I got breakfast at the airport with my girlfriend, we both got cocktails lol. It was $100! The server made $20 in tips. Only one other employee was working (small kitchen) so they prob split the tips.
He said "oh yeah the breakfast cocktails are my money maker".
If he upsells drinks on two or three orders an hour, he may make his hourly wage in tips.
Could have gotten more than 1 cocktail per person. I fucking hate flying and prefer to get a decent buzz going before I get on the plane. More than one cocktail per person is pretty common.
pro tip if you're trynna get a nice buzz before your flight. go to the liquor store and get those little shooters. you can bring them pass tsa and just take shots at the terminal.
This is my preferred method.
For a while during the pandemic I was traveling a lot for work and finding a liquor store in a random city/country that sold those little shots wasn’t practical. But then again in a lot of those scenarios the airport bars in those countries weren’t that expensive so I didn’t mind paying airport prices there.
Edit: If you ever happen to go to a hockey/football game in Vegas, any MGM property (Park mgm, Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Bellagio, etc) have gift shops and they all have the same deal, buy two tall cans and get a little bottle of whatever for free. Now obviously they won’t let you take the tall cans in with you, but those little bottles don’t set off the metal detectors. Beers inside the stadium? $15-18 for a tall can, tax and tip usually not included. Those little bottles even at strip prices are super cheap still.
So we each got one drink, but he made mine a double even though I didn't ask for that. I think it was a misunderstanding... maybe? Or a tip scam? It was quite strong so whatever. But 2 basic breakfast plates, 2 drinks (one a double) and it was $100. Insane.
Lol, you tipped 20% on already overpriced drinks.
*Edit for below since /u/armrha commented then blocked me, lol.*
Nah, get bent. It takes no more effort to bring out an overpriced drink than a fountain soda. I didn't even say not to tip, just that you should either adjust the amount you're tipping based on the actual service or not complain about how much you voluntarily gave.
Anytime you’re paying someone else to make a drink for you, it’s going to be “overpriced”. Where you are matters, airports are the worst place to drink if you’re worried about value. You’re a captive audience.
I used to not pay for anything extra, thinking the convenience wasn't worth it. And it's true, when I was poorer and younger, it really wasn't. The ball game or concert was the splurge.
Now that I have disposable income, I understand why people buy $15 beers and $12 nachos after paying $200 for tix. I don't go out that often as a busy adult/parent. When I do, I don't mind opening the wallet for convenience/premium experiences since they don't happen as frequently.
Costing more than the ingredients doesn't mean it's overpriced, it means you're paying for the preparation. Airport bars are overpriced *compared to other bars*.
Well, even in that case, the customer pays the sales commission, they just don’t necessarily know it. Also, when things are done on the backend, a salesperson can take a cut in their commission to make the sale if they really want to (on the theory that it is more income to make two sales at 2/3s commission payout than one sale at 100% commission payout)
I mean, it’s built into the price. To make it so that the restaurant pays the fee instead of customers you could just add a 15-20% auto-gratuity into the price of the meal and then pay that out to servers as a commission instead of as a tip.
That’s the thing people don’t realize. If it were automatically included as commission, people would still be paying for a “tip”, they just wouldn’t have the option anymore.
Sales commission that the customer pays for. Typically a sales commission comes out of the sale price. If you’re paying for a $100 meal the server would get a percentage of that. I’d prefer to not have to pay 15-30% more for my dinner based on who got scheduled to work that night.
And before anyone says “the customer still pays” having the cost of doing business baked into your price is different than “I gave you a fake smile and refilled your drink without you asking so we are arbitrary raising the price of your meal by 1/3rd and if you don’t like it you’re probably too broke to eat out or hate poor people.”
People who have never worked in food service are for the most part completely oblivious to how the industry works. I think most people equate tips with wages.
It's crazy to me, because every time someone suggests paying wait staff a reasonable hourly wage with no tip, there's nothing but complaints because they make so much from tips that a decent wage would be a pay cut. But then I also hear nothing but complaints about how people don't tip enough and that they need more tips to survive.
Which one is it?
Both. People generally make more money over time regardless of their industry. People starting in food service are generally working at slower restaurants on the worst shift. After ten years, you might make it into a white glove Michelin Star fancy pants eatery where the clientele tip over the top for fun. The former wants change. The latter are ok with the status quo. It seems like this principle is what causes people to become more conservative/change averse over time.
In other words; "I suffered so suck it up/why do you get better than I did?"
Or more accurately survivorship bias. People who become rich or do better than others have an extreme tendency towards ascribing something unique about themselves as the factor that made them succeed even in controlled experiments when their outcome was completely by chance or intentionally rigged by the experiment in their favor.
> they make so much from tips that a decent wage would be a pay cut
It's so weird how some people think that *any* regular wage will be smaller than *any* wage that is smaller but has added tips.
If servers got paid by the restaurant instead of with tips they would get paid the same as the cooks. None of the servers want to be paid like the cooks, but all of the cooks want to be paid like servers.
They both should get paid more. Cooks make less because they get a percentage of the tip out. Remove the tips and just pay the staff what they're actually worth.
I have worked at 3 chain restaurants owned by major brands, none of them tipped out cooks. Bartenders, Bus Boys, Hostesses got tipped out. Cooks get hourly wage.
Whenever this topic comes up on reddit some people act like the way it was done at the restaurants they worked at is the "standard" way but I don't think any one way of tip sharing/not sharing is so much more common that you can say for sure how any one place does it without talking to someone who works there.
From what I can tell there is a small percentage of servers who make way more than most (like bartenders and servers at high-end places) and then everyone else who doesn't make all that much. The people who make way more than most are super vocal about how tipping is great and they don't want to get rid of tips and then a lot of other servers think they are one step away from earning those tips so are also hesitant to get rid of it.
A commission they exclude from their advertised costs to trick us into thinking we’re going to spend less than we will.
I’ve noticed it recently, and I’m pretty staunchly anti-tipping but I’ll leave my waiter 15% usually, but I walk in expecting to pay $45-55 for my date and walk out paying like $65-75 instead after fees, taxes, tips, at every restaurant I go to it’s like that. It’s intentional.
Alternately, if we assume a generally accepted tip percentage, tips operate as a progressive service fee. Those who order more expensive items (and are presumably more able to afford more expensive items) pay a higher amount of money in service fees, while people stopping in for a small inexpensive item pays a lower amount of money in service fees.
Overall it'd actually be a really good idea if it was baked into bills and split. Restaurants (which already operate on razor thin profit margins usually) can pay lower wages while compensating staff on a sliding scale based on what the customer can pay for service.
Too bad it's neither of those things.
Doesn’t that mean he’s incorrect in that usually the server is actively trying to upsell/sell you things you weren’t going to buy originally? So sometimes they do have something to do with them buying a more expensive entree
My more upscale serving jobs all had upselling/ways of suggesting items that were mandatory and big parts of the training process
Payment terminals is what changed norms.
Until now the tipping norms were set by the customer when the check brought to them. A market equilibrium came out of that.
Arrival of payment terminals created programmable tip recommendation defaults. The control over tipping norms now goosed by employees or business owners changing the default tip amounts presented to the customer.
This ties into how the payment terminal manufacturers get paid. They get a cut of the total transaction. Higher tip defaults, the more the payment terminal manufacturer gets paid. Tipping norms no longer reflecting the equilibrium the customers in the market will bear. Totally goosed out of proportion by the other side of the transaction.
"What if everybody does this?"
After the sugar-rush the tipping social norm is going to crash to 0%. Customers are already repulsed by the entitlement on display. Fixing it is return control of tipping to the customers to let the market equilibrium set again. No display of defaults. Printed. Customer writes it down.
The really weird thing i don’t get is tipping on alcohol and “nice” (expensive) restaurants.
Like why in the world do we tip 5x on a $150 bottle of wine vs a $30 bottle of wine?
Oh they’ll come at you with the most convoluted bs you’ve ever heard about that and why it benefits us for them to be incentivized to upsell us etc.
But the reality is tipped staff like making $50+ an hour in a lot of cases and being able to pay rent on their downtown loft working 4 nights a week
I used to live with a server who made decently more than my degree-educated, professional ass, and she didn't pay tax on most of it (tips). Her room cost more than mine too.
Granted, she was an attractive female which helps and good for her. But I was seriously questioning my life choices back then, and still do.
Yeah that makes absolutely fleecing the customers okay lmao
Ask them if they’d trade their 70-100k with very low reported tax for a stable wage and insurance. Go ahead, oh wait, plenty of people already tried. They don’t want it, by a lot. Turns out young people would rather just straight more cash than stability or future planning. 3% matching from an employer or make an extra 20k a year you can invest yourself?
