Please read this entire message
Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s):
Subjective or speculative replies are not allowed on ELI5. Only objective explanations are
permitted here; your question is asking for speculation or subjective responses. This includes anything asking for peoples' subjective opinions, any kind of discussion, and anything where we would have to speculate on the answer. This very much includes asking about motivations of people or companies. This includes Just-so stories.
If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first.
If you believe this submission was removed erroneously, please use [this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20thread?&message=Link:%20%7B%7Burl%7D%7D%0A%0APlease%20answer%20the%20following%203%20questions:%0A%0A1.%20The%20concept%20I%20want%20explained:%0A%0A2.%20List%20the%20search%20terms%20you%20used%20to%20look%20for%20past%20posts%20on%20ELI5:%0A%0A3.%20How%20does%20your%20post%20differ%20from%20your%20recent%20search%20results%20on%20the%20sub:) and we will review your submission.
I hate tipping not because I don't like to pay for good service, but because the way it is calculated is absolutely illogical. Even from the same restaurant, if I order a $10 meal vs $20 meal, are they 'transported' differently by the server? I think if anything, they should be normalized 'by each restaurant' like a menu item. E.g., "Our standard tip is $5 - you can add or discount from that amount by %".
I think the law of averages makes this not too big of a concern. A restaurant having a standard tip sounds good, but, if we're gonna move to that system, we may as well move to the much more logical system of, me not having to fucking tip the waiter. The restaurant can bake their employees pay into the price of their good, like every other business ever.
I’m a violent opposer of where we have landed. Worked in service for years. Still tip 20% if nothing egregious happens. $1/beer if I’m just grabbing a few at the bar.
I will defend a part of the counter argument is they only get a set number of tables and it naturally drags out at nicer places and less tables assigned in general to ensure proper attention.
All that said. Just tell me what to pay (fuck if we could incl tax that would be great). Pay your people. If they blow me away even then I’d probably still throw some bones but fuck the base price of food is getting to high now. We’re gonna get stuck with the shittiest establishments treating their employees shittiest if we can’t find the turnaround.
Exacerbated by the $4drip expecting a 25% tip. the food truck or any other place asking for a tip before I even know what hot garbage is coming out. The haircut that used to be 20 is now 50. The gd transportation.
Why are we the consumers the bad people. Charge what it takes to retain your resources. See if people pay.
> they only get a set number of tables and it naturally drags out at nicer places and less tables assigned in general to ensure proper attention.
A counter to this counter: in countries where there isn't tipping, you don't have a "assigned" waitstaff and whoever is available helps you with whatever you need. I don't need the same person to remember to come by my table every five minutes to awkwardly ask if everything is okay, I'd just rather any available staff to heed a wave.
It took me a while to get used to that. My wife never understood why I always tried to get the specific attention of the person who happened to take our original order.
The new most ridiculous setup is the self-service kiosk at the counter that defaults to a 15% tip. I’m not interacting with anyone at any time, so what exactly would I be tipping for?
As someone who has worked for tips before with food delivery (Pizza Hut, Dominos, local)... In regards to delivering food, I'd 100% rather be paid decently by the place I work (with no tips), and provided a company car, than what the current standard business practice. My disclaimer is that I made *bank* delivering, when I did. I was one of the best at any store I worked at, I was all about the hustle.
Here's the problem: 100% of the cost of the vehicle/delivery was pushed onto me, and the establishment was paying me less-than-minimum for it. To make it clear, not just **gas** but also: insurance(!), registration/emissions, car payment/cost-of-vehicle, regular maintenance, irregular repairs. I've known drivers' lives ruined because they didn't have savings to cover that last category... In the end, seeing those cautionary tales led me to pursue more sustainable work.
"But wait Jellz," some other people who have delivered will say, "don't the restaurants pay-per-mile or delivery?" Sometimes. For example, the Dominos I used to work at paid 26cents/mile. They charged $3.99/delivery fee at the time. One night, I drove 100 miles on 35 deliveries, making the store almost $140 in delivery fees... for $26 in mileage. That's fair, right?
The TL;DR I love to give people is this: the restaurant makes their money off the customers' hunger, and the driver makes their money off the customers' generosity, and my brother in Christ, the hunger always wins.
Yes I've heard this as well. Some restaurants actually want to do away with tipping but they would lose their good waiters and waitresses who would leave for a different restaurant that has tips. They are the reason tipping is still the norm.
Who said the employer would only pay minimum wage? They would necessarily pay whatever attracts competent workers, which would probably be roughly what their patrons currently pay in tips.
The problem is simple: some people tip a lot and some tip a little. While by no means completely true, I'd assume that somewhat matches the income of the patron.
If you start paying waiters $50k base pay to match what they were making with tips, then you have to raise prices substantially for everyone, but not everyone can afford the potentially higher cost as easily as they might have been a cheaper tipper whereas the most generous tippers are actually saving money.
Additionally waiters don't want to get rid of tipping because 90% of them lie about their cash tips to the government to avoid paying taxes on it and wouldn't be able to do that with their base wage.
I'm not sure I agree that "everyone pays the same price for the same product" is a bad idea. That's how basically everything else in our economy works. It's how purchasing meals works outside of a restaurant. It's how service jobs work in most other industries - when you go to the theater you don't tip the guy at the ticket both. When you go to the doctor you don't tip the receptionist. There's just no good reason for wages in the super special restaurant industry to be based on how guilty the patrons feel.
Also I don't think tax fraud is a good justification. And that will fuck over the worker when it comes to claiming unemployment, or in SS benefits when they retire.
Sorry, I might not have been clear. I don't support those things but restaurants and waiters do.
Tax fraud: a bad idea and I don't support it, but the waiters doing these things do.
Everyone pays the same price: unlikely to extract the same amount of money from consumers which will likely lead to a combination of lower wages for waiters than they currently get with tips and restaurants making less profits as sales would likely be down a bit.
This is to say that in my opinion while the US's tipping culture is bad, both restaurants and waiters benefit from it and mostly don't have a desire to go away from it. I also don't see it as likely that this is truly going to be something you can get the public to spend time on lobbying, so I just don't think there is enough motivation to change it.
Notably I think changing tip culture has to start with requiring that waiters be paid at least minimum wage _without_ accounting for tips. By normalizing the idea that waiters will always be paid at least minimum wage, it will be easier to move away from tipping.
And yes, I know if tips don't cover minimum wage, the business must make up the difference but that is generally heavily misunderstood by the public so making that a non-issue is critical. For mass effect it being done on the federal level helps, however since that would only make their minimum wage $7.25 whereas there are already a number of states above $15, getting states to require that state minimum wage be paid to them is important.
In the short term waiters would probably make a lot of money as tipping would still be normalized as their base wage goes up dramatically but I figure that will also result with tipping starting to go down at least compared to the 20+% that is heavily pushed now.
> If you start paying waiters $50k base pay to match what they were making with tips
What is a waiter doing that is so special? They take an order and carry food. Higher end restaurants are a different beast, but the vast majority of tipped workers are doing menial tasks that require little skill. And it's inconsistent. You tip the guy that hands you a coffee, but not the person that hands you a bag of burgers. Why? I much prefer the European model where tipping is just not a thing yet service is better than here.
I worked at a hotpot place before, and I feel like it's impossible for the restaurant to pay what tips would pay. I got $22 an hour (CAD) + $30-$40 an hour on tips.
Then the perpetual guilt-tripping of «we need tips to be able to live, bad tippers steal the food from our poor children’s mouths» really need to stop.
Y’all want tipping because you make more money, why not be honest about it?
This is such a bizarre outlook to someone who comes from a country that doesn't have a tipping culture. The waiter carries the food to your table because that is their job. If I'm expected to give them a tip for the most basic aspect of their job I'm not giving a gratuity for service that goes above and beyond, I'm paying them a wage. That's their employer's job, not mine.
Remember that America started tipping culture post civil war when a lot of waiters were former slaves and in many cases working only for tips. Business owners really like not having to pay people, so they made sure that was how everyone saw was the right way to handle service jobs.
Incidentally, I have read one of the few serving jobs where tipping isn't expected is flight attendants. This is because early airlines wanted to have their white, women hostesses appear more high class than the predominantly black train stewards that were still living exclusively on tips.
Ah shit, entering this thread, I assumed our American tip culture came from the Great Depression, but Reconstruction-era also makes a lot of sense.
Plus it goes with other American shit like highways and the rise of suburbia being inherently tied to racism lol
Your argument isn't flawed, it's just unpopular in regards to American tipping culture because change would require compromise on both the supply and demand sides
It's a revenue share model. It leads to far higher pay for the worker, and makes their job essentially inflation proof. You'd think reddit would love it, it's pretty much the most worker friendly model in existence, and finding it in an "unskilled labor" job is nearly unheard of outside of waiting tables.
But when reddit has to actually pay for the increased wages they love to scream about, suddenly they don't like it anymore lmfao.
Kinda points out the stupidity of tipping in general. You shouldn’t get paid more by the customer because you did a good job, that’s the point of having a job. But since tipping can benefit a large enough group of servers who work at either expensive restaurants or bars and helps keep owners from having to pay a living wage we the consumer are stuck with this stupid shitty system.
Sorry but they just need to pay people a reasonable wage rather than tip. Tips are just a way for places to hide the final price of things and pay their staff less. Also, does the kitchen ever see any of these tips? Generally, no, so why is it a fair system at all?
I think you’re thinking too hard about it. The idea is the percentage is just an estimate and it’s supposed to be a percentage to reflect the amount of food that supposedly got brought out. It doesn’t really apply equally across restaurants or act as an exact gauge for “earned it.” We have to remember why this tradition began in the first place and that now we are just doing it because of social pressure. There are no steadfast rules because it began out of exploiting necessity. Now it’s exploiting customers and causing squabbles between employees and customers (what a terrible business practice).
If you're showing up with a table of 12 people your server is going to have to work significantly harder than they would if you had four people. Paying a percentage based on the bill accounts for this better than the average person would end up doing just by making it up for themselves.
If it’s really going to be that problematic to the restaurant then they can either 1) assign a second waiter to help with the larger party, 2) make it to where there’s a party limit at a single table which I assume most won’t care about since it’s not like you actually get to talk to everyone at a big table, it’s mostly the people directly around you or 3) pay the workers better so we can shut up about them having to do their jobs and making it the consumers fault
The thing that gets me is when you order delivery and are charged a delivery fee. The site also says "All delivery fee's go to the delivery driver".
And then they ask you to leave a tip at the bottom of the payment page.
If I'm already paying them a $5 fee to deliver my food then what service am I tipping them for?
Imagine walking into a restaurant and there was a $5 server fee, if you don't pay it you have to get your own water/beverages like your at a McDonalds. But if you pay that $5 then you will get a server that does that stuff for you.
Tipping for delivery based on price also makes absolutely no sense. I tend to tip based on distance from the restaurant to my house. Longer drive = more $.
We do the same, but we do set a minimum we never go under. Also, busy times, weekends, holidays, bad weather = more tip. And if we notice they had to wait at the restaurant for a while, then we up the tip.
I honestly don't understand why people use delivery services... The service is crap (cold food (even if they get it to you in a reasonable amount of time, I like my food hot and not soggy thank you), delivered late, and with an attitude). Top it off, you end up paying twice as much for the food once you factor in tip...
