181–190 of 416 posts
“The system will ask you a few questions”.
Bam I’m supposed to tip 25% for standing at a counter to order and take my food.
Very often regarding those articles, you read in the comments different varieties of "good service": - may I ask: What does this actually mean? I have never been to a "high class" or "fine dining" location, so maybe my expectations are in general not high. My expectations are just simple: Give me the menu quickly, let me order quickly, let me eat and let me pay quickly. Thats it. What do I miss? EDIT: Im located in E…
By contrast in the US the tip is mandatory. The server doesn't make any money and goes broke if you don't tip. So everyone does. Service would have to be astonishingly bad (waiter threw up on the customer?) to receive no tip. On the other end, one might give a somewhat higher tip if the server was particularly friendly, helpful, is related to you, is a friend of your kids, seems like they could use the money, and so on. There's no metric of "I was well served" that correlates to the tip.
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 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…
> Instead of checking on the customer every few minutes This is likely one of the absolute worst features of the US dining system. So many times I have been sitting in deep conversation with friends or colleagues just for a waiter to claim all attention to ask if we want to have refilled water. That they can even push themselves to such rude behavior is entirely insane to me.
Is this before taxes or what remains after?
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?
Gini: Spain >> US
Living with parents: Spain >>> US
First birth age: Spain >>> US
Fertility: Spain 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.
Next also include sales tax in label prices.
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.
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.