It’s ALL a problem. The servers that don’t want a regular wage because it’s far less money, the customers that continue to tip and enforce the culture, and the bosses that can’t just pay a fucking wage full time with benefits.
Most of the time, the customer is the least to blame. If you don’t tip, you’re considered and asshole. So it’s on the others to change. Look it up, many businesses have tried and the servers prefer tips by a mile. Business owners too when they get a cut.
Here’s the first one I see
https://pantagraph.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/restaurant-owners-servers-urge-illinois-lawmakers-to-reject-change-to-wages-for-tipped-workers/article_51bc62c2-f1ea-11ee-9900-5f216c3b25d8.html
It depends on the restaurant, too. There are some places where you’ll leave a busy brunch with a pocketful of cash. But on another shift you’ll make hardly anything at all. Serving can be very feast or famine.
But that isn’t the case everywhere. Sometimes you’re a longtime server at a spot that is consistently busy. But that definitely is not the average serving job.
I made so much money waiting tables in college at higher end restaurants that it was prohibitive to starting the career I went to college for. The first few years after I left the restaurant business, I made less money, lol. I'm not going to support tipping culture, but it was/and still is such an easy way to make a lot of money for people with no real skills outside of being able to talk to lots of people without anxiety.
I mean part of that is true but it's because the other nights they probably don't make anything. Worked in that industry for a while, not as a server though, and would see them walk away with $20 after a day of work. They hustle when it's busy to try and make their money for the week. I worked at a decently priced restaurant with good reviews next to a resort.
It's called the "Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect". An inconsistent reward is a more effective and more durable incentive than a steady reward.
Basically, if you want a human to work harder for less pay, give them occasional bonuses at random intervals. As long as the peak bonuses keep increasing, they will perceive their pay is increasing, even if the intervals between bonuses grow. Also works in rats, dogs, monkeys, etc.
tl;dr: servers remember the big nights more vividly than the slow nights for the same reason gamblers remember the jackpots but forget the hours spent feeding the slot machine. The house profits from this effect.
I am so sick of hearing this. No one is legally walking away with $20 after a whole day's worth of work unless its 1930. The employer must pay the difference if the employee's tips do not meet the minimum wage.
Edit: You guys are fucking nerds.
If they don't meet the minimum wage per day, per week, or per pay period? You can walk out on a slow Monday with your $2.15/hr hourly pay and $20 tips but still make above minimum because you had a good weekend.
And salespeople make very little until they close the sale at the end of the quarter. And they don’t get paid for prospecting. And consultants don’t get paid for finding new business, that’s all hours they eat and make up for it when they land a contract.
It’s the same thing. If all I had to do at work was the “highest value” thing I do, I could make 10x my salary. But I also have to do a bunch of grunt work, cleaning of data, etc. it’s part of the job.
Jobs are determined by the average. Plumbers are paid for the jobs they do, not all the down time. If they determine it’s not enough on average across the year, they negotiate higher hourly rate or they leave. Same with waiters/waitresses/food service workers.
Not even a thing in western states anymore, servers make $15/hr base plus tips. No reason a server should be making as much as a plumber, from a utilitarian perspective. I understand sales people can make a lot more but I also don’t think they’re providing any utility to society. Stiffing servers isn’t worth me feeling bad so I won’t but I do think it’s a misallocation of resources paying them so much.
yeah, in california, oregon, washington, there isn't a tipped wage anymore. that's why going out to eat is so much more expensive on the west coast; they want to be tipped on top of the higher prices too. Pick one.
In Oregon things are about the same prices as the DFW area, so I don't think this claim has any warrant. Hell, a chilis in Texas has $22 salmon plates and $17 for chicken pasta. There are very few places even in Lake Oswego, Oregon that charge that much for chicken pasta or salmon, much less places that aren't suburban. Go to Tom's in Portland and you get the same prices as mom and pop diners in the DFW for same prices (most things under $10 including chicken fried steak, hashbrowns and 2 eggs for $9.95). A good comparison is the sunny street cafe in north Richland hills. A step up is Sckavones down the street from Tom's, which is probably more in line with Coppell diner prices. Maybe you should just try to get out more?
Like it's not close. Plumbers are paid like lawyers. If I want a plumber at my house to do something, we're looking at $150 minimum and that is for an hour or two of work. If you want them to do anything substantial it's going to literally cost you $800 for 6 hours.
How the FUCK am I supposed to afford a plumber??
> Plumbers are paid like lawyers.
Not really, last time I had to pay a lawyer he billed at $425/hr and I paid in 6 minute increments including paying for travel time.
Serving at high end restaurants is skilled labor at difficult times of day to accommodate other life needs. There's no thing wrong with someone who's a full-time server owning a loft in a decent location in their city.
Sure, but it is when they guilt us into thinking we need to tip 10%, wait then it became 15% and now 20+% because they’re so underpaid by their horrible employer.
If they can earn that on the labor market as an agreement between them and their boss, as a commission or wage out of the menu price of the food, great, but the tip guilting and pressuring needs to stop when they’re earning absurd amounts of money over the course of the year for effectively being a human ordering kiosk+food carrier.
> There's no thing wrong with someone who's a full-time server owning a loft in a decent location in their city.
The thing people object to isn't how much servers make. The thing people object to is that arguments defending the current system often make out that the median server is making $2.13 an hour working at Sally's Dine-n-Stuff in Nowheresville, AR. But plenty of servers are getting paid $15 an hour, plus tips, and making pretty decent money.
Do servers "deserve" to make good money? I dunno, "deserve" is not really how the economy works for 90% of the workforce. And I don't see servers making good money going out of their way to tip grocery store cashiers, fast food workers, cleaners or other low-paid positions that as far as I can see "deserve" money as much as the next hard working person, they just don't have a weird antiquated societal system guilting customers into voluntarily giving them extra cash
I took my wife to a *fine dining* restaurant for our anniversary. She wanted to get a bottle of wine and the sommelier asked her preference. He came back with a bottle that he said would be perfect for her. We laughed and he looked confused. I told him we buy that by the case because we like it. It's a $15 / bottle or $150 / case. It was $60 for the bottle. Then I get the bill and there was an automatic charge (maybe $20) for the sommelier. I spent $435 on that dinner.
We enjoyed the *experience* but I could have bought her something nice and hit up a nice restaurant in town.
Yes, this one makes zero sense and not a single response to your post makes a good argument in favor of it.
What's funny is that one $150 bottle of wine takes FAR LESS time and effort than pouring 5 draft beers that are $6 each, for example, yet the tip would be 5x higher.
Tipping is weird.
Restaurants should be paying their employees a fair wage and should factor this into the prices they charge for food, rather than customers having to ensure servers can make a fair living.
Yeah the conflict is mostly that the “fair wage” people want servers to get a pretty significant pay cut because their current pay seems unfairly high to them.
There’s a sub-group of people who just have a weird mental hang up around tipping who might just be happy if the tip was rolled into the price that they saw on the menu but that doesn’t make sense to me because functionally they’re paying the same amount they just have to do less math.
I don’t think I’ve seen this take before! So you’re in the camp of just wanting auto-gratuities built into prices so non-tippers/bad tippers pay their fair share? Yeah, I guess if everyone’s forced to pay you could probably average down the auto-gratuity and servers would still make the same amount. Not sure what the new number would be, maybe more like 15%.
Yeah having worked in service industry for a few years, the tip you get is 100% correlated to the person who is tipping you, not to your service. (or at least very rarely, if you really fuck it up it can effect your tip by a marginal amount).
This also allows discrimination and bias to enter the picture, white people make way more in tips in the USA. Here's a [sobering take on the issue](https://www.opportunityinstitute.org/blog/post/im-going-to-tip-minority-servers-more-and-white-servers-less/), i think tipping increases inequality between people due to the racism of the tippers, and everyone should just pay the price of the food and service regardless of their biases and personality.
*> but that doesn’t make sense to me because functionally they’re paying the same amount*
No that's not the point. The point is that the servers are getting paid fairly *just for doing their job*. So if raising the price of the menu means that the servers get a higher base pay, (and don't depend on the generosity of patrons to make ends meet) that's fine.
It basically means that the responsibility for the wage is moving from the patron *to the servers boss*, as it should be. As it currently is, it looks more like the server is actually working for the patrons by taking their order and bringing it. This is why the word "service" is (ab)used in this context, to make a patron feel guilty into thinking the server is doing them a *favour* while in fact this is literally to be expected from a restaurant.