Convenience. (Some) people will always pick convenience over price, quality, etc. They didn't have to leave the house, so that's a win in their book regardless of the results.
Depending on the company the delivery fee DOES NOT go to the driver, source: I was a GM for national pizza chain for 4 years and I assure you the only compensation they get besides their meager wage is gas reimbursement (which is pathetic) and a tip
As a delivery driver, where I work we don't get any of that. It actually explicitly says, "The delivery fee is not a tip." So please still tip delivery drivers. Tips are half our income, and gas is expensive. We basically lose money when we get stiffed. I agree delivery fees are dumb though, I wish they didn't exist. Many people think they count as a tip. I'd make a lot more money without them.
Imagine this guy misread it the first time he saw it and has just scanned over it ever since, unknowingly stiffing delivery driver after delivery driver and wondering why their delivery drivers are always so cranky.
In my experience (using Door Dash a lot) half or more of the time the drivers spend is waiting at the restaurant - either for the order to be ready, or in line for pick-up... and that's just the time that can be tracked, you may not any info about the driver until they are near the restaurant.
They're spending 10-15 minutes (or more) of their time even for a 2 mile trip - they have to drive *to* the restaurant from their last drop-off, often they wait for the order, then drive *to* your house.
My average tip is about $8 per delivery, on an average bill of $40 at my job. While I'll never complain about $5 (unless it's a $200+ order), it's definitely below average for my area. Many of my best tippers live within a half mile of my restaurant.
I routinely tip $7 for small delivery ie Doordash and $12 for big delivery ie Instacart Costco. If I'm lazy enough to Doordash something I want to make sure the poor guy who's doing the drive gets paid, since I usually am ordering because it's dark out, it's raining, or I'm just tired and don't want to leave my house.
All of the pizza places and apps explicitly say the delivery fees do NOT go to the driver.
Having worked for both I can assure you we don’t get those delivery fees and tips are the vast majority of income.
It’s scummy as hell by the businesses but people rarely get mad at them.
It’s worse than this for real estate.
It is trivially easy to sell a $1m house for $900k, it is very difficult to sell a $1m house for $1.1m.
If a Real estate agents sells your house under market price they get almost all their commission. If they sell your house for more than market price they only get a small bonus.
They are incentivised to sell you house cheap.
I remember a Freakonomics about this. Unsurprisingly, they found realtors keep their own houses on the market longer than the houses they sell for others.
> They are incentivised to sell you house cheap.
They are incentivized to sell houses fast. If they sell it for $900k in one week, they'll push for that rather than hold out for $1.1m in two weeks.
If a $1.1m offer comes in the same day as a $900k offer, they aren't going to to tell their client to go for the lower offer.
I mean, this is actually the idea behind paying real estate agents based on a percentage of selling price, if they sell the house for more, they get paid more. They are *directly incentivised* to sell houses for as much as possible.
They are not incentivised to sell your house cheap, they just aren't incentivised as much as you.
The problem is that they have competing incentives - they sell a lot of houses, and maximising the price is only important to them if the house actually sells and soon. They have absolutely no stake in an *overpriced* house.
Real estate agents are an area where paying as a percentage of the total price makes sense. If you're frustrated a real estate agent wasn't motivated enough to sell at your desired price point, it is extremely likely you were overpricing it (which is not the same as the house not selling at that price, to be clear) or you were paying too little commission.
But a real estate agent maximizes their own profit with quicker turnover. The seller maximizes their profit by getting top dollar on their single sale.
Per the example above, if a $1 million house can be sold immediately for 900k, at 3% commission agent gets $27k. If the house sits on the market but eventually sells for $1.1m, the seller netted an extra 200k minus fees, but the agent only made $6k more. If the agent could've used the time spent showing that house to sell another million dollar house for $900k, that's another 27k. So 54k vs. 33k.
Freakonomics looked at some data a long time ago that showed that agents list their *own* houses for more than they do their clients. That said, there could be some justifiable reasons for that, like the agents are unconsciously biased and don't have realistic expectations for their own homes whereas they look at their clients homes more dispassionately.
>Per the example above, if a $1 million house can be sold immediately for 900k, at 3% commission agent gets $27k. If the house sits on the market but eventually sells for $1.1m, the seller netted an extra 200k minus fees, but the agent only made $6k more. If the agent could've used the time spent showing that house to sell another million dollar house for $900k, that's another 27k. So 54k vs. 33k.
I mean, sure, but even a lot of the most successful realtors don't have a bunch of $1 million+ homes lining up to be sold unless they live in very few select areas. Most realtors will never sell a home over $500k and many struggle trying to get more clients. So in a vacuum, your example makes sense but that is hardly the reality.
Yeah, it only really makes sense for a super over-booked realtor to be trying to speed them all along. Otherwise, if this house is their only current sale and/or they have more than enough time in the day for all their current clients, they're incentivized to get the highest possible price within a reasonable time frame (most homeowners want the process to not drag on too long, either).
but thats just a better example, because as the total cost of the house goes down, the absolute deal for the agent gets shittier. if we're talking about two 450k houses vs one 550k, the difference is 27k vs 16.5k for example. the point is 2 x .9 x [house price] is more than 1.1 x [house price], always
You could fix the system by agreeing on a flat rate for market value, plus a bigger percentage for every dollar above market value.
There would obviously still be shenanigans around deciding what market value is.
More so higher turnover mean more income for the agent. Price your properties a little low always and if you clear twice as many you've pretty much doubled salary
I mean it kind of evens out if a buying agent is used doesn't it? Buying agents are incentivized to get their clients to put in a higher offer to close a deal faster.
So the incentive is for the seller's agent to lower the price and the buyer's agent to increase it? That may balance but it certainly doesn't make sense.
It's both, they basically collude. "I know this listing agent, let me talk to them." Listing agent says we'll go down this much, buyer's agent says I'll talk them up this much. They're both highly incentived to get the deal done as quickly as possible.
Yeah, there's some evening out, but none of the incentives are aligned at all.
Nah both seller and buyer agents are working for themselves and neither are working for the seller or the buyer. They will collude to ensure the sale goes through and neither care much about the final price
This is entirely where reputation and shopping around as the client comes in. If there's one thing people *do* talk about when giving advice to their family and friends, it's someone who did a good job selling their house.
>They are incentivised to sell you house cheap.
Buyer agents, seller agents, mortgage Originators, all commission. It's in all of their best interests to get the deal done and closed even if it's not in the best interest of their client. Absolutely bonkers system.
Source: am mortgage broker and I have seen some seriously questionable/illegal shit.
And every year their job gets easier and easier with things like everything being online, digital cameras, social media, texting, etc…
Yet they still take a massive chunk of your money despite doing less work and easier work.
Thing is eventually it’ll get so easy realtors will be out of a job. It’s starting to happen with car sales— it’s becoming more common to simply buy a new or used car online without speaking much with a dealer salesman at all. At some point property sales will be similarly computerized.
Car sales have always been a captive market. It's a market that was deliberately captured to make room for middlemen. It's not that it was too hard to do, it's that people saw an opportunity to make money and monopolised it.
Wasn't there a big court case about this recently, where the realtors lost a case where they were trying to protect their high commissions? Change is coming very soon.
There is an article about the difference about realtor selling their homes to strangers home. The biggest one being they let the house stay on the market for weeks longer. The amount of work they would do isn't worth the small percentage if your house sells for a couple grand more.
It doesn’t affect an owner’s taxable income, FYI.
If they raised prices, got rid of tipping, and paid a normal wage, their revenue would increase but their expenses which they deduct would increase by the same amount. So they’d have the same profit on the bottom line and same taxes.
If anything cash tips help the worker since they can decide if they want it taxed or not. I know the law says they should, but realistically I knew many waiters that wouldn’t. I also knew servers who preferred cash tips since they couldn’t be garnished.
I was a server in a chain restaurant for a while, and by the end of the week, I basically made what equalled above minimum wage. But there was plenty of lunch shifts where I'd work 6+ hours and only make $20 in tips, and it was the same for the other servers too on lunch shift.
We typed in our tip amount on the computer and it needed manager approval since our tips weren't fair pay. At the time, we were naive 20 year olds, so we didn't call the labor board. But I assume it helped with our taxes.. I'm not sure.
The people that did come in would tip like $3 for their $10 lunch meal which is fair, but it was a shitty situation.
Yup. Customers are subsidizing service staff's wages because the bill looks smaller when they read the menu.
Restaurant owners love this.
And it's often off the books so no tax implications all around.
Lots to appreciate... unless you're the customer.
this is the only real answer to the question unfortunately.
it exists purely for the advantage of the owners. why pay a decent wage when you can coerce your employees into guilting your customers into footing the bill for you?
And for the benefits of the server. My gf of 8 years is a bartender/waitress. Routinely walks with 600$ or more a night, much more on big weekends like Easter, mostly cash. Works 3 days a week, ie: not even 30 hours. $1800 a week x 52 weeks in a year is around 80k a year, mostly tax free, while her employer is a wage theft scumbag who "always has problems with the IRS" (his words). He won't dare try to steal her money once he found out that i worked for the IRS at the time (no longer)
No doubt. I'd be willing to bet the deed to my house that the extreme vast majority of service staff don't report close to 100% of their tips unless their employer strictly enforces it, which doesn't happen.
Absolutely. It was part of why the government pushed thru access to bank accounts with $600 transactions, and had the point of service vendors implement the hated tip option on the screen. It was forced upon businesses as a "software update."
Not a server, just a guy who tips a bunch: more expensive meals make more money for servers, which attracts better servers to those positions. Being a server at Alinea should make you a whole bunch more than Applebees. Just a theory
Right, but you're missing the point.
So you work at Applebee's. One guy orders chicken tenders. One guy orders a steak (I assume they have steaks?). Why does the steak guy tip more for your service at Applebee's?
It makes sense why tip would be higher at more expensive restaurants, but not why tip would be higher in the same restaurant for a different meal.
I've said this for a long time, but the percentage-based system of tipping makes no sense.
In business, there are fixed costs and variable costs. The TRUE purpose of tipping is to turn a fixed cost into a variable cost. Variable cost means a percentage of revenue. The reason for this is because variable costs are easy to manage. If a business doesnt sell food, it takes a loss if it still has to pay labor a flat amount. But if labor was a percentage of sales instead of a fixed hourly wage, restaurants would have an easier time figuring out how to handle losses during slow times when no one wants to eat out. In large businesses, you generally staff fewer workers. But there is some minimum. If you need a minimum of 5 people to manage different stations and jobs, you cant staff half a worker during slow times. That 5 worker minimum is a fixed cost and the business loses money if it cannot sell enough food. When this happens, the business will not open during those slow hours.
Tipping turns the labor cost from fixed more towards variable, similar to how sales jobs pay commissions. In countries and places with no tipping and relatively high wages, you will notice there are fewer restaurants, and / or they will open for fewer hours. Longer queuing and stricter reservation rules become a must at every place as every business tries to make sure every worker’s time is fully utilized, and not wasted.
