for talking to a waiter, high gini for starting a fam?

Low Gini compared to the US, but mediocre for a European country (comparable to France, Germany, Italy; significantly worse compared to low-Gini regions like Scandinavia).

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#160

Post by Scaled »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #34
nkrisc wrote: post #15

I never thought about paying staff via tips being a tax dodge for the restaurant if it lets them avoid raising prices and thus taxable revenue.

If the price increase is actually linked to higher wages for the staff, there should be no increase in taxable revenue for the restaurant, because the wages are deductible expenses. But there is still the matter of sales tax (paid by the customer), and the tax payable by the employee on their wages (not sure if tips are technically taxable income already, but regardless, you can bet most staff aren't paying taxes on…

True about federal, but state level tax is sometimes done on gross receipts instead of profit.
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