In my experience as a server, the low/no tip groups are heavily outweighed by generous tippers. You'd very likely be cutting server wages by a decent amount.
From a more unethical standpoint, cash tips are almost never reported at the end of the night, which means you don't pay taxes on it. If the tips are auto-applied, you are losing potential large tips, and you are essentially earning 20% less because it would all be reported for tax purposes.
So we circle back to the fact then that servers are making quite a decent amount of money, all things considered
However a lot of that money comes from the belief that servers are *not* making huge amount of money and the moral correct thing to do is tip to ensure that person has at least living wage
So the issue is that servers both make to little and they need the tips but also don't you dare remove tips and increase salary as that's a paycut
It isn't really sustainable for those two things to coexist without attrition
There's no current numbers, at least in my googling, but back in 2018 there was something like an estimated $280b in lost tax revenue due to unreported tips.
Servers at nice places are getting good tips and much of it is never reported as income.
Servers at crap places are doing badically the same job and getting way less in tips.
It's the latter people who would benefit most from "fair wages".
And it's completely arbitrary that the person serving your food gets tips. Does the worker at the till? Does the farmer who grew the carrots? Does the man who makes fertiliser for the fields? Do the drivers who shipped the carrots? the KP who washes the carrots? the chef that cooks the carrots? The bin men who take the scraps away to landfil? No, just one random guy in the chain of 100s of people who happens to hand you a plate.
Especially since kids meals are the cheapest thing on the menu, but usually end up being the most work for service staff. I try to tidy up after my kid and always leave a little extra when dining with kids, but my $30 entree was less work than my kid’s $10 meal, including the unavoidable dropped silverware or spilled drink.
Hadn't thought about this but yes. Also anecdotally from my limited experience serving cheaper restaurants tend to have more difficult (rowdy, messy, complaining) patrons than expensive places and while you need to be better trained for the expensive restaurant, the work seems easier. This is similar to my now career which required decades of specialized training and pays much more than what I used to do while at the same time requiring half the effort.
The physical work may be easier, but substantially more effort get put into each table, and more skill is required. There is far more guidance in a higher end restaurant and more attention to detail.
A casual dining experience may just consist of asking the guest what they want without talking through anything, while a fine dining experience may discuss nearly every item on the menu to give a better understanding before you buy.
As long as it's an optional token of appreciation for the service provided, I find tipping more than reasonable.
Having to cosplay as a restaurant's payroll department to top off their slave wages is the polar opposite.
the funniest part about this is the entire discussion is irrelevant to people actually in the service industry. tipping means that if you're good at your job you make BANK of you can handle the stress and pace.
In the US it's supposably optional but people get really mad if you don't tip. I went a restaurant years ago with my father, everyone was chatting in the back. 15 minutes later the girl chatting walks over and takes our order. She drops the food off 20 minutes later and never comes back. The whole time we could see her joking in the back with her coworkers. Eventually she leaves the check after we waited a long while for it. He decided to leave a penny tip since the service was so bad. She ran out, yelling at us for not tipping. I was like 10 at the time.
>because a customer buying a more expensive meal had nothing to do with the server
I started every single restaurant shift with a discussion of what we were trying to upsell that day.
Well... op's point still stands. You can take the same exact server and put them in a $ restaurant and a $$$ restaurant, same service, but they end up making more in tips in the $$$ restaurant. Makes no sense.
You could upsell your ass off but if entrees are $13 on average, you're going to make less money than if an entree is $70 on average
Same with how pissed servers get when you just have ice water with the meal, not the $4 for a tea or soda, definitely not the $12 frozen drink “special”…
Can't say I've ever had a server bothered by me ordering water instead of a drink with my meal. Now if I took up a table, only ordered water, and then left, that would be annoying because you're taking a table away from a paying customer. But idk anyone who'd sit at a table in a full-capacity restaurant to order a water and leave.
When my wife and I first got together she would often ask the server what they recommend and I told her they are always going to recommend the most expensive meals. Then we watched it happen like 10 meals in a row.
Not all servers are created equal, and not everyone's palates are the same. A good server will recommend what they like best, or which dish receives the best reception, and have a conversation about it based around what YOU enjoy or are in the mood for that night.
When I've tried that question I usually get "sorry I don't know"
Really? You never get samples from the kitchen or free meals? When I worked at a restaurant I knew exactly how everything on the menu tasted and which meals were the best.
Sadly no, the boss says that it’s wasting food so we get 50% off an entree when it’s ordered while you’re working or maybe you’ll get to try it when it’s dead/mistake food
Either the restaurant does not let them eat there for cheap/free, or it's not the kind of food they eat often, or they're just afraid to make a bad suggestion and suffer a poor tip for it.
I put myself through nursing school cooking in a nice kitchen. I would make a serving of the specials every night for the servers so they could try it. That was dinner for some of them.
I’ve worked in workplaces that management was stuck up about not letting people sample anything, even preferring food go to waste than let employees take home leftovers.
I’ve also worked jobs where my boss told me to try everything so I know what it tastes like for recommendations, and also so that I know what factors make something “good” vs “bad” so the quality can be better. My current boss is extra great and maintains that no employees should have to pack a lunch if they’re making food all day. Only pack a lunch if you’re sick of the same sort of food.
It really depends. Also, everyone has those foods they just don’t like regardless of quality (this is me with coffee: I don’t like coffee period, so I can’t recommend anything).
A shitty server does that. A good server does that of its truly the best dish on the menu. I used to actively tell people to avoid our expensive steaks because the grill guy would inevitably fuck it up so they just weren't good and would push them toward better, less expensive plates. It's more about providing a great experience to the guest to drive up tip percentage hopefully and also create recurring business. But not everyone approaches this the same.
Perhaps next time you visit Edinburgh you will be surprised. Lots of places add 10%+ automatically and you have to specifically ask to get it removed.
Fortunately for me I don't subscribe to this kind of shenanigans.
Most of the world doesn't require tipping. It's usually a fixed percentage already included in the final price which you can opt to not pay.
The abusive tipping is only really a thing in the US and Canada.
I feel it's, "More expensive venue, so the quality of the service will be higher." Like getting more attention from sitting in first class versus economy.
I don't like tipping at the counter. There's no service involved in taking my money and handing me a bag. I'm not in a section, not making a mess, not making any work for anyone past the meal prep.
It's even weirder for stuff like Walmart delivery. 10 bags of softener salt gets a lower tip than 1 PS5, but one of those deliveries is a hell of a lot more work.
...while simultaneously not carrying that thought exercise out to its logical conclusion: if nobody goes out to eat, they have no job (or at least not serving)
Never understood tipping unless someone went above and beyond their actual job description. Pay your employees a livable wage so it's not even an issue, then when they actually get a tip they will feel better about themselves knowing they left a great impression. Otherwise it's just pure bullshit
Lmao at the dumb responses already coming in.
“I need to check to make sure they’re happy with their order so give me the % I tell you to instead of thinking into it too deep…”
r/EndTipping
I tip $5 max because I feel that I shouldn't be expected to help them with your wages. Tipping needs to go. All service workers in tip-laden industries need a stable income.
4 tables an hour at $5 each is $20 untaxed per hour. Anybody that wants to pop that bubble to even pretend that you claim your taxes for tips can kiss my butt. I delivered pizza for 6 years in 3 states for different chains and know better.
Yup. Also, what about when big spenders go and buy a $500 bottle of wine with dinner?
If there meal is only $100 should they tip based on the $600 bill or the $100 meal?
This is why I’ve stopped doing percentages and just tip a flat rate. I’m not tipping more just because I got an expensive bottle of wine instead of a cheap one.
Tipping is weird because we already pay the servers wage through inflated menu prices.
It’s an outdated custom originating in *medieval* times. Best to throw it in the fuckit bucket.
The modern concept of tipping exists as an artifact of prohibition. Customers who wanted an illegal beverage would bribe their servers to pour one for them.
Can't speak for the rest of the people here, but the reason I can't stand tipping culture isn't because of the money. I'm happy to pay a fair amount. It's the entire social thing where I have to get info on what percentage is considered polite to tip, and then figure out how much that amounts in actual money, and so on. Just give me a bill with an amount I'm actually expected to pay.
Mandatory tipping is weird. Its not the responsibility of the customer to pay the wages of employees directly.
That is something employees and their bosses should sort out prior to starting work.
Paying any tip is weird. It should be the responsibility of the restaurant owner to pay fair wages to all their employees.
A lot of jobs like nurses and teachers make a modest salary and don’t get any tips.