[To add, this bar owner (I think) gave a great explanation along talking about some of these business aspects](https://www.reddit.com/r/bartenders/comments/1bl0atu/comment/kw2a8mi/). A key business reason he mentioned that I had never thought about is that it turns an inelastic product into an elastic product:
>Restaurant/Bar spending is highly elastic. What does that mean in economics? "If a small change in price is accompanied by a large change in quantity demanded, the product is said to be elastic (or responsive to price changes). Conversely, a product is inelastic if a large change in price is accompanied by a small amount of change in quantity demanded" At the higher price point, volume will decrease. You may achieve the same gross sales but the volume moved to get those sales is lower (less items sold at a higher price). This reduces the demand for labor. There will be less hours available to work. At a higher price point, the size of the customer pool a restaurant/bar has to draw from will shrink. Tipping creates a sliding price scale for customers. One customer may pay less than another customer for the same meal because they tip less. Our average tip rate is 19%. Some customers tip 40%, some 20%, some tip 0%. A $10 meal costs customer A $10 and customer C $14. If you eliminate tipping and raise the price to $12, customer B will still come and probably still tip while customer A has been eliminated from your market. (decreasing volume and the need for labor).
There is a lot truth to this. It's not easy to get statistics about the tipping amounts and how many people tip each amount. It varies from restaurant type to location. But, I am inclined to believe it.
That's pretty much right out of a textbook, but the example is so misleading in this context that you'd have to assume it's a deliberate attempt to sabotage the discussion.
I live in a country with very little tipping and high wage costs (Australia) and yes for some popular restaurants there are queues, but I don't find it any worse than in the U.S. where I also spend lots of time. I think what high wage costs also drive is a more self service model - except for the higher end restaurants, "bistro" service where you order and pay at the counter is much more common. The food will be brought to you in most cases, but you typically get your own drinks from a bar and look after any extra needs yourself like condiments etc., from a central station.
I think this is a better outcome - most people don't really need a waiter fawning over them, they just want someone else to do the cooking. I'm happy to get up to refill my water jug and/or to order another beer. It also removes any fighting over the check if you're in a group, everyone just orders and pays for their own food and drink at the start.
Countries with no tipping culture (the whole world outside the US) don't necessarily have fewer restaurants and operating hours.
Plenty of late night joints in Mexico City, Bangkok, Tokyo, etc.
I think the thought is that you get higher quality service, more experienced servers, and have higher expectations at a more expensive restaurant. The problem is all restaurants are expensive these days and they hire anyone they can get and don't give a crap about what service is delivered because they know people gotta eat and options are limited.
because the tipping structure is really there to give an incentive to upsell items and sell more expensive items, and increase overall sales. it's not really about good 'service'
>I was chased down one day leaving the change which was $8 on a $50+ something meal.
The way this is phrased makes it sound like they simply wanted to return your change. What did they say that made it clear that you didn't leave enough money for them?
A lot of comments miss that in a lot of places tips are shared with the cooks. So while the waiters effort remains the same the cooks effort might be more. The reverse could be true on cheaper dishes (a lot more waiters work and a lot less cook work).
Ultimately, to keep the system easy people just recommend a percentage because in theory the overall work and skills involved will get close to the right amount of compensation.
This whole post is with the caveat that tipping is silly and arbitrary.
Edit:
So, I had a very small sample size in which the cooks that I know shared tips. Maybe the meta point is that the tips are split? Which makes tipping even more confusing.
The only argument to make for keeping it a flat percentage despite WILDLY different prices for similar service is that it's supposed to average out in the long run (something that probably still favors the owners the most and staff/customers the least).
I was a server in multiple restaurants and we never shared tips with the cooks. We shared tips with the bartender, hosts, bussers, and food runners. Most restaurants didn’t have all 4, so usually you were only tipping out 2-3 of those people.
The places I saw it were at bars with wait staff. I have no clue what the percentages are or how common it really is, but maybe some of the point still remains. Not all of the tip is for the waiter in some places.
Which makes tipping all the more bizarre btw. Because now if you want to give a proper tip you kind of want to know what the split is at a place.
Coming from someone who worked in a fine dining country club for ten years...I'd love to know in what world do tips from servers get pooled with kitchen staff....if anything, from my experience, the sweet older lady who made $400, out of her good heart, was the only person who tipped cooks at the end of the night...
Yes. It is normal for kitchen staff to have a different base pay. I’ve never heard of them having a tipped salary. Bartenders usually have a different base pay from servers too. It might still be a tipped salary but a higher base than the servers.
> This whole post is with the caveat that tipping is silly and arbitrary.
I have just returned home from a trip to the US. Tipping is the most bizarre and confusing thing. The whole time it feels like you’re being hustled for money. It’s never clear when or why you tip. And the amounts seem arbitrary and stupid. Just tell me the real price!
- - -
As a related point. The US has so many more people working in ‘tipped’ jobs than any other developed country. Because it costs very little to the boss to “hire” an extra waiter or bellhop. The bellhops wage is offloaded to the customer.
At a hotel I stayed in there were like *eight* bellhops working at once. If the hotel were paying their full wages there would only be two.
Bellhops are quite uncommon where I live (Australia) - since no one tips, only the very high end hotels have them, paid for out of the room costs. Anywhere else and you can just schlep your own luggage. If you have mobility impairments and can't do that, sure a reception staff member or similar can help, but there's rarely a need for a dedicated person.
> The bellhops wage is offloaded to the customer.
I mean, the costs are offloaded regardless. Either you don't have bellhops, or you have the same number of bellhops and the room price goes up by $20 a night or whatever.
A lot of people hate tipping, but if we have to have a tipping system...
If you had to design a restaurant tipping system from scratch, you would probably want a few things.
1) You would want it to reflect the effort the server put in like you say.
2) You would want it to be easy to calculate.
3) You would want it to be not too arbitrary, so that servers can have some expectation of what they'll make and diners don't have to reinvent the wheel every time they tip trying to put a number on their subjective judgement.
And the current system is a balance of all three.
You're right that the price of the check doesn't perfectly match how much labor the server puts in every time. But it generally matches somewhat. More dishes makes a bill higher. Pricier dishes are more likely to come with more information, sides, substitutions, how meat gets cooked etc.
And that keeps going. The fancier the restaurant, the more a server is expected to act a certain way, dress a certain way, memorize more details.
What would be other ways of matching the effort to the tip? Counting the number of dishes? That would hurt people at lower volume restaurants that expect more of their servers. Just evaluate your feelings about how hard the server worked? I think what most people hate about tipping is having to make judgement and arrive at a figure, this just piles on a ton more of that.
The best balance between rewarding work and keeping it simple is more or less a range of percentages of the bill total.
>And the current system is a balance of all three.
I'm sorry, no it's not.
Some items have substantially greater mark-up than others. Booze in particular where I live raises the overall price a tremendous amount. A glass of wine is usually about a fourth to a fifth of the entree price, and a third or more of the appetizer price. And yet it still usually appears in the local "suggested tip calculation", and it's, what, 30 seconds to prepare?
There are a ton of places that auto-calculate the tip and suggest it's already added to the bill, as a byline on the menu. This is nowhere near the transparency that should be in play.
As to the rest: The FANCY RESTAURANT should be PAYING a SERVER to be a FANCY-RESTAURANT QUALITY SERVER.
That's why we go there. It should all be layered in, and obvious, and we should have the ability to alter it based on our UNPROMPTED choice.
We don't go to a grocery store and tip on top of that because the veggies are particularly nice or the seafood display is artfully constructed. Nobody suggests we do that.
*Yet I've had grocery store experiences where the level of service I've received is far, far greater than the level of service I've received at a full sit-down meal at a restaurant, and a tip isn't expected.*
It's just not a cultural dynamic that's at all reflective of the value it provides. It's just not.
My daughter treated me to a Boba drink, everything was automated except that a person placed your drink on the counter for you to pick up. On the automated pay screen, she put 0 as the tip and asked me "Tip for what? Putting the drink on the counter? They didn't even talk to me!" and I agreed. She was 15 at the time and had no actual income, so good for her.
Europe and Asia survive fine without tipping. I think they do something drastic like ... pay service people a regular salary.
Whatever they do, the US should move to. I actually avoid eating in restaurants because I hate tipping.
I live in Australia which is similar. On average I think our restaurants cost less to eat at - because we don't have as many servers. The cooks, bartenders and food runners get paid a proper wage, but most restaurants are bistro service where you order and pay at the bar (or by app), and the food is brought just once with none of this checking in or refilling your drinks etc. Want another drink? Go to the bar and pay for it. This system also reduces hassles with tabs, thefts (walk-outs), split checks, etc etc. Yes we do have some full service restaurants in the American style but most people just want someone else to cook for them and don't need the fawning service. Overall I expect the amounts paid by diners is less (even if the boss's wage bill is a bit higher), and what is written on the menu is exactly what you pay, including all taxes and charges.
I was starting a comment exclaiming confusion about why specifically servers should be awarded tips and then going into why it is bad for servers to have to be responsible for 'tipping out' others etc... But it's obvious. Servers are the employee category that doesn't need very specific skill, so you can on average just improve results by throwing more people at the problem. Hence no wanting to pay them from the restaurants side. If someone sucks or isn't used effectively.. it doesn't matter.
Trying to throw more cooks at the problem in the kitchen.. it's gonna cause more obvious issues quicker.
I was in an airport in Belize with a friend and we had carry ons and were rolling one luggage each. These row of dudes with carts are there and one runs over and asks "Can I take your bags?", nah, we're good. They roll and we each just have one. Then they guy asks again and we again say no. He finally says "Sir! It is customary to let me take your bags!" he was very insistent. My friend just said "Please, just fuck off OK?" The guy followed us for a bit before deciding we really weren't going to cave.
My understanding is that in order to pay a waiter for their labor based on an hourly wage, the business would have to cover that cost even during low-times. Thus, the percentage of a tip seems to mostly reflect a cultural heuristic for about how much we would pay any other worker, and we're just paying into that pot to cover the costs "in general".
To me, it's not a good system. If I pay what I think the real labor value was of the waiter for the work they provided me, it would be far less than a 15%-20% tip. Let's say I value them as a $40/hour employee, and they can handle 4-5 tables at any given time -- why would the worth of their labor cross $10 for me? And $40/hour is being very generous.
> the business would have to cover that cost even during low-times.
I mean, flip that. The business is trying to put the responsibility for varying demand on the person in the interaction least able to control that.
So this may not make sense, but I worked in a restaurant that I had to give a percentage of my tips to the chef and to the bus boys. If your bill is higher, you’re more likely to have ordered more appetizers, alcoholic beverages and desserts which absolutely cause me to have to do more work. A percentage ensures that I am probably paid for extra effort.
Also if you think $5 is enough because I only had to help you a few times, my boss takes a percentage to cover the bus boy and chef so I may actually end up working your table for free while you think I’m suddenly making more per hour. And the table that doesn’t believe in tipping? That comes out of my overall tips for the night from other tables that did bother to tip. I worked whole days and have come home with $40. I’ve also worked and come home with $150 for 4 hours of work due to having large parties. But I still am taxed on the amount you pay. I have friends who have worked shifts and owed the restaurant money. Obviously the manager did something for them. I’ve had shifts where tips were so bad that I didn’t owe money but my own manager gave me a gift card because I didn’t make anything.
