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If you can't afford the bill then don't eat there. That sucks to hear I know. However the only way we're going to reign in costs is by sticking to what's affordable. If restaurants can't charge that price then food distributors have to lower prices too. We all benefit by sticking to affordability.
If you're worried about money you absolutely should open up the restaurant's menu on their website or before you order and figure out what you can afford with a 20% surcharge. That said tipping was created by the industry to externalize costs and it needs to go die in a fire.
I don't eat out at resturants ever - and guess what! When that happens, they bitch and moan about my not supporting local businesses, and steal millions in PPP loans!
You'll hate to hear this, but restaurants struggling to fill positions and having to offer more benefits and pay to attract wait staff is the only way to end tipping culture. Tipping will never end itself.
We can also straight up ban it. But yeah I know businesses aren't just going to willingly stop it.
I think the point isn't about the bill but the expectation of massive tips. It's too out of control to me, I used to tip 20% everywhere. Now I've gone back to 15% for regular service, and 20% if it's really exceptional.
I've never had anyone say anything about a 15-20% tip.
20% minimum unless the service is horrible. It's not your fault the servers are paid BELOW minimum wage because the employer expects you to tip. But it nonetheless is the expectation and is the right thing to do. If you can't afford to tip correctly you can't afford to eat out.
To be clear, i think we should get rid of tipping economy, but while it is the norm, you absolutely have to tip.
At what point did this minimum change from 10 to 15 to 18 and now 20? Restaurants increase the cost of food items and your tip is a proportion of that. Why would the cost of food increase AND the proportion of tip also increase? That's double dipping and yeah, people should be pissed about it
Because in many restaurants tipping is covering more employees over the same period. Also, COL went up faster than meal price inflation.
What does covering more employees over the same period mean? I don't follow. Also, you're assuming that customers' salaries increased with COL and inflation. They haven't. These policies just squeeze value out of customers. Of course they're offended
So tips used to just go to the worker who got them. But now they go to nearly everyone at the restaurant. Your server has to tip out quite a few other people.
And yeah we know the rising prices are squeezing value of customers, but those prices are largely disconnected from the staff's wages. Which is why the percentage has to go up.
Is this not even worse double-dipping? Why would a server who makes $3/hr be expected to tip out the rest of the restaurant? That's the point of being able to pay them $3/hr no?
Wages being disconnected from company earnings is an even bigger reason for us to insist the percentage NOT go up...
Because the restaurant owner can enforce it legally and now they don't have to pay the cooks/host/bartender as much anymore.
No, rising prices of menu items increases tips as a proportion. If menu prices stayed the same and you want larger tip %, then sure. But not both. That's just greedy
Well Cost of living going up plus spreading that money out means they still needed the larger percentage.
That's no excuse. Scummy practices are scummy
Sure, but on the flip side, I'm paying for the service already. It's not on us to subsidize the cost.
TIpping was meant and should only be done as a reward for job well done. Not a defacto standard expectation just because you did your job.
That's what your pay is.
NOW, go fight for better wages. Unionize, promote higher minimum wages, be the change you want to see. But sitting here and bitching out customers because they don't tip is a you problem.
It was popularized during world war 2 as an economic and pro business measure. That's why we have the modern system.
Tip is a extra for exceptional service, paid voluntarily on top of the base cost of the service.
Some states honor the state minimum wage which is higher than federal and the tips really are just extra. Just so you know, whatever it's worth to you.
"20% minimum" is excessive, I say this as someone with years of serving experience.
15% for competent but unremarkable service
20% for remarkably good service, more for truly excellent service
10% for remarkably bad service, less for truly horrible service
I question when your “years of serving experience” was rendered.
It's not your fault the servers are paid BELOW minimum wage because the employer expects you to tip.
That's not the case in canada (obligatory excluding Québec) yet we still have the same tipping expectation.
Yet one of the other awful cultural things getting exported from south of the border
The states' #1 export
In many places including Washington state servers are actually paid minimum wage of a bit over $16 an hour. We also have pervasive tip requests. I have gone to a restaurant where ordering and drinks was self serve, the employee makes you a hot sandwich which you take to go and the robot which takes your order requests a default 20% tip.
If that's a tablet that comes with the software pre-installed they ask for tips by default because it makes more money for the software company.
It's highly unlikely that a POS terminal software directs tip money directly to the software company. Hopefully tips are shared by staff. Pessemistically they could be stolen by the company. In either case it doesn't match the normal expectation of tipped service.
Those terminals take a percentage of everything that goes through them.
They don't collect tips for the terminal holder
They don't differentiate. They take a percentage of the whole transaction. Thus it's profitable for them to default to a tip screen.
Unless something changed recently, Square doesn't enable tips by default. It didn't the last time I set one up at least in the fall.
Maybe Square is the odd one out, but a quick trip around Google search says yes it's generally the default. It can be turned off but why would a business owner do that?
The entitlement from servers is horrendous.
10-15% and if you don’t like it you can have zero.
Worth mentioning there is a big diff between USA and Canada. US is fucked and I have no comments about tipping there.
I only disagree with the "unless" clause. If they're underpaid and the restaurant is doing it because they won't be at fault then you should tip that much anyway.
At the least they will get more money and remember you as a temporary savior for better service next time. The unless clause basically just tells me "dance for your meal, peasant"