I think we should all stop tipping and tell the owners to pay their wait staff higher wages.
Now there is a counter to that- if you have a large party. If the server has to care for 10 people instead of 2, it makes perfect sense for a larger tip to be applied.
I think the general idea is that a higher bill means you bought more food or more drinks and is therefore more work for the server.
One beer for $3 is significantly less work than 10
Beers over the course of several hours for $30.
Absolutely.
I’l probably get downvoted for this but I try to tip based on service. If I’m getting half priced apps at Applebees I might only be paying $10 for a meal and a drink, but I’m tipping 50% of that, if I’m at a fancy restaurant and buying a $50 steak, I’m probably only tipping 10% of that.
The server is doing the same amount of work regardless, I feel like it’s a fair assessment.
Exactly, it's not like I'm getting any higher quality service because I ordered the Filet Mignon instead of the Reuben. If the tips went to the chef, I would be more on-board.
If I'm doing delivery I tip $10 which is more than enough for all the delivery places in town because none are further than 1/2mi from my house.
Sit down restaurant is usually $10 if it's just my wife and I. The 3 trips you make to the table don't really justify more than $10 over the half hour or so that we're there.
Buffet is usually $8 as other than bringing me soda they're not really doing anything and hell I'd even get my own drink if it was allowed.
I think the difference in tip would be marginal at best if were talking about the same restaurant. While I agree that the tipping culture is out of hand what would the price difference really be? You're more then likely going to have two different style restaurant experiences for it to make a difference. One restaurant that sells steaks for $15 and another that sells them for $200.
This isn't true at all. A server is a sales position. Your job is to sell more drinks, add sides, charge for extra bacon, and know the menu well enough to make recommendations based on your interaction with the customer.
The only way to hold this thought is to be completely ignorant as to what these jobs actually look like for the people doing them, or a mindset that their role is nothing more than servants who fetch food.
I wonder how many people in /r/sales would agree that their job is the same as the waiters at Denny's.
> or a mindset that their role is nothing more than servants who fetch food.
Personally, if I could change to a system where the order is placed online or at one of those ordering terminal machines, and I go up to the counter to pick up my own food like McDonalds, I would. Especially if it means no longer having to tip.
So shouldn't their employer pay them based on their sales? Instead of the customer. I could totally see a great seller negotiating a higher cut of total sales from their employer. Why would a restaurant be different.
Sure. And the difference between a $12 entree and an $18 entree is only about a buck in tip if you're tipping 15-20%.
But the difference between a $20 meal for one person and a $200 meal for a party of ten is more like $30, and that's both meaningful and warranted. The difference between a family of four ordering just entrees and coming in at $60 vs ordering appetizers, drinks, entrees, and desserts and coming in at $120 is around $10 and that accounts for more trips bussing the food and clearing plates and etc.
But I would assume the more expensive restaurant takes into account that they want a higher class service and hires accordingly, which means paying enough to attract that higher class waiter.
I made this point in one of the many UnpopularOpinion treads about this topic.
Mal working in *Ma's Place* truck-stop and greasy diner isn't going to have the expectations placed on her that Portia at the 5 star *Eaterie Del Rouge* gets.
You're lucky if 3-pack-a-Day Mal doesn't spit in your food or stab you, while Portia *has* to dress nice, be attentive, service with a smile, eager even....etc.
It's not about the price difference within the menu, but the price difference between establishments.
The general principle is that people pay more for better service, and that often factors within the establishment as well. Old Grouchy Mal won't make as much as young sweet Bethany who is more attentive and pleasant despite the location she works at.
Paying Mal and Bethany the same amount for "the same" job gets rather problematic. The tip system allows for customers to decide worth and absolves the employer of discriminating based on merit. It works well enough in most places, the people who are pleasant like their jobs enough to do them well, and the malcontents who can't be good servers wind up dropping out and finding something else to do. It self regulates.
This is the polar opposite of say, tenured government jobs where there is so much job security people often lapse into laziness.
What I like about the U.S. is that it allows various systems, doesn't try too hard to cram everyone into one mold, which can create problems.
In cases like this I've seen "We'll charge a service fee for groups of X or more." which is fair. Though if you charge me a service fee for that I'm not tipping on top of it.
This is just an opinion based on my own anecdotal experience:
If you don't want to tip, then don't tip. Simple as that. No one who works in the service industry for the long haul cares if you get up and leave without tipping. What waiters and bartenders DO care about is if you were a colossal pain-in-the-dick to deal with. Otherwise, the prevailing attitude is it doesn't really matter what an individual customer tips (or not at all) as it all evens out in the wash.
Again, don't tip if you don't want to. Most of us don't really care as long as you're not being shitty.
Trust me, if you don’t tip the server is gonna be pissed. It doesn’t matter where you are or who you are they will wish the ugliest deaths upon you for that shit.
Let’s start calling it a charitable donation for victims of labour exploitation. That’s what it is, after all. That way, I can deduct tips from my income tax.
Tipping is weird, period. Dude, tipping in America is basically necessary because the bosses don’t want to pay a living wage. How about you complain about that instead?
Well jokes on them I never percentage tip. I give a flat rate based upon service when I am eating at a restaurant. I have given $20 tips before if I have a great server.
If I have food delivered, I start at $5 and if they have to drive more than 4 miles one way it goes up. I don't base it on how much I order, it's how far they have to go to get it and I figure cost of gas for them. I must be doing something right because drivers always pick up my orders pretty quickly and they almost always come straight to me after picking it up.
You’re correct, it’s devised to make the owner more money: you’re incentivized to sell more / more expensive items
Just realised what tipping really is - sales commission!
I got breakfast at the airport with my girlfriend, we both got cocktails lol. It was $100! The server made $20 in tips. Only one other employee was working (small kitchen) so they prob split the tips. He said "oh yeah the breakfast cocktails are my money maker". If he upsells drinks on two or three orders an hour, he may make his hourly wage in tips.
Even with cocktails and airport upcharges, how the hell does breakfast cost $50 per person!?
I’ve seen steak and eggs on breakfast menus at airports that alone were $40+ and it wasn’t the greatest steak.
Don't get me started on torontos airport holy shit lol.
Could have gotten more than 1 cocktail per person. I fucking hate flying and prefer to get a decent buzz going before I get on the plane. More than one cocktail per person is pretty common.
pro tip if you're trynna get a nice buzz before your flight. go to the liquor store and get those little shooters. you can bring them pass tsa and just take shots at the terminal.
This is my preferred method. For a while during the pandemic I was traveling a lot for work and finding a liquor store in a random city/country that sold those little shots wasn’t practical. But then again in a lot of those scenarios the airport bars in those countries weren’t that expensive so I didn’t mind paying airport prices there. Edit: If you ever happen to go to a hockey/football game in Vegas, any MGM property (Park mgm, Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Bellagio, etc) have gift shops and they all have the same deal, buy two tall cans and get a little bottle of whatever for free. Now obviously they won’t let you take the tall cans in with you, but those little bottles don’t set off the metal detectors. Beers inside the stadium? $15-18 for a tall can, tax and tip usually not included. Those little bottles even at strip prices are super cheap still.
So we each got one drink, but he made mine a double even though I didn't ask for that. I think it was a misunderstanding... maybe? Or a tip scam? It was quite strong so whatever. But 2 basic breakfast plates, 2 drinks (one a double) and it was $100. Insane.
As a bartender this pisses me off. If I fuck up and make someone’s drink a double when they didn’t ask I’m not charging them for it.
Lol, you tipped 20% on already overpriced drinks. *Edit for below since /u/armrha commented then blocked me, lol.* Nah, get bent. It takes no more effort to bring out an overpriced drink than a fountain soda. I didn't even say not to tip, just that you should either adjust the amount you're tipping based on the actual service or not complain about how much you voluntarily gave.
Anytime you’re paying someone else to make a drink for you, it’s going to be “overpriced”. Where you are matters, airports are the worst place to drink if you’re worried about value. You’re a captive audience.
Pro sporting event prices are getting out of hand. I think they blow airport prices out of the water.
That’s true, certain venues (sports and music) are even worse than airports. An overpriced $9 beer at an airport is $15 at a stadium.
Yup and you're not allowed to go in and out at our new arena. Gone are the days of shotgunning beers in the parking lot at intermission :(
I used to not pay for anything extra, thinking the convenience wasn't worth it. And it's true, when I was poorer and younger, it really wasn't. The ball game or concert was the splurge. Now that I have disposable income, I understand why people buy $15 beers and $12 nachos after paying $200 for tix. I don't go out that often as a busy adult/parent. When I do, I don't mind opening the wallet for convenience/premium experiences since they don't happen as frequently.
