Americans
Why some US restaurants are banning tips
161–170 of 416 posts
Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips
#162As a foreigner in the US, I've made the faux-pas of assuming waiters and waitresses were being paid a full salary by their employer. I even suspect that I received sub-par service from some of them, who may have identified me as a "no-tip risk" from the first moment.
Level of service doesn't depend on the tip in the USA. Tip size may depend a little bit on level of service, but not the other way around. Basically the tip is how the customer pays the server and table clearers etc, because the restaurant owner does not. It's just a convention on how to split up the total charge that American culture has determined in the way to do it. And like every single weird thing in American culture, it's that way because of slavery.
Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Ah much generalisation. Europe is over 40 countries with vast differences in quality of service and restaurant culture. I have been to restaurants in many European countries and the only generalisation I can make is that tip culture does not exist in Europe.
My last trip I gave a $10 tip to a waiter in a Spanish restaurant. I apologized that I didn't have euros. The guy smiled broadly and thanked me. If tip "culture" didn't exist in Europe, he would have thought of me as inappropriate and would have given the money back. Like if you try to give a tip to a firefighter, he'd give it back, because it's not appropriate.
Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Japan is amazing in some places, that you can order with a tablet apps then you pick up your food yourself when it arrived. Very minimum interaction and employees needed.
If I go to a restaurant and it’s all handled through a tablet I leave. I can get that treatment at the airport.
It's good for some neurodivergent people.
Overly-solicitous hospitality staff can make me tense.
At the far end of the scale are bathroom attendants who want to help me wash/dry/moisture my hands after using the facilities.
Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
> I meant "solely from tips", obviously.
That was not obvious. Nor is that a common practice
Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips
#166> 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?
This is what many restaurants do in my country. It's fair but it creates many issues. How you split it, who decides that, and there is always someone that is suspect of stealing. Another issue is that if Americans tip, then you start to expect tipping from everyone make the experience more expensive and worst from anyone else. PS. I don't own a restaurant or work at one, but I have friends that do both.I live in Gree…
well if the TIP is on the POS system then I personally would just do amount/staff but then I guess staff paid more do they deserve less of the tip?
Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips
#167The 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…
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> want to be coddled and always want to feel like they are the king of the world. Greeters at Walmart, cashiers not being allowed to sit but have to stand for "respect",
I thought the greeters were an anti-shoplifting technique, "hello someone saw you here" kind of thing.
And putting a seat in the checkout station means they can't be packed quite as closely and also gets in the way when someone else needs to tag in to ring up booze or whatever.
Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I've been in hundreds of not fancy restaurants across Europe in my life, in many countries. The service speed in like 95% of all cases is at maximum or vary close to it. It's between 0 to 1-2 minutes to get menu, then 0 to 1-2 minute to flag a waiter and order, and that all delays possibly induced by the serving staff. The rest is just how long it takes to cook and is not relevant here. So maybe USA shaves off a few…
It’s possible that many of the Americans commenting here have gone to very different restaurants than locals have in mind, and are basing their experiences on a very different sample. Like touristy places with a patio on the main old town square of (insert European city here)
Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips
#169The 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…
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I’ve spent about five weeks in the US split across two trips. At home, I eat out very very regularly, at both very nice and very shabby places, and varied places. I pretty much immediately came to your conclusion… within hours of each visit, if not less. it’s so jarring, and artificial, and tacky. I can’t imagine being so delusional as to have any of this stuff be a positive experience. I hate it. And I’m far from an introvert, but these social interactions are not genuine and they go out of their way to make you feel like you’re superior. I hate it and I think that it says a lot about the US. It’s part of what makes me just have a background feeling of being on edge the entire duration of my visit, in a way that I’ve never felt in other countries, even those that have a much larger cultural difference from my own, and that I should really feel less ‘at home’ in.
Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
>European restaurants typically use a team service model, American chain restaurants also use the team model. The server that writes down the order often isn't the same person bringing out the hot plates of food. Maybe less of team than Europe because the waitress taking the order will typically be the same one refilling the drinks. It's the white tablecloth high-end restaurants where the one waiter is the only perso…
What you are describing is not team service because the server "owns" the customer and are the one who will collect the tip from that table. What you are noticing is that many chains have a "full hands" rule: if any server with free hands walks past a table with dirty dishes on the way to the kitchen, they are expected to pick them up no mater who's section it is. Also, if they are heading out from the kitchen with f…
>the server "owns" the customer and are the one who will collect the tip from that table.
In many USA restaurants, the waitstaff tips are also shared into a pool with the runners, busboys, and kitchen staff. The % may not be equal however.
>What you are noticing is that many chains have a "full hands" rule:
But that contradicts the idea that "USA restaurants almost always over staffed there." The chain restaurant could just "overstaff" with dedicated table runners with no need for a "full hands" rule.
It doesn't seem like USA restaurants are overstaffed nor do owners have the incentive to overstaff. The very common scenario is the hostess seats you at the table and the waiter doesn't even show up for 10 or 20 minutes to take the order. The patrons are frustrated and wondering why it's taking so long. That's a symptom of understaffing where the waiter is handling too many simultaneous tables.