I ate at a restaurant in Berkeley a few weeks ago that doesn't accept tips, but instead automatically adds a 20% gratuity to your bill. This is a good first step, but I wish they would go one further and increase the price of menu items by 20%, rather than separating the prices.
To tip or not to tip?
31–40 of 56 posts
Re: To tip or not to tip?
#32I have no problem with a society that tips regularly and normally. My problem is what happens when you don't tip.
Re: To tip or not to tip?
#33I'm from Australia (no tipping) and have been living in North America for 9 years (always tipping) so this issue is close to my heart. I've come to see tipping as a form of slavery, the only twist being it's paid - albeit very lowly. It's a way for people with money to say "Hey peasant: If you do what I want, and if I'm happy about it, and if I feel like it, I might give you a little of my money. Or not". Sort of lik…
It's a trade-off: With tips you get some clear advantages over non tipping. The waiters have a huge incentive to give you a pleasant meal experience. This is very annoying to go to a restaurant and it appears to be more complicated for you to get water than it is when you're eating at home. This is what you often experience in no-tipping-countries restaurants. The tip is like an implicit contract with the waiter: Del…
> The waiters have a huge incentive to give you a pleasant meal experience.
This is not true, in my experience. I have dined extensively in the USA and in many other countries and have not noticed any difference in the level of service provided.
Re: To tip or not to tip?
#34To tip! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQPIgm2FpU0
Reservoir Dogs was what popped into my head when I saw the title.
Re: To tip or not to tip?
#35I ate at a restaurant in Berkeley a few weeks ago that doesn't accept tips, but instead automatically adds a 20% gratuity to your bill. This is a good first step, but I wish they would go one further and increase the price of menu items by 20%, rather than separating the prices.
Sous Beurre Kitchen in the Mission does just this:
http://sf.eater.com/2015/2/6/7974123/sous-beurre-kitchen-san...
Re: To tip or not to tip?
#36I ate at a restaurant in Berkeley a few weeks ago that doesn't accept tips, but instead automatically adds a 20% gratuity to your bill. This is a good first step, but I wish they would go one further and increase the price of menu items by 20%, rather than separating the prices.
I like seeing the service included in the bill, it makes it explicit that it's a separate thing from the dinner and something that I'm paying for.
Re: To tip or not to tip?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a trade-off: With tips you get some clear advantages over non tipping. The waiters have a huge incentive to give you a pleasant meal experience. This is very annoying to go to a restaurant and it appears to be more complicated for you to get water than it is when you're eating at home. This is what you often experience in no-tipping-countries restaurants. The tip is like an implicit contract with the waiter: Del…
I think you're drawing a false correlation here between no-tip countries and poor service. There may be countries that don't have a custom of tipping and also have poor service, but there's very little reason to think that the two are actually related. For the same reason, there's very little to think that level of service in restaurants in the US is related to the expectation of the tip. More generally, if a country…
That might be a false correlation indeed, however I disagree when you say:
"there's very little to think that level of service in restaurants in the US is related to the expectation of the tip"
waiters with good work ethics will offer a great service no matter if there is a tip involved in the end or not. Those with poor work ethics however would care less about providing a good service. I didn't mean to sound insulting to waiters, a lot of them do a great job, but I think that for some waiters the financial lure is important.
Re: To tip or not to tip?
#38This article from the chef at the Linkery (mentioned in TFA) is required reading on the subject.
I think the fact that there is good evidence that tipping is often racist and sexist is perhaps the strongest argument against it.
Part 1: http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-...
Part 2: http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-...
Part 3: http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-...
Part 4: http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-...
Part 5: http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-...
Part 6: http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-...
Re: To tip or not to tip?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a trade-off: With tips you get some clear advantages over non tipping. The waiters have a huge incentive to give you a pleasant meal experience. This is very annoying to go to a restaurant and it appears to be more complicated for you to get water than it is when you're eating at home. This is what you often experience in no-tipping-countries restaurants. The tip is like an implicit contract with the waiter: Del…
"This is very annoying to go to a restaurant and it appears to be more complicated for you to get water than it is when you're eating at home. This is what you often experience in no-tipping-countries restaurants" I think you are mistaken here. In tipping countries waiters basically beg you to leave as soon as you've eaten. They are always around you to upsell something (bigger tip) or to passive aggressively bring y…
"In tipping countries waiters basically beg you to leave as soon as you've eaten." That is true, is it a perverse effect of the tip? (for an average meal on an average table, 1 tip of 30% in 2 hours is not as good as 2 tips at 20%) or is it just another culture: people in the USA eat faster than some south Europe countries for instance.
I grew up in a non-tipping country, this isn't a culture issue when some waiters are clearly hard to find in the restaurant, good waiters will leave you alone, but when you need them they will be here, or at least know when they need to take a look from far away and see if water/bread seems lacking.
This is annoying to just be frustrated when you planned to have a good night, and know that other people are going to be frustrated by that bad waiter too.
If I am unlucky and have to get a terrible waiter, I appreciate the fact that he/she is going to provide a minimum service because of the tip.
Fortunately, for non-tipping countries, reviews like Yelp/Foursquare/... kind of help the market I think, you can see what the reviews says about the service.
Re: To tip or not to tip?
#40I ate at a restaurant in Berkeley a few weeks ago that doesn't accept tips, but instead automatically adds a 20% gratuity to your bill. This is a good first step, but I wish they would go one further and increase the price of menu items by 20%, rather than separating the prices.
I like seeing the service included in the bill, it makes it explicit that it's a separate thing from the dinner and something that I'm paying for.
So how about separate charges for cleaning and accounting?
The restaurant pays for a lot of other things too that are not directly part of the dinner. I don't understand why service should be considered special.