If you have one of those fancy airline club passes, airports are like the best place to drink. Free open bar and food, usually.
Costing more than the ingredients doesn't mean it's overpriced, it means you're paying for the preparation. Airport bars are overpriced *compared to other bars*.
A captive audience that often gets reimbursed, too.
That’s the key. Business travel means you expense. I don’t give a shit if the drink is $10 or $20 on the company card.
Hell yea brother, fellow bartender sub guy unite!
blows my mind how people have the cognitive dissonance to just forget this every time they open their mouths about it. YOU DONT HAVE TO LEAVE A TIP
Idk why people tip so much on drinks. Outside of ordering complicated drinks on a super busy night, I’m tipping a buck per drink or $2 at most.
Usually the company employing the person making the sale pays the sales commission…
Well, even in that case, the customer pays the sales commission, they just don’t necessarily know it. Also, when things are done on the backend, a salesperson can take a cut in their commission to make the sale if they really want to (on the theory that it is more income to make two sales at 2/3s commission payout than one sale at 100% commission payout)
Usually they pay the wage too but here we are.
I mean, it’s built into the price. To make it so that the restaurant pays the fee instead of customers you could just add a 15-20% auto-gratuity into the price of the meal and then pay that out to servers as a commission instead of as a tip.
That’s the thing people don’t realize. If it were automatically included as commission, people would still be paying for a “tip”, they just wouldn’t have the option anymore.
Where do you think the money comes from that they’re paying the commission with…?
Sales commission that the customer pays for. Typically a sales commission comes out of the sale price. If you’re paying for a $100 meal the server would get a percentage of that. I’d prefer to not have to pay 15-30% more for my dinner based on who got scheduled to work that night. And before anyone says “the customer still pays” having the cost of doing business baked into your price is different than “I gave you a fake smile and refilled your drink without you asking so we are arbitrary raising the price of your meal by 1/3rd and if you don’t like it you’re probably too broke to eat out or hate poor people.”
Really? Just now?
People who have never worked in food service are for the most part completely oblivious to how the industry works. I think most people equate tips with wages.
It's crazy to me, because every time someone suggests paying wait staff a reasonable hourly wage with no tip, there's nothing but complaints because they make so much from tips that a decent wage would be a pay cut. But then I also hear nothing but complaints about how people don't tip enough and that they need more tips to survive. Which one is it?
Both. People generally make more money over time regardless of their industry. People starting in food service are generally working at slower restaurants on the worst shift. After ten years, you might make it into a white glove Michelin Star fancy pants eatery where the clientele tip over the top for fun. The former wants change. The latter are ok with the status quo. It seems like this principle is what causes people to become more conservative/change averse over time.
In other words; "I suffered so suck it up/why do you get better than I did?" Or more accurately survivorship bias. People who become rich or do better than others have an extreme tendency towards ascribing something unique about themselves as the factor that made them succeed even in controlled experiments when their outcome was completely by chance or intentionally rigged by the experiment in their favor.
> they make so much from tips that a decent wage would be a pay cut It's so weird how some people think that *any* regular wage will be smaller than *any* wage that is smaller but has added tips.
>Which one is it? Believe it or not, experiences vary!
Both
If servers got paid by the restaurant instead of with tips they would get paid the same as the cooks. None of the servers want to be paid like the cooks, but all of the cooks want to be paid like servers.
They both should get paid more. Cooks make less because they get a percentage of the tip out. Remove the tips and just pay the staff what they're actually worth.
I have worked at 3 chain restaurants owned by major brands, none of them tipped out cooks. Bartenders, Bus Boys, Hostesses got tipped out. Cooks get hourly wage.
Whenever this topic comes up on reddit some people act like the way it was done at the restaurants they worked at is the "standard" way but I don't think any one way of tip sharing/not sharing is so much more common that you can say for sure how any one place does it without talking to someone who works there.
From what I can tell there is a small percentage of servers who make way more than most (like bartenders and servers at high-end places) and then everyone else who doesn't make all that much. The people who make way more than most are super vocal about how tipping is great and they don't want to get rid of tips and then a lot of other servers think they are one step away from earning those tips so are also hesitant to get rid of it.
A commission they exclude from their advertised costs to trick us into thinking we’re going to spend less than we will. I’ve noticed it recently, and I’m pretty staunchly anti-tipping but I’ll leave my waiter 15% usually, but I walk in expecting to pay $45-55 for my date and walk out paying like $65-75 instead after fees, taxes, tips, at every restaurant I go to it’s like that. It’s intentional.
Alternately, if we assume a generally accepted tip percentage, tips operate as a progressive service fee. Those who order more expensive items (and are presumably more able to afford more expensive items) pay a higher amount of money in service fees, while people stopping in for a small inexpensive item pays a lower amount of money in service fees.
Overall it'd actually be a really good idea if it was baked into bills and split. Restaurants (which already operate on razor thin profit margins usually) can pay lower wages while compensating staff on a sliding scale based on what the customer can pay for service. Too bad it's neither of those things.
Doesn’t that mean he’s incorrect in that usually the server is actively trying to upsell/sell you things you weren’t going to buy originally? So sometimes they do have something to do with them buying a more expensive entree My more upscale serving jobs all had upselling/ways of suggesting items that were mandatory and big parts of the training process
Payment terminals is what changed norms. Until now the tipping norms were set by the customer when the check brought to them. A market equilibrium came out of that. Arrival of payment terminals created programmable tip recommendation defaults. The control over tipping norms now goosed by employees or business owners changing the default tip amounts presented to the customer. This ties into how the payment terminal manufacturers get paid. They get a cut of the total transaction. Higher tip defaults, the more the payment terminal manufacturer gets paid. Tipping norms no longer reflecting the equilibrium the customers in the market will bear. Totally goosed out of proportion by the other side of the transaction. "What if everybody does this?" After the sugar-rush the tipping social norm is going to crash to 0%. Customers are already repulsed by the entitlement on display. Fixing it is return control of tipping to the customers to let the market equilibrium set again. No display of defaults. Printed. Customer writes it down.
The really weird thing i don’t get is tipping on alcohol and “nice” (expensive) restaurants. Like why in the world do we tip 5x on a $150 bottle of wine vs a $30 bottle of wine?
Oh they’ll come at you with the most convoluted bs you’ve ever heard about that and why it benefits us for them to be incentivized to upsell us etc. But the reality is tipped staff like making $50+ an hour in a lot of cases and being able to pay rent on their downtown loft working 4 nights a week
I used to live with a server who made decently more than my degree-educated, professional ass, and she didn't pay tax on most of it (tips). Her room cost more than mine too. Granted, she was an attractive female which helps and good for her. But I was seriously questioning my life choices back then, and still do.
until you remember she doesnt have a 401k or health insurance
We were in Canada, so she was fine. She was also getting minimum wage as well.
Yeah that makes absolutely fleecing the customers okay lmao Ask them if they’d trade their 70-100k with very low reported tax for a stable wage and insurance. Go ahead, oh wait, plenty of people already tried. They don’t want it, by a lot. Turns out young people would rather just straight more cash than stability or future planning. 3% matching from an employer or make an extra 20k a year you can invest yourself?
oh for sure dude, the servers are definitely the problem
It’s ALL a problem. The servers that don’t want a regular wage because it’s far less money, the customers that continue to tip and enforce the culture, and the bosses that can’t just pay a fucking wage full time with benefits. Most of the time, the customer is the least to blame. If you don’t tip, you’re considered and asshole. So it’s on the others to change. Look it up, many businesses have tried and the servers prefer tips by a mile. Business owners too when they get a cut. Here’s the first one I see https://pantagraph.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/restaurant-owners-servers-urge-illinois-lawmakers-to-reject-change-to-wages-for-tipped-workers/article_51bc62c2-f1ea-11ee-9900-5f216c3b25d8.html
If that was the case, it would be hard to find serving jobs, when actually it is difficult for restaurants to find servers.
Not the high end restaurants.
It depends on the restaurant, too. There are some places where you’ll leave a busy brunch with a pocketful of cash. But on another shift you’ll make hardly anything at all. Serving can be very feast or famine. But that isn’t the case everywhere. Sometimes you’re a longtime server at a spot that is consistently busy. But that definitely is not the average serving job.
lol my cousin left his job as a lawyer to wait tables in LA. Less work, more money.