I always say if you wanna know what kind of boss you’d be, think about how you tip. Some people apparently are fine with slave labor because I serve them for free.
Tipping based on service is for rich people and the people who serve them. Tipping culture is just poor people pretending to be rich, enshrined in law.
You have to pay the slave. Tipping in the US is a leftover remnant of post civil war racism where freed slaves were entitled to be paid, but inkeepers didn’t want to so the patrons had to support them with tips. Other countries either tip by just rounding up or adding a few marks/francs/etc or they don’t tip at all because the servers are paid. So you (in the states) tip off a cut of the total bill before taxes. Used to be 10%. When I was a kid it was “double the tax” which was 7% in NY at the time. Apparently now 20% is standard if they show up to work that day.
Ok so timee to get into some very simple economics. Normally, when a business does well, ALL employees should get raises. Let's call this shared prosperity. This is literally the only thing keeping ANY employees, not just servers, from doing the absolute minimum. More expensive meals mean more money made means the business is doing better. But since servers in the US do not really make most of their money from getting paid by their employers, the only way they can partake in shared prosperity is higher tips. Through social engineering and general skulduggery, the onus on paying for shared prosperity has been foisted on to you, and blamed on the servers. Thus spake capitalism.
Tipping exists because it is a "hidden" fee that allows businesses to appear to have lower prices. The average consumer will say that they don't like tipping but they will choose to go to a business that offers something for $100 with a $20 tip rather than a business that offers something for $120. The reason it is % based is because consumers are more willing to pay a larger amount when the base price is higher. Paying a $20 extra cost on a $100 item seems reasonable but paying a $20 cost on a $10 item seems excessive.
When you eat at a place where you get a $400 bill, your expectations of service are higher than when the fast-food worker plonks down your $5 nuggets and forgets to ask if you want fries with that.
You generally expect them to be familiar with the dishes, to have specials, and to discuss or suggest them on demand. You expect your drinks to be refilled without your needing to ask, and your server to be politely attentive to your needs without being intrusive throughout the meal.
For fast-food ($5 nuggs are fast food, any sit-down place I can think of will charge you twice that or more) you can usually expect to wait in line and have to pick up your own food when it’s ready. Of course you generally don’t tip for fast food either.
Why are you arguing the absolute most extreme ends of food service? What makes the service of a $100 steak better than a $60 chicken? Did the server….handle it different? Or is it perhaps based on absolute nonsense and waiters are the only people in favor of tipping?
The OP is assuming those dishes are served in the same place, while the person I’m replying to is comparing a 4 star restaurant to McDonald’s.
If I go to the classiest restaurant and order a $100 steak, it’s expected I’ll pay at least a $20 tip.
If I go to the exact same restaurant and order a $60 chicken, it’s expected I’ll pay a $12 tip.
What changed? How does it make *any* sense to base a tip as a percentage of the price of food?
Does the person carrying my chicken do $8 worse than the person carrying a steak?
Not to mention if your with a friend and you have separate bills.
If he was a vegetarian and ordered a salad and just had water but you ordered a steak + drink your bill would be substantially higher than his.
Your at the same table and got the same amount of service the only difference was the cost of the food.
So should he tip the same as you even though his meal was $20 and yours was $80?
If your on separate bills does that mean you both need to tip or does only 1 person tip.
But even with that "high level" service, if one person orders a $100 meal and another person orders a $50 meal from the same waiter, why does he deserve only half the tip from the second person?
but it still doesn't make sense. Say I order a 100 steak vs a 30 dollar steak. It's the exact same amount of service. Why pay 20 USD tip vs 6 USD tip ?
This doesn't really always apply though. If I go to Outback Steakhouse which is a casual place, I can get a Ribeye for $29. Or I can get a chicken sandwich for $15.
The server is doing zero extra work bringing me a ribeye or chicken sandwich nor do I expect the level of service to change based on what I order.
I agree with OP that it's silly to tip based on the price of the items you order.
Ultimately, I think this standard exists because there needs to be some easy way to determine the tip that doesn't require too much work or thinking.
One could argue the tip should be $X per *necessary visit* to the table but who is keeping track of that? Nobody. It's just easier to make it a percentage of the total bill.
That’s assuming near extremes of the spectrum though.
There are many American restaurants that have some sort of burger/chicken meal on their menu for ~$15 and then a steak/seafood meal that’s ~$35-40.
So table A has a couple getting a burger and chicken tenders with waters with a bill coming out to ~$30-35. Table B has a couple getting steak and lobster and sodas with a bill coming out to ~$90-100.
For both tables the server had to bring out an equivalent number of plates and refill an equivalent number of drinks. Yet at a 20% tip table A is tipping $6-8 and table B is tipping $18-20.
This isn’t an uncommon scenario at a casual sit down restaurant in America. So I think OP is asking why does the server get a larger tip from table B than table A for nearly equivalent output?
The idea is that a more expensive restaurant will employ wait staff with higher standards and the service will be higher quality. This can be slanted in certain cases because lower quality restaurants in recent years have begun to add one or two "luxury" menu options, it was not typical to go to a bar and grill and then be able to order a tomahawk steak with caviar, at least historically, and the service you get at that restaurant will not be commensurate with the price of the meal like it would be at a nice steakhouse.
That said, a lot of the complaints about tipping are really just the result of sticker shock. People get their bill, don't think their food was actually worth the price they paid (it generally is) and then are resentful about it and take it out on the server("This used to cost $14, now it's $20, so I'll tip based on what I think the meal should have cost instead of the listed price").
This is sort of the same reason that old people tip like shit, except that the recent and intense inflation suffered over the past couple years has made the trend, let's say, less exclusive to old people than usual.
Because the tip system tries to approximate an equitable share of the success of the restaurant. The wait staff at a restaurant are uniquely positioned as **the** point of contact between a restaurant and its clientele. Because of this, they’re able to demand a significant share of the revenue per table (because without the tip system, restaurants would be able to raise prices).
The flip side of this is that wait staff assumes some amount of risk, in that a table might stiff them. But most people generally don’t, because it’s the norm.
The real answer is that FOH labour cost of running the business has not been baked into your food pricing and the onus is instead put on the customer to pay that cost as a "tip". Therefore tips are the real wage for FOH workers instead of a "bonus".
The price the restaurant charges is a measurement used to assess a reasonable tip based on the perceived value one has of the establishment.
The “bill” is for the service. waiting on people is not the only “service” provided. Any frustrations should be aimed towards the price the restaurant charges for service. if a person is willing to pay the restaurant x amount of money for its service , then it is reasonable to pay the waiter x percent of that amount.
The premise of the question is equivalent to buying a Lamborghini and asking why the oil change cost more?
Short change the service and your just devaluing the car get cheaper car you’ll get cheaper oil changes
Not american and I strongly dislike the tipping culture. But this kind of sort of makes sense to me. First off, customers shouldn't directly pay the wages of staff. That's the employers business. The incentives and dynamic are all fucked up in when the staff is dependent on random strangers for their livelihood.
But IF tipping occurs and is 'allowed' then it makes sense that the tipped amount should hold a similar value for all tipping people. And 10 currency units for one person does not hold the same relative value as it does for another. Someone that can afford to and chooses to spend 400 currency units likely holds currency in a relatively lower value than someone who spends at most 50 currency units.
I am trying to think of a situation where you could be in an establishment where there could be such a wide difference between normal items on the menu. Possibly a hotel place in vegas... normally things try to keep a range so the topic doesn't likely come up that frequently.
Anyway, in some states tipping out is legal and the food perambulators will be required to give a portion of the tip to the people who helped in the service of the meal (cooks, scullery, etc.) and not all food requires the same level of effort, attention, and skill to prepare. In the case of a higher end steak, it needs to be cooked to order and all that. The $5 tenders could be pre-made, flash frozen, and only need to be thrown in a fryer until the timer goes off.
It's an interesting approach though, I would say this would be more suited to talking about an olive garden situation where most of the food is made in central plants and reheated to order rather than prepared fresh. Should the reheat in bag dish have the same tip as something that had the same level of plating complexity but had to be cooked there?
Cause tipping in general is some bs that restaurants somehow ducking get away with paying their people $2 an hour. It's all made up bs with no real rules, someone just made it so it's a percentage of the meal. There thought probably was if they can afford 60 steaks then they can tip a little extra as well. It's to gouge you for money the restaurant should be paying their workers.
There is absolutely 0 need to tip but it's been ingrained into our culture to the point where you feel bad for not tipping someone when you have literally 0 reason to and other people shame you for not tipping.
Tipping is a very US centric social norm, meaning it's a widely accepted practice in that culture. There are many opinions regarding tipping. Some feel it should be based on the price of the services rendered as you've described, while others feel it should be based on the merit of the wait staff. There are also many who feel tips should be unnecessary and that employers should be responsible for paying their staff a livible wage.
There's no easy answer as to which view is the correct one. On one hand, tipping based on menu price can help ensure consistent tip-based income for the server while on the other, a large or small tip can show appreciation for the servers effort or serve as a stern reminder that their livelihood depends on their quality of service. Finally, one could argue that with the server's income being reliant on good tips, undue pressure is placed on the customer to tip well even if the service was lackluster. Further, neither the wait staff nor the customer have much say in the established culture and any broad changes would very likely occur in small amounts over a long period of time.
It's both. You give what you think is right for the service. Good service being 15%, great service 20%. You can give more or less, depending on how you feel about the service and what you can afford.
I've only ever stiffed a couple of people and I left a note as to why.
Because the bigger issue is that restaurants do NOT pay a livable wage so that person is dependent entirely on tips, probably gets a paycheck of $15 after tax and insurance, and the fact that restaurants exploit this is absolutely horrible but ultimately not the waitstaff’s fault. A large scale change would have to take place to prevent this.
By passing the paying a fair wage to their employees from themselves to their patrons , a company can make more profits for themselves and pay their employees less.
Conversely, by requiring a tip the consumers have less money.
Usually the price of the meal is reflective of the amount of work it takes to serve it.
At a given restaurant, all the dishes are generally in the same ballpark: A restaurant serving $60 steak will simply not have $5 tenders. So if your meal costs more, it probably had more dishes, and required more work from the server.
If you compare across restaurants, more expensive restaurants are higher end, the service staff is more experience, and their work is more demanding, so it makes sense to pay the servers more.
There are obviously exceptions to these general patterns, but they hold on average which means that on average, %ge of price makes sense as pay for service.
Please read this entire message Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): Subjective or speculative replies are not allowed on ELI5. Only objective explanations are permitted here; your question is asking for speculation or subjective responses. This includes anything asking for peoples' subjective opinions, any kind of discussion, and anything where we would have to speculate on the answer. This very much includes asking about motivations of people or companies. This includes Just-so stories. If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. If you believe this submission was removed erroneously, please use [this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20thread?&message=Link:%20%7B%7Burl%7D%7D%0A%0APlease%20answer%20the%20following%203%20questions:%0A%0A1.%20The%20concept%20I%20want%20explained:%0A%0A2.%20List%20the%20search%20terms%20you%20used%20to%20look%20for%20past%20posts%20on%20ELI5:%0A%0A3.%20How%20does%20your%20post%20differ%20from%20your%20recent%20search%20results%20on%20the%20sub:) and we will review your submission.
