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Why some US restaurants are banning tips

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Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#221

Post by kergonath »

dofm wrote: post #151
yostrovs wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Also Europeans are not, I think, accustomed to asking for salt, or ketchup, on already seasoned food.

I would expect to find salt, pepper and mustard on the table in a decent restaurant, in my corner of Europe. Not ketchup, though, except in a cheap burger place.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#222

Post by kergonath »

yostrovs wrote: post #173
dofm wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's amazing how much is attributed to culture. What if I like more salt? European are not accustomed to ask for salt. What if the chef forgot to add salt? You'll wait till your food is cold. It's culture.

> What if the chef forgot to add salt?

That’s a perfectly valid reason for complaining, then. Politely, of course, but the chef might use the feedback.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#223

Post by piva00 »

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…

So why do waiters in the USA keep pestering me every 5 minutes asking if I need something else? It's part of the culture, and it gets plenty annoying when I'm trying to enjoy a meal but have to stop mid-bite to say "no, thank you" when I'm clearly not in need of anything else.

The feeling I get from those experiences is that I'm being rushed to clear the table, not that the service is great and always there to help me.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#224

Post by bluebarbet »

hammock wrote: post #152
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.

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

Two clichés to be contrasted with another two: the smiling first-name-terms coffee-shop barista in Hamburg, and the coldly brusque waiter in some Roman caffè storico.

All these generalizations are as slippery as a bar of soap.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#225

Post by GJim »

cge wrote: post #188
tdeck wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're going in the other direction. In Seattle it's common for restaurants to tack on an extra "service charge" that's not a tip, just because. It's supposed to be declared somewhere. With tip your bill can easily end up 40% higher.

That’s also very common in the UK, and shows up elsewhere in Europe sometimes. In the UK, they are legally but not practically or socially discretionary. There are some tax advantages for the restaurant and in the ideal case for staff.

> That’s also very common in the UK

Touristy places in central London maybe. They wouldn't dare try sneaking an undeclared service charge onto a locals bill in Northern England or Scotland :-)

> In the UK, they are legally but not practically or socially discretionary.

Speak for yourself. When entertaining clients at touristy places in London, one routinely asks for this underhand charge to be removed from the bill. (Whether or not we then choose to leave a cash tip is a matter of discretion, but the chances are rather low after such shenanigans).

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#226

Post by ButlerianJihad »

dboreham wrote: post #162
Rygian wrote: post #6

As 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 c…

Yeah but that's for restaurants. In restaurants, the tip is usually post-paid. Tipping in other industries may have a different dynamic.

For example, with Doordash and Uber Eats, tips are prepaid. The driver may also be made aware of their prospective tip during the bidding process. Therefore, tipping is gamified into enticing a driver into accepting the bid over other jobs.

I will not reduce a post-paid tip if I perceive that I got bad service. I usually won't increase it, either, without extenuating circumstances, for example, if the server overcame adversity somehow (especially if I was the adverse one). However, if a prepaid tip turns out to be unwarranted by horrendous service, I will go after that and require it to be reduced to $0. That is basically the only punishment that a customer can exact on a service worker. I don't like to do it, but if it was a prepaid thing, I consider that tip to be made under duress, and revocable.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#227

Post by rglullis »

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…

The issue here is that you are adding ketchup to your food...

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#228

Post by kakacik »

yostrovs wrote: post #173
dofm wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's amazing how much is attributed to culture. What if I like more salt? European are not accustomed to ask for salt. What if the chef forgot to add salt? You'll wait till your food is cold. It's culture.

Please stop spreading these... untrue statements, you clearly have very little experience with actual European restaurants. Any decent restaurant has salt&pepper available on all tables, if yours was cleaned and not put back just ask waiter politely. You know how to call a waiter, right? Not much more complex than raising hand at primary school.

One thing is true though, I never ever had to add salt in restaurant in past 25 years, one can ask for pepper/olive oil/etc but salt? They often use too much of it to enhance taste ie in sauces. Maybe get your kidneys and heart checked with such refined palate.

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#229

Post by xxs »

yostrovs wrote: post #163
crazybonkersai wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have not been in a place in Europe where the tips would be rejected. However, universally they are not the norm or expected.

Also about the $10 - they would need to gather quite a few more dollar notes and spend time finding a cash exchange bureau. Else the note is just a memento of a weird American.

In some EU countries the tips have to be counted as salary and income (+social) tax paid, or even they have to be declared as revenue to the restaurant along with the VAT (19-25%) going straight to the state. Of course, when paid in cash - that rarely happens. The point is that the provision exists in the law (so the tips are not unheard of)

Re: Why some US restaurants are banning tips

#230

Post by pjc50 »

kubb wrote: post #113
xyzelement wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You can’t hold two separate people accountable for their contradictory statements.

"goomba fallacy", if you need a name for this phenomenon.
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