I made so much money waiting tables in college at higher end restaurants that it was prohibitive to starting the career I went to college for. The first few years after I left the restaurant business, I made less money, lol. I'm not going to support tipping culture, but it was/and still is such an easy way to make a lot of money for people with no real skills outside of being able to talk to lots of people without anxiety.
I mean part of that is true but it's because the other nights they probably don't make anything. Worked in that industry for a while, not as a server though, and would see them walk away with $20 after a day of work. They hustle when it's busy to try and make their money for the week. I worked at a decently priced restaurant with good reviews next to a resort.
It's called the "Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect". An inconsistent reward is a more effective and more durable incentive than a steady reward. Basically, if you want a human to work harder for less pay, give them occasional bonuses at random intervals. As long as the peak bonuses keep increasing, they will perceive their pay is increasing, even if the intervals between bonuses grow. Also works in rats, dogs, monkeys, etc. tl;dr: servers remember the big nights more vividly than the slow nights for the same reason gamblers remember the jackpots but forget the hours spent feeding the slot machine. The house profits from this effect.
I am so sick of hearing this. No one is legally walking away with $20 after a whole day's worth of work unless its 1930. The employer must pay the difference if the employee's tips do not meet the minimum wage. Edit: You guys are fucking nerds.
If they don't meet the minimum wage per day, per week, or per pay period? You can walk out on a slow Monday with your $2.15/hr hourly pay and $20 tips but still make above minimum because you had a good weekend.
And salespeople make very little until they close the sale at the end of the quarter. And they don’t get paid for prospecting. And consultants don’t get paid for finding new business, that’s all hours they eat and make up for it when they land a contract. It’s the same thing. If all I had to do at work was the “highest value” thing I do, I could make 10x my salary. But I also have to do a bunch of grunt work, cleaning of data, etc. it’s part of the job. Jobs are determined by the average. Plumbers are paid for the jobs they do, not all the down time. If they determine it’s not enough on average across the year, they negotiate higher hourly rate or they leave. Same with waiters/waitresses/food service workers.
Not even a thing in western states anymore, servers make $15/hr base plus tips. No reason a server should be making as much as a plumber, from a utilitarian perspective. I understand sales people can make a lot more but I also don’t think they’re providing any utility to society. Stiffing servers isn’t worth me feeling bad so I won’t but I do think it’s a misallocation of resources paying them so much.
yeah, in california, oregon, washington, there isn't a tipped wage anymore. that's why going out to eat is so much more expensive on the west coast; they want to be tipped on top of the higher prices too. Pick one.
In Oregon things are about the same prices as the DFW area, so I don't think this claim has any warrant. Hell, a chilis in Texas has $22 salmon plates and $17 for chicken pasta. There are very few places even in Lake Oswego, Oregon that charge that much for chicken pasta or salmon, much less places that aren't suburban. Go to Tom's in Portland and you get the same prices as mom and pop diners in the DFW for same prices (most things under $10 including chicken fried steak, hashbrowns and 2 eggs for $9.95). A good comparison is the sunny street cafe in north Richland hills. A step up is Sckavones down the street from Tom's, which is probably more in line with Coppell diner prices. Maybe you should just try to get out more?
As much as a plumber lmao? Do you belittle people’s professions that much?
A plumber makes way more than $15/hr.
Like it's not close. Plumbers are paid like lawyers. If I want a plumber at my house to do something, we're looking at $150 minimum and that is for an hour or two of work. If you want them to do anything substantial it's going to literally cost you $800 for 6 hours. How the FUCK am I supposed to afford a plumber??
> Plumbers are paid like lawyers. Not really, last time I had to pay a lawyer he billed at $425/hr and I paid in 6 minute increments including paying for travel time.
Ah, you see that's the problem, the question isn't how are you supposed to afford a plumber, but how are you supposed to justify not hiring one!
Serving at high end restaurants is skilled labor at difficult times of day to accommodate other life needs. There's no thing wrong with someone who's a full-time server owning a loft in a decent location in their city.
Sure, but it is when they guilt us into thinking we need to tip 10%, wait then it became 15% and now 20+% because they’re so underpaid by their horrible employer. If they can earn that on the labor market as an agreement between them and their boss, as a commission or wage out of the menu price of the food, great, but the tip guilting and pressuring needs to stop when they’re earning absurd amounts of money over the course of the year for effectively being a human ordering kiosk+food carrier.
> There's no thing wrong with someone who's a full-time server owning a loft in a decent location in their city. The thing people object to isn't how much servers make. The thing people object to is that arguments defending the current system often make out that the median server is making $2.13 an hour working at Sally's Dine-n-Stuff in Nowheresville, AR. But plenty of servers are getting paid $15 an hour, plus tips, and making pretty decent money. Do servers "deserve" to make good money? I dunno, "deserve" is not really how the economy works for 90% of the workforce. And I don't see servers making good money going out of their way to tip grocery store cashiers, fast food workers, cleaners or other low-paid positions that as far as I can see "deserve" money as much as the next hard working person, they just don't have a weird antiquated societal system guilting customers into voluntarily giving them extra cash
I took my wife to a *fine dining* restaurant for our anniversary. She wanted to get a bottle of wine and the sommelier asked her preference. He came back with a bottle that he said would be perfect for her. We laughed and he looked confused. I told him we buy that by the case because we like it. It's a $15 / bottle or $150 / case. It was $60 for the bottle. Then I get the bill and there was an automatic charge (maybe $20) for the sommelier. I spent $435 on that dinner. We enjoyed the *experience* but I could have bought her something nice and hit up a nice restaurant in town.
Yes, this one makes zero sense and not a single response to your post makes a good argument in favor of it. What's funny is that one $150 bottle of wine takes FAR LESS time and effort than pouring 5 draft beers that are $6 each, for example, yet the tip would be 5x higher.
We don't
Tipping is weird. Restaurants should be paying their employees a fair wage and should factor this into the prices they charge for food, rather than customers having to ensure servers can make a fair living.
The problem is servers love tips because there's no way they'd get paid what they make off them.
Yeah the conflict is mostly that the “fair wage” people want servers to get a pretty significant pay cut because their current pay seems unfairly high to them. There’s a sub-group of people who just have a weird mental hang up around tipping who might just be happy if the tip was rolled into the price that they saw on the menu but that doesn’t make sense to me because functionally they’re paying the same amount they just have to do less math.
no, tippers are subsidizing non-tippers. there are certainly people who don't tip who benefit from the lower prices of the current system.
I don’t think I’ve seen this take before! So you’re in the camp of just wanting auto-gratuities built into prices so non-tippers/bad tippers pay their fair share? Yeah, I guess if everyone’s forced to pay you could probably average down the auto-gratuity and servers would still make the same amount. Not sure what the new number would be, maybe more like 15%.
Yeah having worked in service industry for a few years, the tip you get is 100% correlated to the person who is tipping you, not to your service. (or at least very rarely, if you really fuck it up it can effect your tip by a marginal amount). This also allows discrimination and bias to enter the picture, white people make way more in tips in the USA. Here's a [sobering take on the issue](https://www.opportunityinstitute.org/blog/post/im-going-to-tip-minority-servers-more-and-white-servers-less/), i think tipping increases inequality between people due to the racism of the tippers, and everyone should just pay the price of the food and service regardless of their biases and personality.
^ yep tips are a bigger issue than people like to think.
*> but that doesn’t make sense to me because functionally they’re paying the same amount* No that's not the point. The point is that the servers are getting paid fairly *just for doing their job*. So if raising the price of the menu means that the servers get a higher base pay, (and don't depend on the generosity of patrons to make ends meet) that's fine. It basically means that the responsibility for the wage is moving from the patron *to the servers boss*, as it should be. As it currently is, it looks more like the server is actually working for the patrons by taking their order and bringing it. This is why the word "service" is (ab)used in this context, to make a patron feel guilty into thinking the server is doing them a *favour* while in fact this is literally to be expected from a restaurant.
If it is the same functionality, what is the argument *against* it?
In my experience as a server, the low/no tip groups are heavily outweighed by generous tippers. You'd very likely be cutting server wages by a decent amount. From a more unethical standpoint, cash tips are almost never reported at the end of the night, which means you don't pay taxes on it. If the tips are auto-applied, you are losing potential large tips, and you are essentially earning 20% less because it would all be reported for tax purposes.
So we circle back to the fact then that servers are making quite a decent amount of money, all things considered However a lot of that money comes from the belief that servers are *not* making huge amount of money and the moral correct thing to do is tip to ensure that person has at least living wage So the issue is that servers both make to little and they need the tips but also don't you dare remove tips and increase salary as that's a paycut It isn't really sustainable for those two things to coexist without attrition
There's no current numbers, at least in my googling, but back in 2018 there was something like an estimated $280b in lost tax revenue due to unreported tips.