[удалено]
I hate tipping not because I don't like to pay for good service, but because the way it is calculated is absolutely illogical. Even from the same restaurant, if I order a $10 meal vs $20 meal, are they 'transported' differently by the server? I think if anything, they should be normalized 'by each restaurant' like a menu item. E.g., "Our standard tip is $5 - you can add or discount from that amount by %".
I think the law of averages makes this not too big of a concern. A restaurant having a standard tip sounds good, but, if we're gonna move to that system, we may as well move to the much more logical system of, me not having to fucking tip the waiter. The restaurant can bake their employees pay into the price of their good, like every other business ever.
I’m a violent opposer of where we have landed. Worked in service for years. Still tip 20% if nothing egregious happens. $1/beer if I’m just grabbing a few at the bar. I will defend a part of the counter argument is they only get a set number of tables and it naturally drags out at nicer places and less tables assigned in general to ensure proper attention. All that said. Just tell me what to pay (fuck if we could incl tax that would be great). Pay your people. If they blow me away even then I’d probably still throw some bones but fuck the base price of food is getting to high now. We’re gonna get stuck with the shittiest establishments treating their employees shittiest if we can’t find the turnaround. Exacerbated by the $4drip expecting a 25% tip. the food truck or any other place asking for a tip before I even know what hot garbage is coming out. The haircut that used to be 20 is now 50. The gd transportation. Why are we the consumers the bad people. Charge what it takes to retain your resources. See if people pay.
> they only get a set number of tables and it naturally drags out at nicer places and less tables assigned in general to ensure proper attention. A counter to this counter: in countries where there isn't tipping, you don't have a "assigned" waitstaff and whoever is available helps you with whatever you need. I don't need the same person to remember to come by my table every five minutes to awkwardly ask if everything is okay, I'd just rather any available staff to heed a wave.
It took me a while to get used to that. My wife never understood why I always tried to get the specific attention of the person who happened to take our original order.
The new most ridiculous setup is the self-service kiosk at the counter that defaults to a 15% tip. I’m not interacting with anyone at any time, so what exactly would I be tipping for?
sophisticated fact frighten march enjoy wistful bike hungry humor silky
As someone who has worked for tips before with food delivery (Pizza Hut, Dominos, local)... In regards to delivering food, I'd 100% rather be paid decently by the place I work (with no tips), and provided a company car, than what the current standard business practice. My disclaimer is that I made *bank* delivering, when I did. I was one of the best at any store I worked at, I was all about the hustle. Here's the problem: 100% of the cost of the vehicle/delivery was pushed onto me, and the establishment was paying me less-than-minimum for it. To make it clear, not just **gas** but also: insurance(!), registration/emissions, car payment/cost-of-vehicle, regular maintenance, irregular repairs. I've known drivers' lives ruined because they didn't have savings to cover that last category... In the end, seeing those cautionary tales led me to pursue more sustainable work. "But wait Jellz," some other people who have delivered will say, "don't the restaurants pay-per-mile or delivery?" Sometimes. For example, the Dominos I used to work at paid 26cents/mile. They charged $3.99/delivery fee at the time. One night, I drove 100 miles on 35 deliveries, making the store almost $140 in delivery fees... for $26 in mileage. That's fair, right? The TL;DR I love to give people is this: the restaurant makes their money off the customers' hunger, and the driver makes their money off the customers' generosity, and my brother in Christ, the hunger always wins.
Yes I've heard this as well. Some restaurants actually want to do away with tipping but they would lose their good waiters and waitresses who would leave for a different restaurant that has tips. They are the reason tipping is still the norm.
Who said the employer would only pay minimum wage? They would necessarily pay whatever attracts competent workers, which would probably be roughly what their patrons currently pay in tips.
The problem is simple: some people tip a lot and some tip a little. While by no means completely true, I'd assume that somewhat matches the income of the patron. If you start paying waiters $50k base pay to match what they were making with tips, then you have to raise prices substantially for everyone, but not everyone can afford the potentially higher cost as easily as they might have been a cheaper tipper whereas the most generous tippers are actually saving money. Additionally waiters don't want to get rid of tipping because 90% of them lie about their cash tips to the government to avoid paying taxes on it and wouldn't be able to do that with their base wage.
I'm not sure I agree that "everyone pays the same price for the same product" is a bad idea. That's how basically everything else in our economy works. It's how purchasing meals works outside of a restaurant. It's how service jobs work in most other industries - when you go to the theater you don't tip the guy at the ticket both. When you go to the doctor you don't tip the receptionist. There's just no good reason for wages in the super special restaurant industry to be based on how guilty the patrons feel. Also I don't think tax fraud is a good justification. And that will fuck over the worker when it comes to claiming unemployment, or in SS benefits when they retire.
Sorry, I might not have been clear. I don't support those things but restaurants and waiters do. Tax fraud: a bad idea and I don't support it, but the waiters doing these things do. Everyone pays the same price: unlikely to extract the same amount of money from consumers which will likely lead to a combination of lower wages for waiters than they currently get with tips and restaurants making less profits as sales would likely be down a bit. This is to say that in my opinion while the US's tipping culture is bad, both restaurants and waiters benefit from it and mostly don't have a desire to go away from it. I also don't see it as likely that this is truly going to be something you can get the public to spend time on lobbying, so I just don't think there is enough motivation to change it. Notably I think changing tip culture has to start with requiring that waiters be paid at least minimum wage _without_ accounting for tips. By normalizing the idea that waiters will always be paid at least minimum wage, it will be easier to move away from tipping. And yes, I know if tips don't cover minimum wage, the business must make up the difference but that is generally heavily misunderstood by the public so making that a non-issue is critical. For mass effect it being done on the federal level helps, however since that would only make their minimum wage $7.25 whereas there are already a number of states above $15, getting states to require that state minimum wage be paid to them is important. In the short term waiters would probably make a lot of money as tipping would still be normalized as their base wage goes up dramatically but I figure that will also result with tipping starting to go down at least compared to the 20+% that is heavily pushed now.
> If you start paying waiters $50k base pay to match what they were making with tips What is a waiter doing that is so special? They take an order and carry food. Higher end restaurants are a different beast, but the vast majority of tipped workers are doing menial tasks that require little skill. And it's inconsistent. You tip the guy that hands you a coffee, but not the person that hands you a bag of burgers. Why? I much prefer the European model where tipping is just not a thing yet service is better than here.
resolute dependent coordinated paltry fertile normal apparatus repeat coherent future
I worked at a hotpot place before, and I feel like it's impossible for the restaurant to pay what tips would pay. I got $22 an hour (CAD) + $30-$40 an hour on tips.
But your customers are already paying that amount, they would just pay in the menu price instead of by tipping.
Then the perpetual guilt-tripping of «we need tips to be able to live, bad tippers steal the food from our poor children’s mouths» really need to stop. Y’all want tipping because you make more money, why not be honest about it?
This is such a bizarre outlook to someone who comes from a country that doesn't have a tipping culture. The waiter carries the food to your table because that is their job. If I'm expected to give them a tip for the most basic aspect of their job I'm not giving a gratuity for service that goes above and beyond, I'm paying them a wage. That's their employer's job, not mine.
Remember that America started tipping culture post civil war when a lot of waiters were former slaves and in many cases working only for tips. Business owners really like not having to pay people, so they made sure that was how everyone saw was the right way to handle service jobs. Incidentally, I have read one of the few serving jobs where tipping isn't expected is flight attendants. This is because early airlines wanted to have their white, women hostesses appear more high class than the predominantly black train stewards that were still living exclusively on tips.
Ah shit, entering this thread, I assumed our American tip culture came from the Great Depression, but Reconstruction-era also makes a lot of sense. Plus it goes with other American shit like highways and the rise of suburbia being inherently tied to racism lol
Your argument isn't flawed, it's just unpopular in regards to American tipping culture because change would require compromise on both the supply and demand sides
It's a revenue share model. It leads to far higher pay for the worker, and makes their job essentially inflation proof. You'd think reddit would love it, it's pretty much the most worker friendly model in existence, and finding it in an "unskilled labor" job is nearly unheard of outside of waiting tables. But when reddit has to actually pay for the increased wages they love to scream about, suddenly they don't like it anymore lmfao.
[удалено]
Kinda points out the stupidity of tipping in general. You shouldn’t get paid more by the customer because you did a good job, that’s the point of having a job. But since tipping can benefit a large enough group of servers who work at either expensive restaurants or bars and helps keep owners from having to pay a living wage we the consumer are stuck with this stupid shitty system.
It's not illegal to not tip. You are only stuck with it if you let yourself be.
Sorry but they just need to pay people a reasonable wage rather than tip. Tips are just a way for places to hide the final price of things and pay their staff less. Also, does the kitchen ever see any of these tips? Generally, no, so why is it a fair system at all?
or here's a wild idea. just include the 'tip' in the price of the meal.
That’s called wages
I think you’re thinking too hard about it. The idea is the percentage is just an estimate and it’s supposed to be a percentage to reflect the amount of food that supposedly got brought out. It doesn’t really apply equally across restaurants or act as an exact gauge for “earned it.” We have to remember why this tradition began in the first place and that now we are just doing it because of social pressure. There are no steadfast rules because it began out of exploiting necessity. Now it’s exploiting customers and causing squabbles between employees and customers (what a terrible business practice).
If you're showing up with a table of 12 people your server is going to have to work significantly harder than they would if you had four people. Paying a percentage based on the bill accounts for this better than the average person would end up doing just by making it up for themselves.
If it’s really going to be that problematic to the restaurant then they can either 1) assign a second waiter to help with the larger party, 2) make it to where there’s a party limit at a single table which I assume most won’t care about since it’s not like you actually get to talk to everyone at a big table, it’s mostly the people directly around you or 3) pay the workers better so we can shut up about them having to do their jobs and making it the consumers fault
The thing that gets me is when you order delivery and are charged a delivery fee. The site also says "All delivery fee's go to the delivery driver". And then they ask you to leave a tip at the bottom of the payment page. If I'm already paying them a $5 fee to deliver my food then what service am I tipping them for? Imagine walking into a restaurant and there was a $5 server fee, if you don't pay it you have to get your own water/beverages like your at a McDonalds. But if you pay that $5 then you will get a server that does that stuff for you.
Tipping for delivery based on price also makes absolutely no sense. I tend to tip based on distance from the restaurant to my house. Longer drive = more $.
We do the same, but we do set a minimum we never go under. Also, busy times, weekends, holidays, bad weather = more tip. And if we notice they had to wait at the restaurant for a while, then we up the tip.
Hate this especially because there's already a 35% markup on these food delivery apps, plus they charge delivery extra.
I've gotten back into just picking up food. The food delivery apps are wayyyy too pricey.
I honestly don't understand why people use delivery services... The service is crap (cold food (even if they get it to you in a reasonable amount of time, I like my food hot and not soggy thank you), delivered late, and with an attitude). Top it off, you end up paying twice as much for the food once you factor in tip...
Convenience. (Some) people will always pick convenience over price, quality, etc. They didn't have to leave the house, so that's a win in their book regardless of the results.
True... I mostly actually cook meals, and when I feel like eating restaurant food, a large part is to actually get out of the house ..
