thetrob wrote:If a place like the Elysian or upscale restaurants are trying to reduce the burden on their customers to constantly worry about who to tip and how much by having a "no-tip" policy, why not just make the resturants "no-tip" and roll the amount into the cost of the food. Make the $20 entree $24, the $2 Coke $2.50 and so on, and post a no-tipping policy in the restaurant.
thetrob wrote:In general the Automatic Tip has always bothered me, regardless of whether it is at an upscale restaurant, or the everyday places that add gratuities for parties of 6 or more.
thetrob wrote:If a place like the Elysian or upscale restaurants are trying to reduce the burden on their customers to constantly worry about who to tip and how much by having a "no-tip" policy, why not just make the resturants "no-tip" and roll the amount into the cost of the food. Make the $20 entree $24, the $2 Coke $2.50 and so on, and post a no-tipping policy in the restaurant.
thetrob wrote:A gratuity is meant as a thank-you and recognition for exceptional service
boudreaulicious wrote:thetrob wrote:A gratuity is meant as a thank-you and recognition for exceptional service
I think this is the heart of the issue. The tip isn't really a "thank you"--it's the vast majority of the employee's salary. I prefer to look at the 18% add on as the employer showing me my share of the cost of the salary for the server. What I add above the 18% is then the "thank you for exceptional service". Works for me.
Mhays wrote:boudreaulicious wrote:thetrob wrote:A gratuity is meant as a thank-you and recognition for exceptional service
I think this is the heart of the issue. The tip isn't really a "thank you"--it's the vast majority of the employee's salary. I prefer to look at the 18% add on as the employer showing me my share of the cost of the salary for the server. What I add above the 18% is then the "thank you for exceptional service". Works for me.
Yes - and, frankly, I think the legislation that allows this to be the case opens the door for all kinds of abuses. Either we should have a minimum wage or not.
(However, I should also say that I find the type of person who expresses their indignation at this loophole by ripping off their server and not tipping to be the very worst kind of ignoramus.)
Because charging $4.80 for an iced tea would be outrageous.thetrob wrote:If a place like the Elysian or upscale restaurants are trying to reduce the burden on their customers to constantly worry about who to tip and how much by having a "no-tip" policy, why not just make the resturants "no-tip" and roll the amount into the cost of the food. Make the $20 entree $24, the $2 Coke $2.50 and so on, and post a no-tipping policy in the restaurant.
dansch wrote:Whenever I travel to a place where tax and service are included*...
* even then, I have a hard time not tipping my normal % after a meal
Before I went to Denmark I was doing some research and encountered the fantastic food blog verygoodfood.dk, which provided a lot of insight on the Danish dining scene. I stumbled across a post and lengthy comment discussion on tipping which I initially hoped would help me navigate tipping in Denmark, but only further confused me. As it turns out, there's just no good sense to be made of it.riddlemay wrote:Life is so complicated.
thetrob wrote:Mhays wrote:(However, I should also say that I find the type of person who expresses their indignation at this loophole by ripping off their server and not tipping to be the very worst kind of ignoramus.)
I would also say that tipping less than the "norm" because of poor service is no more ripping off the server than a server offering poor service and expecting a "normal" tip is ripping off the customer.
Too often, what happens in the latter case is that the check is passed around, and everyone puts in what he/she thinks is his/her portion of the check. And in my experience, over half the time, the total comes up significantly short of what would be a fair tip. (My best guess as to why is not that people deliberately chip in less than they should, but rather, they think of their entree but they forget about the glass of wine or cup of coffee, or they forget about or miscalculate the tax or tip.)
Katie wrote:Too often, what happens in the latter case is that the check is passed around, and everyone puts in what he/she thinks is his/her portion of the check. And in my experience, over half the time, the total comes up significantly short of what would be a fair tip. (My best guess as to why is not that people deliberately chip in less than they should, but rather, they think of their entree but they forget about the glass of wine or cup of coffee, or they forget about or miscalculate the tax or tip.)
Well, there's a simple solution to that: have the total with tip, and each person's share thereof, figured by someone who's good at math. And failing the presence of someone who can handle the math, whose smart phone doesn't have a calculator? There's no reason why a party of 12 can't do as good a job (or, come to think of it, a better job) of calculating the correct total with tip as a party of 2.
riddlemay wrote:Ironically, the pre-inclusion of tip for large parties is actually a service to the customer, for reasons that nsxtasy got at. It's not that a party of 12 lacks someone good at math; in any party of 12 of which I'm a member, I'm one who's good at math (and almost certainly not the only one). The issue is that in those parties of 12 in which you don't get to decide who the other 11 people are, there's bound to be one person who insists his share is less than it is. The pre-inclusion of the tip ensures that at least I don't have to argue with this yahoo just to make sure the server doesn't get shorted. (Even if it means we other 11 have to carry a little more than our share of the load to pay the total bill.)