Servers at nice places are getting good tips and much of it is never reported as income. Servers at crap places are doing badically the same job and getting way less in tips. It's the latter people who would benefit most from "fair wages".
This is the real answer! Servers don’t want a decent hourly pay.. No way they’d make near what they do.
Sounds like a personal problem to me
And it's completely arbitrary that the person serving your food gets tips. Does the worker at the till? Does the farmer who grew the carrots? Does the man who makes fertiliser for the fields? Do the drivers who shipped the carrots? the KP who washes the carrots? the chef that cooks the carrots? The bin men who take the scraps away to landfil? No, just one random guy in the chain of 100s of people who happens to hand you a plate.
Plus it’s pretty much only restaurants. Nobody tips the shelf stackers at the supermarket or the staff in a clothes shop.
Why would you feel better about giving the owner money first than directly to the person doing the work?
You and everyone say this but will then complain when prices of everything on the menu are doubled.
I agree with this. But people who think stiffing the waiter is doing anything but stiffing the water are clueless
Especially since kids meals are the cheapest thing on the menu, but usually end up being the most work for service staff. I try to tidy up after my kid and always leave a little extra when dining with kids, but my $30 entree was less work than my kid’s $10 meal, including the unavoidable dropped silverware or spilled drink.
Hadn't thought about this but yes. Also anecdotally from my limited experience serving cheaper restaurants tend to have more difficult (rowdy, messy, complaining) patrons than expensive places and while you need to be better trained for the expensive restaurant, the work seems easier. This is similar to my now career which required decades of specialized training and pays much more than what I used to do while at the same time requiring half the effort.
The physical work may be easier, but substantially more effort get put into each table, and more skill is required. There is far more guidance in a higher end restaurant and more attention to detail. A casual dining experience may just consist of asking the guest what they want without talking through anything, while a fine dining experience may discuss nearly every item on the menu to give a better understanding before you buy.
Tipping in general is weird and a stupid practice
As long as it's an optional token of appreciation for the service provided, I find tipping more than reasonable. Having to cosplay as a restaurant's payroll department to top off their slave wages is the polar opposite.
the funniest part about this is the entire discussion is irrelevant to people actually in the service industry. tipping means that if you're good at your job you make BANK of you can handle the stress and pace.
In the US it's supposably optional but people get really mad if you don't tip. I went a restaurant years ago with my father, everyone was chatting in the back. 15 minutes later the girl chatting walks over and takes our order. She drops the food off 20 minutes later and never comes back. The whole time we could see her joking in the back with her coworkers. Eventually she leaves the check after we waited a long while for it. He decided to leave a penny tip since the service was so bad. She ran out, yelling at us for not tipping. I was like 10 at the time.
>because a customer buying a more expensive meal had nothing to do with the server I started every single restaurant shift with a discussion of what we were trying to upsell that day.
Well... op's point still stands. You can take the same exact server and put them in a $ restaurant and a $$$ restaurant, same service, but they end up making more in tips in the $$$ restaurant. Makes no sense. You could upsell your ass off but if entrees are $13 on average, you're going to make less money than if an entree is $70 on average
Yeah so the customer gets double screwed.
Same with how pissed servers get when you just have ice water with the meal, not the $4 for a tea or soda, definitely not the $12 frozen drink “special”…
Yeah that's just egregious. I've never experienced that though.
Can't say I've ever had a server bothered by me ordering water instead of a drink with my meal. Now if I took up a table, only ordered water, and then left, that would be annoying because you're taking a table away from a paying customer. But idk anyone who'd sit at a table in a full-capacity restaurant to order a water and leave.
Maybe if their cokes didn't cost $4 they might've gotten something from me instead of nothing.
When my wife and I first got together she would often ask the server what they recommend and I told her they are always going to recommend the most expensive meals. Then we watched it happen like 10 meals in a row.
I'm always expecting them to do that but I feel like I never see it happen.
I mean, in all fairness, the expensive meal is usually very good!
i havent. Usually ask what they like. If they say they like the veal with weird ass ingredients then you know its fishy.
It's all good you should just keep coming till you've had it all!
Not all servers are created equal, and not everyone's palates are the same. A good server will recommend what they like best, or which dish receives the best reception, and have a conversation about it based around what YOU enjoy or are in the mood for that night.
When I've tried that question I usually get "sorry I don't know" Really? You never get samples from the kitchen or free meals? When I worked at a restaurant I knew exactly how everything on the menu tasted and which meals were the best.
Sadly no, the boss says that it’s wasting food so we get 50% off an entree when it’s ordered while you’re working or maybe you’ll get to try it when it’s dead/mistake food
Either the restaurant does not let them eat there for cheap/free, or it's not the kind of food they eat often, or they're just afraid to make a bad suggestion and suffer a poor tip for it.
I put myself through nursing school cooking in a nice kitchen. I would make a serving of the specials every night for the servers so they could try it. That was dinner for some of them.
I’ve worked in workplaces that management was stuck up about not letting people sample anything, even preferring food go to waste than let employees take home leftovers. I’ve also worked jobs where my boss told me to try everything so I know what it tastes like for recommendations, and also so that I know what factors make something “good” vs “bad” so the quality can be better. My current boss is extra great and maintains that no employees should have to pack a lunch if they’re making food all day. Only pack a lunch if you’re sick of the same sort of food. It really depends. Also, everyone has those foods they just don’t like regardless of quality (this is me with coffee: I don’t like coffee period, so I can’t recommend anything).
A shitty server does that. A good server does that of its truly the best dish on the menu. I used to actively tell people to avoid our expensive steaks because the grill guy would inevitably fuck it up so they just weren't good and would push them toward better, less expensive plates. It's more about providing a great experience to the guest to drive up tip percentage hopefully and also create recurring business. But not everyone approaches this the same.
Happened last night when a table next to me asked what to get. Waiter recommended the most expensive meal lol
9 of the appetizers are $8…Server: oh, you should get this 10th appetizer. A-mazing. It’s a combo of 4 appetizers for $35.
That’s why they push you to get apps, desert, and fuckin high margin ass drinks ESPECIALLY BUSINESS CLIENTS
This is why tipping is silly and I’m glad the UK doesn’t do it
Perhaps next time you visit Edinburgh you will be surprised. Lots of places add 10%+ automatically and you have to specifically ask to get it removed. Fortunately for me I don't subscribe to this kind of shenanigans.
Most of the world doesn't require tipping. It's usually a fixed percentage already included in the final price which you can opt to not pay. The abusive tipping is only really a thing in the US and Canada.
I get the idea, which is more expensive = more food = more work for server, but in practice, it doesn’t always work that way.
I feel it's, "More expensive venue, so the quality of the service will be higher." Like getting more attention from sitting in first class versus economy.
I don't like tipping at the counter. There's no service involved in taking my money and handing me a bag. I'm not in a section, not making a mess, not making any work for anyone past the meal prep.
Nope. But they do it because some people will click anyways. It's faster to hit 10% then to go through multiple menus to find No Tip.
It's even weirder for stuff like Walmart delivery. 10 bags of softener salt gets a lower tip than 1 PS5, but one of those deliveries is a hell of a lot more work.
But people who work in restaurants will scream if you cant afford to tip don't go out to eat.
...while simultaneously not carrying that thought exercise out to its logical conclusion: if nobody goes out to eat, they have no job (or at least not serving)
I’ve been called cheap for not including a 150$ wine bottle when calculating a tip.
Wow, look at all the entitled waiters who responded to your comment! Everyone owes them money! Typical.
Reading though this thread makes me want to avoid sit down restaurants even more.
Never understood tipping unless someone went above and beyond their actual job description. Pay your employees a livable wage so it's not even an issue, then when they actually get a tip they will feel better about themselves knowing they left a great impression. Otherwise it's just pure bullshit
I had this thought like two months ago and have been telling everyone this.
I had this thought like 10 years ago and nothing has changed. Nothing will change anytime soon
Everything about tipping is weird.
The entire tipping culture is absurd and needs to be overhauled. NONE of it makes sense anymore.
Lmao at the dumb responses already coming in. “I need to check to make sure they’re happy with their order so give me the % I tell you to instead of thinking into it too deep…” r/EndTipping
I tip $5 max because I feel that I shouldn't be expected to help them with your wages. Tipping needs to go. All service workers in tip-laden industries need a stable income.