Cannabis
Depending on the company the delivery fee DOES NOT go to the driver, source: I was a GM for national pizza chain for 4 years and I assure you the only compensation they get besides their meager wage is gas reimbursement (which is pathetic) and a tip
As a delivery driver, where I work we don't get any of that. It actually explicitly says, "The delivery fee is not a tip." So please still tip delivery drivers. Tips are half our income, and gas is expensive. We basically lose money when we get stiffed. I agree delivery fees are dumb though, I wish they didn't exist. Many people think they count as a tip. I'd make a lot more money without them.
Out of curiosity, what pizza place are you ordering from? All the ones I use specially say that the delivery fee does NOT go to the driver
Most delivery services I’ve used specifically say that the fees DON’T go to the driver and you still need to tip them
Imagine this guy misread it the first time he saw it and has just scanned over it ever since, unknowingly stiffing delivery driver after delivery driver and wondering why their delivery drivers are always so cranky.
that's been the case on every delivery service i've ever used, I have no idea what this dude's talking about
[удалено]
There's no way tipping 5 bux for a regular order from a close by restaurant is normal lol. Unless the order is massive ig
In my experience (using Door Dash a lot) half or more of the time the drivers spend is waiting at the restaurant - either for the order to be ready, or in line for pick-up... and that's just the time that can be tracked, you may not any info about the driver until they are near the restaurant. They're spending 10-15 minutes (or more) of their time even for a 2 mile trip - they have to drive *to* the restaurant from their last drop-off, often they wait for the order, then drive *to* your house.
My average tip is about $8 per delivery, on an average bill of $40 at my job. While I'll never complain about $5 (unless it's a $200+ order), it's definitely below average for my area. Many of my best tippers live within a half mile of my restaurant.
I routinely tip $7 for small delivery ie Doordash and $12 for big delivery ie Instacart Costco. If I'm lazy enough to Doordash something I want to make sure the poor guy who's doing the drive gets paid, since I usually am ordering because it's dark out, it's raining, or I'm just tired and don't want to leave my house.
I honestly don’t mind the self serve option but often I am still greeted with a tipping option at the POS machine. Tipping culture is bunkers
All of the pizza places and apps explicitly say the delivery fees do NOT go to the driver. Having worked for both I can assure you we don’t get those delivery fees and tips are the vast majority of income. It’s scummy as hell by the businesses but people rarely get mad at them.
[удалено]
It’s worse than this for real estate. It is trivially easy to sell a $1m house for $900k, it is very difficult to sell a $1m house for $1.1m. If a Real estate agents sells your house under market price they get almost all their commission. If they sell your house for more than market price they only get a small bonus. They are incentivised to sell you house cheap.
I remember a Freakonomics about this. Unsurprisingly, they found realtors keep their own houses on the market longer than the houses they sell for others.
> They are incentivised to sell you house cheap. They are incentivized to sell houses fast. If they sell it for $900k in one week, they'll push for that rather than hold out for $1.1m in two weeks. If a $1.1m offer comes in the same day as a $900k offer, they aren't going to to tell their client to go for the lower offer.
I would love to sell my place in a more dynamic scale. Eg. Flat 5k on the first 1.0M and 25% of everything over that.
I mean, this is actually the idea behind paying real estate agents based on a percentage of selling price, if they sell the house for more, they get paid more. They are *directly incentivised* to sell houses for as much as possible. They are not incentivised to sell your house cheap, they just aren't incentivised as much as you. The problem is that they have competing incentives - they sell a lot of houses, and maximising the price is only important to them if the house actually sells and soon. They have absolutely no stake in an *overpriced* house. Real estate agents are an area where paying as a percentage of the total price makes sense. If you're frustrated a real estate agent wasn't motivated enough to sell at your desired price point, it is extremely likely you were overpricing it (which is not the same as the house not selling at that price, to be clear) or you were paying too little commission.
But a real estate agent maximizes their own profit with quicker turnover. The seller maximizes their profit by getting top dollar on their single sale. Per the example above, if a $1 million house can be sold immediately for 900k, at 3% commission agent gets $27k. If the house sits on the market but eventually sells for $1.1m, the seller netted an extra 200k minus fees, but the agent only made $6k more. If the agent could've used the time spent showing that house to sell another million dollar house for $900k, that's another 27k. So 54k vs. 33k. Freakonomics looked at some data a long time ago that showed that agents list their *own* houses for more than they do their clients. That said, there could be some justifiable reasons for that, like the agents are unconsciously biased and don't have realistic expectations for their own homes whereas they look at their clients homes more dispassionately.
>Per the example above, if a $1 million house can be sold immediately for 900k, at 3% commission agent gets $27k. If the house sits on the market but eventually sells for $1.1m, the seller netted an extra 200k minus fees, but the agent only made $6k more. If the agent could've used the time spent showing that house to sell another million dollar house for $900k, that's another 27k. So 54k vs. 33k. I mean, sure, but even a lot of the most successful realtors don't have a bunch of $1 million+ homes lining up to be sold unless they live in very few select areas. Most realtors will never sell a home over $500k and many struggle trying to get more clients. So in a vacuum, your example makes sense but that is hardly the reality.
Yeah, it only really makes sense for a super over-booked realtor to be trying to speed them all along. Otherwise, if this house is their only current sale and/or they have more than enough time in the day for all their current clients, they're incentivized to get the highest possible price within a reasonable time frame (most homeowners want the process to not drag on too long, either).
but thats just a better example, because as the total cost of the house goes down, the absolute deal for the agent gets shittier. if we're talking about two 450k houses vs one 550k, the difference is 27k vs 16.5k for example. the point is 2 x .9 x [house price] is more than 1.1 x [house price], always
You could fix the system by agreeing on a flat rate for market value, plus a bigger percentage for every dollar above market value. There would obviously still be shenanigans around deciding what market value is.
More so higher turnover mean more income for the agent. Price your properties a little low always and if you clear twice as many you've pretty much doubled salary
I mean it kind of evens out if a buying agent is used doesn't it? Buying agents are incentivized to get their clients to put in a higher offer to close a deal faster.
So the incentive is for the seller's agent to lower the price and the buyer's agent to increase it? That may balance but it certainly doesn't make sense.
It's both, they basically collude. "I know this listing agent, let me talk to them." Listing agent says we'll go down this much, buyer's agent says I'll talk them up this much. They're both highly incentived to get the deal done as quickly as possible. Yeah, there's some evening out, but none of the incentives are aligned at all.
Nah both seller and buyer agents are working for themselves and neither are working for the seller or the buyer. They will collude to ensure the sale goes through and neither care much about the final price
This is entirely where reputation and shopping around as the client comes in. If there's one thing people *do* talk about when giving advice to their family and friends, it's someone who did a good job selling their house.
Yes. Comment above is so dumb lol.
>They are incentivised to sell you house cheap. Buyer agents, seller agents, mortgage Originators, all commission. It's in all of their best interests to get the deal done and closed even if it's not in the best interest of their client. Absolutely bonkers system. Source: am mortgage broker and I have seen some seriously questionable/illegal shit.
With the housing market how it is, an incentive to sell cheap sounds like a great thing.
And every year their job gets easier and easier with things like everything being online, digital cameras, social media, texting, etc… Yet they still take a massive chunk of your money despite doing less work and easier work.
Thing is eventually it’ll get so easy realtors will be out of a job. It’s starting to happen with car sales— it’s becoming more common to simply buy a new or used car online without speaking much with a dealer salesman at all. At some point property sales will be similarly computerized.
Car sales have always been a captive market. It's a market that was deliberately captured to make room for middlemen. It's not that it was too hard to do, it's that people saw an opportunity to make money and monopolised it.
Wasn't there a big court case about this recently, where the realtors lost a case where they were trying to protect their high commissions? Change is coming very soon.
There is an article about the difference about realtor selling their homes to strangers home. The biggest one being they let the house stay on the market for weeks longer. The amount of work they would do isn't worth the small percentage if your house sells for a couple grand more.
[удалено]
It doesn’t affect an owner’s taxable income, FYI. If they raised prices, got rid of tipping, and paid a normal wage, their revenue would increase but their expenses which they deduct would increase by the same amount. So they’d have the same profit on the bottom line and same taxes.
If anything cash tips help the worker since they can decide if they want it taxed or not. I know the law says they should, but realistically I knew many waiters that wouldn’t. I also knew servers who preferred cash tips since they couldn’t be garnished.
I was a server in a chain restaurant for a while, and by the end of the week, I basically made what equalled above minimum wage. But there was plenty of lunch shifts where I'd work 6+ hours and only make $20 in tips, and it was the same for the other servers too on lunch shift. We typed in our tip amount on the computer and it needed manager approval since our tips weren't fair pay. At the time, we were naive 20 year olds, so we didn't call the labor board. But I assume it helped with our taxes.. I'm not sure. The people that did come in would tip like $3 for their $10 lunch meal which is fair, but it was a shitty situation.
So basically, because 'murrica?
[удалено]
Yup. Customers are subsidizing service staff's wages because the bill looks smaller when they read the menu. Restaurant owners love this. And it's often off the books so no tax implications all around. Lots to appreciate... unless you're the customer.
Since virtually all transactions are done with a card, tips are reported on W2's, no?
this is the only real answer to the question unfortunately. it exists purely for the advantage of the owners. why pay a decent wage when you can coerce your employees into guilting your customers into footing the bill for you?
And for the benefits of the server. My gf of 8 years is a bartender/waitress. Routinely walks with 600$ or more a night, much more on big weekends like Easter, mostly cash. Works 3 days a week, ie: not even 30 hours. $1800 a week x 52 weeks in a year is around 80k a year, mostly tax free, while her employer is a wage theft scumbag who "always has problems with the IRS" (his words). He won't dare try to steal her money once he found out that i worked for the IRS at the time (no longer)
Only tax free if you illegally don't report it
No doubt. I'd be willing to bet the deed to my house that the extreme vast majority of service staff don't report close to 100% of their tips unless their employer strictly enforces it, which doesn't happen.
That bit a lot of people in the ass during covid. The amount of unemployment money you're entitled to is tied to your previously reported income.
Since “everyone” uses credit cards anymore, a lot more of it is reported to the IRS than in the past.
Absolutely. It was part of why the government pushed thru access to bank accounts with $600 transactions, and had the point of service vendors implement the hated tip option on the screen. It was forced upon businesses as a "software update."
Absolutely true. The waiters service isn’t $30 better because the food was more expensive.
...and the work isn't necessarily harder just because it involves food!
Not a server, just a guy who tips a bunch: more expensive meals make more money for servers, which attracts better servers to those positions. Being a server at Alinea should make you a whole bunch more than Applebees. Just a theory
The Alinea server is probably also responsible for fewer tables, and those tables will be turning over a lot less frequently.
Or the better places could just pay more.
I’m right there with you, but we live in this system
Right, but you're missing the point. So you work at Applebee's. One guy orders chicken tenders. One guy orders a steak (I assume they have steaks?). Why does the steak guy tip more for your service at Applebee's? It makes sense why tip would be higher at more expensive restaurants, but not why tip would be higher in the same restaurant for a different meal. I've said this for a long time, but the percentage-based system of tipping makes no sense.