David Hammond wrote: Servers scam allegedly crappy tippers.
at Slate.com, Brian Palmer wrote:When wealthy Americans brought home the practice of tipping from their European vacations in the late 19th century, their countrymen considered it bribery. State legislatures quickly banned the practice. But restaurateurs, giddy at the prospect of passing labor costs directly to customers, eventually convinced Americans to accept tipping.
We had it right the first time. Tipping is a repugnant custom. It’s bad for consumers and terrible for workers. It perpetuates racism. Tipping isn’t even good for restaurants, because the legal morass surrounding gratuities results in scores of expensive lawsuits.
pairs4life wrote:I went to Next last night for the 1st time. I've been thinking about it a lot as it applies to tipping.
There's something delightful about having pre-paid for a meal, including service. No guest work, no math to be done, and no complaint about the need to add more, or less, for gratuity.
TCK wrote:pairs4life wrote:I went to Next last night for the 1st time. I've been thinking about it a lot as it applies to tipping.
There's something delightful about having pre-paid for a meal, including service. No guest work, no math to be done, and no complaint about the need to add more, or less, for gratuity.
What if the service sucks? Do you feel cheated?
TCK wrote:pairs4life wrote:I went to Next last night for the 1st time. I've been thinking about it a lot as it applies to tipping.
There's something delightful about having pre-paid for a meal, including service. No guest work, no math to be done, and no complaint about the need to add more, or less, for gratuity.
What if the service sucks? Do you feel cheated?
d4v3 wrote:TCK wrote:pairs4life wrote:I went to Next last night for the 1st time. I've been thinking about it a lot as it applies to tipping.
There's something delightful about having pre-paid for a meal, including service. No guest work, no math to be done, and no complaint about the need to add more, or less, for gratuity.
What if the service sucks? Do you feel cheated?
Then you go to the manager, who can actually do something about it, and complain. A server is never going to say, " Hey Boss, that table left me a really lousy tip because I am a really lousy server".
d4v3 wrote:I am a big proponent of including labor costs in the menu prices. From a consumer's standpoint, it gives you a more realistic cost for each dish. I would even like to see tax included in the price, the way it is in many European countries.
d4v3 wrote:On the other side, it allows management to overstaff the restaurant on slow nights and not have to pay for having servers on-call in case of an unexpected rush. Often times restaurants abuse this policy by having servers perform other duties like cleaning and refilling salt shakers at less than minimum wage. Most businesses reward their employees for loyalty by increasing their pay grade over time. Servers do not receive such raises. Moreover, does a server that works at an overpriced fine dining restaurant really work that much harder than a server at a corner diner? If anything, their work is probably easier. Should one server receive $40 for opening a $200 bottle of wine as opposed to another getting $0.30 for keeping your $1.50 glass of iced tea topped off?
Anyhow, we have all heard the arguments both ways, but what I really want to know is why if the cost of eating at a restaurant has increased at (or often higher than) the rate of inflation, has the acceptable tipping percentage increased also? Shouldn't it remain constant, since the price of the meal has increased?
LAZ wrote:My experience in other countries that do not practice tipping in restaurants is that your waiter takes your order, brings you your food and then disappears. When we were in the Netherlands during a heat wave, for example, we learned to order two beverages with our meal, because otherwise there was no way to get a refill.
jlawrence01 wrote:LAZ wrote:My experience in other countries that do not practice tipping in restaurants is that your waiter takes your order, brings you your food and then disappears. When we were in the Netherlands during a heat wave, for example, we learned to order two beverages with our meal, because otherwise there was no way to get a refill.
That perfectly describes my experience at most of the places that I dined at in London. The worst experience was having to go back to the kitchen on Christmas Day to find anyone in the place to get the check as we had not seen a waiter or staff person in 30 minutes.
Pie Lady wrote:I was eating out with Mr. Pie this morning at The Bungalow, where the owner doubles as the waitress. She had one of those fancy iPad checkout systems, and apparently there is no way to add the tip, which I think was hooey. She said she did not want a tip because she was the owner. She insisted, being a stubborn Irish girl; I mentioned my husband was also Irish and left $5. Has anyone heard of this before? I heard that when you go to a salon and the owner does your hair, you don't have to tip, but I never thought about it for restaurants. Thoughts?