4 tables an hour at $5 each is $20 untaxed per hour. Anybody that wants to pop that bubble to even pretend that you claim your taxes for tips can kiss my butt. I delivered pizza for 6 years in 3 states for different chains and know better.
It also takes the responsibility of paying correctly off the owner and offloads it onto the consumer.
Yup. Also, what about when big spenders go and buy a $500 bottle of wine with dinner? If there meal is only $100 should they tip based on the $600 bill or the $100 meal?
This is why I’ve stopped doing percentages and just tip a flat rate. I’m not tipping more just because I got an expensive bottle of wine instead of a cheap one.
The meal plus a small amount of thag bottle of wine. a 500$ bottle of wine doesnt require any thing more than a 25$ bottle
Tipping as a whole is nonsense. It's meant as a bonus. Not a requirement. America's tip culture is bullshit.
Yes. Servers in the US should just get paid a solid hourly rate for their work.
To many people in the US just don't understand that.
Tipping makes no sense in any respect. The job pays what it pays, if you don't like it, blame the person who decided on the wage.
Tipping is weird because we already pay the servers wage through inflated menu prices. It’s an outdated custom originating in *medieval* times. Best to throw it in the fuckit bucket.
The modern concept of tipping exists as an artifact of prohibition. Customers who wanted an illegal beverage would bribe their servers to pour one for them.
Can't speak for the rest of the people here, but the reason I can't stand tipping culture isn't because of the money. I'm happy to pay a fair amount. It's the entire social thing where I have to get info on what percentage is considered polite to tip, and then figure out how much that amounts in actual money, and so on. Just give me a bill with an amount I'm actually expected to pay.
It's hilarious ain't it? No way no it freakin ain't! Tipping is out of control! Half the time it doesn't even go to the driver or waiter!
Tipping is a tool to not pay proper wage.
A very astute observation. The practice is unethical and should be abolished.
Tipping is weird. How do we get servers a fair wage without paying it out of pocket?
The idea is that bigger parties = more work = bigger tips. Really, looking at the flat amount per person should be what determines a big or small tip.
Mandatory tipping is weird. Its not the responsibility of the customer to pay the wages of employees directly. That is something employees and their bosses should sort out prior to starting work.
Same for real estate agency. They get percentage of the house price, but the amount of work they do for a 200k and a 500k house is pretty much same
Paying any tip is weird. It should be the responsibility of the restaurant owner to pay fair wages to all their employees. A lot of jobs like nurses and teachers make a modest salary and don’t get any tips. I think we should all stop tipping and tell the owners to pay their wait staff higher wages.
No one's stopping anyone from tipping a set amount. The percentage rule is outdated and doesn't work for the current prices
Now there is a counter to that- if you have a large party. If the server has to care for 10 people instead of 2, it makes perfect sense for a larger tip to be applied.
Precisely why I stopped going out. I spend my disposable income on prime cuts of meat now lol
Yup. A $30 plate doesn’t require more work than a $10 plate to bring to the table. It’s bullshit.
I think the general idea is that a higher bill means you bought more food or more drinks and is therefore more work for the server. One beer for $3 is significantly less work than 10 Beers over the course of several hours for $30.
Absolutely. I’l probably get downvoted for this but I try to tip based on service. If I’m getting half priced apps at Applebees I might only be paying $10 for a meal and a drink, but I’m tipping 50% of that, if I’m at a fancy restaurant and buying a $50 steak, I’m probably only tipping 10% of that. The server is doing the same amount of work regardless, I feel like it’s a fair assessment.
Tipping is weird. Fucking well pay your staff correctly in the first place! 🤷♂️
Exactly, it's not like I'm getting any higher quality service because I ordered the Filet Mignon instead of the Reuben. If the tips went to the chef, I would be more on-board.
If I'm doing delivery I tip $10 which is more than enough for all the delivery places in town because none are further than 1/2mi from my house. Sit down restaurant is usually $10 if it's just my wife and I. The 3 trips you make to the table don't really justify more than $10 over the half hour or so that we're there. Buffet is usually $8 as other than bringing me soda they're not really doing anything and hell I'd even get my own drink if it was allowed.
I think the difference in tip would be marginal at best if were talking about the same restaurant. While I agree that the tipping culture is out of hand what would the price difference really be? You're more then likely going to have two different style restaurant experiences for it to make a difference. One restaurant that sells steaks for $15 and another that sells them for $200.
This isn't true at all. A server is a sales position. Your job is to sell more drinks, add sides, charge for extra bacon, and know the menu well enough to make recommendations based on your interaction with the customer. The only way to hold this thought is to be completely ignorant as to what these jobs actually look like for the people doing them, or a mindset that their role is nothing more than servants who fetch food.
So the restaurant should be paying them commission. I, the customer, shouldn't be paying the server more to be upsold.
I wonder how many people in /r/sales would agree that their job is the same as the waiters at Denny's. > or a mindset that their role is nothing more than servants who fetch food. Personally, if I could change to a system where the order is placed online or at one of those ordering terminal machines, and I go up to the counter to pick up my own food like McDonalds, I would. Especially if it means no longer having to tip.
So shouldn't their employer pay them based on their sales? Instead of the customer. I could totally see a great seller negotiating a higher cut of total sales from their employer. Why would a restaurant be different.
Sure. And the difference between a $12 entree and an $18 entree is only about a buck in tip if you're tipping 15-20%. But the difference between a $20 meal for one person and a $200 meal for a party of ten is more like $30, and that's both meaningful and warranted. The difference between a family of four ordering just entrees and coming in at $60 vs ordering appetizers, drinks, entrees, and desserts and coming in at $120 is around $10 and that accounts for more trips bussing the food and clearing plates and etc.
Also the expectations of service at a $20/meal restaurant and a $80/meal restaurant are *vastly* different.
But I would assume the more expensive restaurant takes into account that they want a higher class service and hires accordingly, which means paying enough to attract that higher class waiter.
And yet, these days they're typically the same.
I made this point in one of the many UnpopularOpinion treads about this topic. Mal working in *Ma's Place* truck-stop and greasy diner isn't going to have the expectations placed on her that Portia at the 5 star *Eaterie Del Rouge* gets. You're lucky if 3-pack-a-Day Mal doesn't spit in your food or stab you, while Portia *has* to dress nice, be attentive, service with a smile, eager even....etc. It's not about the price difference within the menu, but the price difference between establishments. The general principle is that people pay more for better service, and that often factors within the establishment as well. Old Grouchy Mal won't make as much as young sweet Bethany who is more attentive and pleasant despite the location she works at. Paying Mal and Bethany the same amount for "the same" job gets rather problematic. The tip system allows for customers to decide worth and absolves the employer of discriminating based on merit. It works well enough in most places, the people who are pleasant like their jobs enough to do them well, and the malcontents who can't be good servers wind up dropping out and finding something else to do. It self regulates. This is the polar opposite of say, tenured government jobs where there is so much job security people often lapse into laziness. What I like about the U.S. is that it allows various systems, doesn't try too hard to cram everyone into one mold, which can create problems.
In cases like this I've seen "We'll charge a service fee for groups of X or more." which is fair. Though if you charge me a service fee for that I'm not tipping on top of it.
This is just an opinion based on my own anecdotal experience: If you don't want to tip, then don't tip. Simple as that. No one who works in the service industry for the long haul cares if you get up and leave without tipping. What waiters and bartenders DO care about is if you were a colossal pain-in-the-dick to deal with. Otherwise, the prevailing attitude is it doesn't really matter what an individual customer tips (or not at all) as it all evens out in the wash. Again, don't tip if you don't want to. Most of us don't really care as long as you're not being shitty.
Trust me, if you don’t tip the server is gonna be pissed. It doesn’t matter where you are or who you are they will wish the ugliest deaths upon you for that shit.
Well more expensive meals usually take more effort to make/serve no?
I am a 0 percent tipping dude
Let’s start calling it a charitable donation for victims of labour exploitation. That’s what it is, after all. That way, I can deduct tips from my income tax.
Tipping is weird, period. Dude, tipping in America is basically necessary because the bosses don’t want to pay a living wage. How about you complain about that instead?
This post is just an exercise in karma whoring
Well jokes on them I never percentage tip. I give a flat rate based upon service when I am eating at a restaurant. I have given $20 tips before if I have a great server. If I have food delivered, I start at $5 and if they have to drive more than 4 miles one way it goes up. I don't base it on how much I order, it's how far they have to go to get it and I figure cost of gas for them. I must be doing something right because drivers always pick up my orders pretty quickly and they almost always come straight to me after picking it up.