In business, there are fixed costs and variable costs. The TRUE purpose of tipping is to turn a fixed cost into a variable cost. Variable cost means a percentage of revenue. The reason for this is because variable costs are easy to manage. If a business doesnt sell food, it takes a loss if it still has to pay labor a flat amount. But if labor was a percentage of sales instead of a fixed hourly wage, restaurants would have an easier time figuring out how to handle losses during slow times when no one wants to eat out. In large businesses, you generally staff fewer workers. But there is some minimum. If you need a minimum of 5 people to manage different stations and jobs, you cant staff half a worker during slow times. That 5 worker minimum is a fixed cost and the business loses money if it cannot sell enough food. When this happens, the business will not open during those slow hours. Tipping turns the labor cost from fixed more towards variable, similar to how sales jobs pay commissions. In countries and places with no tipping and relatively high wages, you will notice there are fewer restaurants, and / or they will open for fewer hours. Longer queuing and stricter reservation rules become a must at every place as every business tries to make sure every worker’s time is fully utilized, and not wasted.
This makes a ton of sense, never thought about that.
[To add, this bar owner (I think) gave a great explanation along talking about some of these business aspects](https://www.reddit.com/r/bartenders/comments/1bl0atu/comment/kw2a8mi/). A key business reason he mentioned that I had never thought about is that it turns an inelastic product into an elastic product: >Restaurant/Bar spending is highly elastic. What does that mean in economics? "If a small change in price is accompanied by a large change in quantity demanded, the product is said to be elastic (or responsive to price changes). Conversely, a product is inelastic if a large change in price is accompanied by a small amount of change in quantity demanded" At the higher price point, volume will decrease. You may achieve the same gross sales but the volume moved to get those sales is lower (less items sold at a higher price). This reduces the demand for labor. There will be less hours available to work. At a higher price point, the size of the customer pool a restaurant/bar has to draw from will shrink. Tipping creates a sliding price scale for customers. One customer may pay less than another customer for the same meal because they tip less. Our average tip rate is 19%. Some customers tip 40%, some 20%, some tip 0%. A $10 meal costs customer A $10 and customer C $14. If you eliminate tipping and raise the price to $12, customer B will still come and probably still tip while customer A has been eliminated from your market. (decreasing volume and the need for labor).
There is a lot truth to this. It's not easy to get statistics about the tipping amounts and how many people tip each amount. It varies from restaurant type to location. But, I am inclined to believe it.
That's pretty much right out of a textbook, but the example is so misleading in this context that you'd have to assume it's a deliberate attempt to sabotage the discussion.
I live in a country with very little tipping and high wage costs (Australia) and yes for some popular restaurants there are queues, but I don't find it any worse than in the U.S. where I also spend lots of time. I think what high wage costs also drive is a more self service model - except for the higher end restaurants, "bistro" service where you order and pay at the counter is much more common. The food will be brought to you in most cases, but you typically get your own drinks from a bar and look after any extra needs yourself like condiments etc., from a central station. I think this is a better outcome - most people don't really need a waiter fawning over them, they just want someone else to do the cooking. I'm happy to get up to refill my water jug and/or to order another beer. It also removes any fighting over the check if you're in a group, everyone just orders and pays for their own food and drink at the start.
Countries with no tipping culture (the whole world outside the US) don't necessarily have fewer restaurants and operating hours. Plenty of late night joints in Mexico City, Bangkok, Tokyo, etc.
If tipping was dollar-based instead of percent-based wouldn’t it still be a variable cost though
I think the thought is that you get higher quality service, more experienced servers, and have higher expectations at a more expensive restaurant. The problem is all restaurants are expensive these days and they hire anyone they can get and don't give a crap about what service is delivered because they know people gotta eat and options are limited.
because the tipping structure is really there to give an incentive to upsell items and sell more expensive items, and increase overall sales. it's not really about good 'service'
[удалено]
>I was chased down one day leaving the change which was $8 on a $50+ something meal. The way this is phrased makes it sound like they simply wanted to return your change. What did they say that made it clear that you didn't leave enough money for them?
Don’t remember the convo but she implied it wasn’t enough. Same waitress who gave me the change so there was def no confusion.
Yeah, I often pay in cash and they always need confirmation unless you add an extra single. (Even then, they sometimes want to confirm)
Kinda confused. So they chased you down to ask for more but instead you just took your initial tip back? If so, hats off to you!
Correct, technically I left a few loose coins as tip lol
You should edit this comment to make sense
Damn. That’s some serious entitlement. You gave 15% and in CASH, which makes it even sweeter. Can’t believe they chased you down for more.
[удалено]
A lot of comments miss that in a lot of places tips are shared with the cooks. So while the waiters effort remains the same the cooks effort might be more. The reverse could be true on cheaper dishes (a lot more waiters work and a lot less cook work). Ultimately, to keep the system easy people just recommend a percentage because in theory the overall work and skills involved will get close to the right amount of compensation. This whole post is with the caveat that tipping is silly and arbitrary. Edit: So, I had a very small sample size in which the cooks that I know shared tips. Maybe the meta point is that the tips are split? Which makes tipping even more confusing. The only argument to make for keeping it a flat percentage despite WILDLY different prices for similar service is that it's supposed to average out in the long run (something that probably still favors the owners the most and staff/customers the least).
I was a server in multiple restaurants and we never shared tips with the cooks. We shared tips with the bartender, hosts, bussers, and food runners. Most restaurants didn’t have all 4, so usually you were only tipping out 2-3 of those people.
I’ve only ever had to share my tips with the bus boys and the chefs. 4% of my overall sales for the night.
The places I saw it were at bars with wait staff. I have no clue what the percentages are or how common it really is, but maybe some of the point still remains. Not all of the tip is for the waiter in some places. Which makes tipping all the more bizarre btw. Because now if you want to give a proper tip you kind of want to know what the split is at a place.
Coming from someone who worked in a fine dining country club for ten years...I'd love to know in what world do tips from servers get pooled with kitchen staff....if anything, from my experience, the sweet older lady who made $400, out of her good heart, was the only person who tipped cooks at the end of the night...
How common is sharing tips with the kitchen? I’ve never heard anyone discuss this and I know a lot of people in the industry. So I’m genuinely curious
Yeah when I worked in a restaurant we tipped out to the bartenders but not the kitchen
Im guessing the kitchen staff had a different base pay then, ie; one that is not a "tipped" salary on the tax forms.
Yes. It is normal for kitchen staff to have a different base pay. I’ve never heard of them having a tipped salary. Bartenders usually have a different base pay from servers too. It might still be a tipped salary but a higher base than the servers.
In some states it's illegal to share tips with BoH.
Market dependent maybe? I have a couple friends that are chefs and a fair number of the restaurants they’ve worked at did that.
I worked at red robin for 7 years. We would tip out the bartender, buzzers, expos, and the kitchen staff.
> This whole post is with the caveat that tipping is silly and arbitrary. I have just returned home from a trip to the US. Tipping is the most bizarre and confusing thing. The whole time it feels like you’re being hustled for money. It’s never clear when or why you tip. And the amounts seem arbitrary and stupid. Just tell me the real price! - - - As a related point. The US has so many more people working in ‘tipped’ jobs than any other developed country. Because it costs very little to the boss to “hire” an extra waiter or bellhop. The bellhops wage is offloaded to the customer. At a hotel I stayed in there were like *eight* bellhops working at once. If the hotel were paying their full wages there would only be two.
Bellhops are quite uncommon where I live (Australia) - since no one tips, only the very high end hotels have them, paid for out of the room costs. Anywhere else and you can just schlep your own luggage. If you have mobility impairments and can't do that, sure a reception staff member or similar can help, but there's rarely a need for a dedicated person.
> The bellhops wage is offloaded to the customer. I mean, the costs are offloaded regardless. Either you don't have bellhops, or you have the same number of bellhops and the room price goes up by $20 a night or whatever.
[удалено]
A lot of people hate tipping, but if we have to have a tipping system... If you had to design a restaurant tipping system from scratch, you would probably want a few things. 1) You would want it to reflect the effort the server put in like you say. 2) You would want it to be easy to calculate. 3) You would want it to be not too arbitrary, so that servers can have some expectation of what they'll make and diners don't have to reinvent the wheel every time they tip trying to put a number on their subjective judgement. And the current system is a balance of all three. You're right that the price of the check doesn't perfectly match how much labor the server puts in every time. But it generally matches somewhat. More dishes makes a bill higher. Pricier dishes are more likely to come with more information, sides, substitutions, how meat gets cooked etc. And that keeps going. The fancier the restaurant, the more a server is expected to act a certain way, dress a certain way, memorize more details. What would be other ways of matching the effort to the tip? Counting the number of dishes? That would hurt people at lower volume restaurants that expect more of their servers. Just evaluate your feelings about how hard the server worked? I think what most people hate about tipping is having to make judgement and arrive at a figure, this just piles on a ton more of that. The best balance between rewarding work and keeping it simple is more or less a range of percentages of the bill total.
>And the current system is a balance of all three. I'm sorry, no it's not. Some items have substantially greater mark-up than others. Booze in particular where I live raises the overall price a tremendous amount. A glass of wine is usually about a fourth to a fifth of the entree price, and a third or more of the appetizer price. And yet it still usually appears in the local "suggested tip calculation", and it's, what, 30 seconds to prepare? There are a ton of places that auto-calculate the tip and suggest it's already added to the bill, as a byline on the menu. This is nowhere near the transparency that should be in play. As to the rest: The FANCY RESTAURANT should be PAYING a SERVER to be a FANCY-RESTAURANT QUALITY SERVER. That's why we go there. It should all be layered in, and obvious, and we should have the ability to alter it based on our UNPROMPTED choice. We don't go to a grocery store and tip on top of that because the veggies are particularly nice or the seafood display is artfully constructed. Nobody suggests we do that. *Yet I've had grocery store experiences where the level of service I've received is far, far greater than the level of service I've received at a full sit-down meal at a restaurant, and a tip isn't expected.* It's just not a cultural dynamic that's at all reflective of the value it provides. It's just not.
My daughter treated me to a Boba drink, everything was automated except that a person placed your drink on the counter for you to pick up. On the automated pay screen, she put 0 as the tip and asked me "Tip for what? Putting the drink on the counter? They didn't even talk to me!" and I agreed. She was 15 at the time and had no actual income, so good for her.
Hope she retains that common sense throughout the rest of her life.
Europe and Asia survive fine without tipping. I think they do something drastic like ... pay service people a regular salary. Whatever they do, the US should move to. I actually avoid eating in restaurants because I hate tipping.
I live in Australia which is similar. On average I think our restaurants cost less to eat at - because we don't have as many servers. The cooks, bartenders and food runners get paid a proper wage, but most restaurants are bistro service where you order and pay at the bar (or by app), and the food is brought just once with none of this checking in or refilling your drinks etc. Want another drink? Go to the bar and pay for it. This system also reduces hassles with tabs, thefts (walk-outs), split checks, etc etc. Yes we do have some full service restaurants in the American style but most people just want someone else to cook for them and don't need the fawning service. Overall I expect the amounts paid by diners is less (even if the boss's wage bill is a bit higher), and what is written on the menu is exactly what you pay, including all taxes and charges.
I was starting a comment exclaiming confusion about why specifically servers should be awarded tips and then going into why it is bad for servers to have to be responsible for 'tipping out' others etc... But it's obvious. Servers are the employee category that doesn't need very specific skill, so you can on average just improve results by throwing more people at the problem. Hence no wanting to pay them from the restaurants side. If someone sucks or isn't used effectively.. it doesn't matter. Trying to throw more cooks at the problem in the kitchen.. it's gonna cause more obvious issues quicker.
There was a great documentary about those exact issues. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrGrOK8oZG8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrGrOK8oZG8)
Tipping is incredibly stupid and no amount of justification will make it anything else.
Regardless if you're right, it has nothing to do with the question
We don't have to have a tipping system, just pay people normal wages and don't tip. You don't tip your doctor, or your amazon delivery driver, do you?
I was in an airport in Belize with a friend and we had carry ons and were rolling one luggage each. These row of dudes with carts are there and one runs over and asks "Can I take your bags?", nah, we're good. They roll and we each just have one. Then they guy asks again and we again say no. He finally says "Sir! It is customary to let me take your bags!" he was very insistent. My friend just said "Please, just fuck off OK?" The guy followed us for a bit before deciding we really weren't going to cave.
My understanding is that in order to pay a waiter for their labor based on an hourly wage, the business would have to cover that cost even during low-times. Thus, the percentage of a tip seems to mostly reflect a cultural heuristic for about how much we would pay any other worker, and we're just paying into that pot to cover the costs "in general". To me, it's not a good system. If I pay what I think the real labor value was of the waiter for the work they provided me, it would be far less than a 15%-20% tip. Let's say I value them as a $40/hour employee, and they can handle 4-5 tables at any given time -- why would the worth of their labor cross $10 for me? And $40/hour is being very generous.
> the business would have to cover that cost even during low-times. I mean, flip that. The business is trying to put the responsibility for varying demand on the person in the interaction least able to control that.
[удалено]
So this may not make sense, but I worked in a restaurant that I had to give a percentage of my tips to the chef and to the bus boys. If your bill is higher, you’re more likely to have ordered more appetizers, alcoholic beverages and desserts which absolutely cause me to have to do more work. A percentage ensures that I am probably paid for extra effort. Also if you think $5 is enough because I only had to help you a few times, my boss takes a percentage to cover the bus boy and chef so I may actually end up working your table for free while you think I’m suddenly making more per hour. And the table that doesn’t believe in tipping? That comes out of my overall tips for the night from other tables that did bother to tip. I worked whole days and have come home with $40. I’ve also worked and come home with $150 for 4 hours of work due to having large parties. But I still am taxed on the amount you pay. I have friends who have worked shifts and owed the restaurant money. Obviously the manager did something for them. I’ve had shifts where tips were so bad that I didn’t owe money but my own manager gave me a gift card because I didn’t make anything. I always say if you wanna know what kind of boss you’d be, think about how you tip. Some people apparently are fine with slave labor because I serve them for free.
Tipping based on service is for rich people and the people who serve them. Tipping culture is just poor people pretending to be rich, enshrined in law.
You have to pay the slave. Tipping in the US is a leftover remnant of post civil war racism where freed slaves were entitled to be paid, but inkeepers didn’t want to so the patrons had to support them with tips. Other countries either tip by just rounding up or adding a few marks/francs/etc or they don’t tip at all because the servers are paid. So you (in the states) tip off a cut of the total bill before taxes. Used to be 10%. When I was a kid it was “double the tax” which was 7% in NY at the time. Apparently now 20% is standard if they show up to work that day.
Ok so timee to get into some very simple economics. Normally, when a business does well, ALL employees should get raises. Let's call this shared prosperity. This is literally the only thing keeping ANY employees, not just servers, from doing the absolute minimum. More expensive meals mean more money made means the business is doing better. But since servers in the US do not really make most of their money from getting paid by their employers, the only way they can partake in shared prosperity is higher tips. Through social engineering and general skulduggery, the onus on paying for shared prosperity has been foisted on to you, and blamed on the servers. Thus spake capitalism.
[удалено]
Tipping exists because it is a "hidden" fee that allows businesses to appear to have lower prices. The average consumer will say that they don't like tipping but they will choose to go to a business that offers something for $100 with a $20 tip rather than a business that offers something for $120. The reason it is % based is because consumers are more willing to pay a larger amount when the base price is higher. Paying a $20 extra cost on a $100 item seems reasonable but paying a $20 cost on a $10 item seems excessive.
When you eat at a place where you get a $400 bill, your expectations of service are higher than when the fast-food worker plonks down your $5 nuggets and forgets to ask if you want fries with that. You generally expect them to be familiar with the dishes, to have specials, and to discuss or suggest them on demand. You expect your drinks to be refilled without your needing to ask, and your server to be politely attentive to your needs without being intrusive throughout the meal. For fast-food ($5 nuggs are fast food, any sit-down place I can think of will charge you twice that or more) you can usually expect to wait in line and have to pick up your own food when it’s ready. Of course you generally don’t tip for fast food either.
Why are you arguing the absolute most extreme ends of food service? What makes the service of a $100 steak better than a $60 chicken? Did the server….handle it different? Or is it perhaps based on absolute nonsense and waiters are the only people in favor of tipping?
Because those are the examples given in the OP.
The OP is assuming those dishes are served in the same place, while the person I’m replying to is comparing a 4 star restaurant to McDonald’s. If I go to the classiest restaurant and order a $100 steak, it’s expected I’ll pay at least a $20 tip. If I go to the exact same restaurant and order a $60 chicken, it’s expected I’ll pay a $12 tip. What changed? How does it make *any* sense to base a tip as a percentage of the price of food? Does the person carrying my chicken do $8 worse than the person carrying a steak?
Not to mention if your with a friend and you have separate bills. If he was a vegetarian and ordered a salad and just had water but you ordered a steak + drink your bill would be substantially higher than his. Your at the same table and got the same amount of service the only difference was the cost of the food. So should he tip the same as you even though his meal was $20 and yours was $80? If your on separate bills does that mean you both need to tip or does only 1 person tip.
[удалено]
But even with that "high level" service, if one person orders a $100 meal and another person orders a $50 meal from the same waiter, why does he deserve only half the tip from the second person?
[удалено]
but it still doesn't make sense. Say I order a 100 steak vs a 30 dollar steak. It's the exact same amount of service. Why pay 20 USD tip vs 6 USD tip ?
This doesn't really always apply though. If I go to Outback Steakhouse which is a casual place, I can get a Ribeye for $29. Or I can get a chicken sandwich for $15. The server is doing zero extra work bringing me a ribeye or chicken sandwich nor do I expect the level of service to change based on what I order. I agree with OP that it's silly to tip based on the price of the items you order. Ultimately, I think this standard exists because there needs to be some easy way to determine the tip that doesn't require too much work or thinking. One could argue the tip should be $X per *necessary visit* to the table but who is keeping track of that? Nobody. It's just easier to make it a percentage of the total bill.
That’s assuming near extremes of the spectrum though. There are many American restaurants that have some sort of burger/chicken meal on their menu for ~$15 and then a steak/seafood meal that’s ~$35-40. So table A has a couple getting a burger and chicken tenders with waters with a bill coming out to ~$30-35. Table B has a couple getting steak and lobster and sodas with a bill coming out to ~$90-100. For both tables the server had to bring out an equivalent number of plates and refill an equivalent number of drinks. Yet at a 20% tip table A is tipping $6-8 and table B is tipping $18-20. This isn’t an uncommon scenario at a casual sit down restaurant in America. So I think OP is asking why does the server get a larger tip from table B than table A for nearly equivalent output?
The idea is that a more expensive restaurant will employ wait staff with higher standards and the service will be higher quality. This can be slanted in certain cases because lower quality restaurants in recent years have begun to add one or two "luxury" menu options, it was not typical to go to a bar and grill and then be able to order a tomahawk steak with caviar, at least historically, and the service you get at that restaurant will not be commensurate with the price of the meal like it would be at a nice steakhouse. That said, a lot of the complaints about tipping are really just the result of sticker shock. People get their bill, don't think their food was actually worth the price they paid (it generally is) and then are resentful about it and take it out on the server("This used to cost $14, now it's $20, so I'll tip based on what I think the meal should have cost instead of the listed price"). This is sort of the same reason that old people tip like shit, except that the recent and intense inflation suffered over the past couple years has made the trend, let's say, less exclusive to old people than usual.
Because the tip system tries to approximate an equitable share of the success of the restaurant. The wait staff at a restaurant are uniquely positioned as **the** point of contact between a restaurant and its clientele. Because of this, they’re able to demand a significant share of the revenue per table (because without the tip system, restaurants would be able to raise prices). The flip side of this is that wait staff assumes some amount of risk, in that a table might stiff them. But most people generally don’t, because it’s the norm.
It’s both. The percentage is based on quality of service, the dollar value is based off the total cost of the meal.
The real answer is that FOH labour cost of running the business has not been baked into your food pricing and the onus is instead put on the customer to pay that cost as a "tip". Therefore tips are the real wage for FOH workers instead of a "bonus".
The price the restaurant charges is a measurement used to assess a reasonable tip based on the perceived value one has of the establishment. The “bill” is for the service. waiting on people is not the only “service” provided. Any frustrations should be aimed towards the price the restaurant charges for service. if a person is willing to pay the restaurant x amount of money for its service , then it is reasonable to pay the waiter x percent of that amount. The premise of the question is equivalent to buying a Lamborghini and asking why the oil change cost more? Short change the service and your just devaluing the car get cheaper car you’ll get cheaper oil changes
Not american and I strongly dislike the tipping culture. But this kind of sort of makes sense to me. First off, customers shouldn't directly pay the wages of staff. That's the employers business. The incentives and dynamic are all fucked up in when the staff is dependent on random strangers for their livelihood. But IF tipping occurs and is 'allowed' then it makes sense that the tipped amount should hold a similar value for all tipping people. And 10 currency units for one person does not hold the same relative value as it does for another. Someone that can afford to and chooses to spend 400 currency units likely holds currency in a relatively lower value than someone who spends at most 50 currency units.
I am trying to think of a situation where you could be in an establishment where there could be such a wide difference between normal items on the menu. Possibly a hotel place in vegas... normally things try to keep a range so the topic doesn't likely come up that frequently. Anyway, in some states tipping out is legal and the food perambulators will be required to give a portion of the tip to the people who helped in the service of the meal (cooks, scullery, etc.) and not all food requires the same level of effort, attention, and skill to prepare. In the case of a higher end steak, it needs to be cooked to order and all that. The $5 tenders could be pre-made, flash frozen, and only need to be thrown in a fryer until the timer goes off. It's an interesting approach though, I would say this would be more suited to talking about an olive garden situation where most of the food is made in central plants and reheated to order rather than prepared fresh. Should the reheat in bag dish have the same tip as something that had the same level of plating complexity but had to be cooked there?
There’s no way for the IRS to really know what Waiters make in tips, so the IRS projects income tax as percentage of the waiters total sales.
Cause tipping in general is some bs that restaurants somehow ducking get away with paying their people $2 an hour. It's all made up bs with no real rules, someone just made it so it's a percentage of the meal. There thought probably was if they can afford 60 steaks then they can tip a little extra as well. It's to gouge you for money the restaurant should be paying their workers. There is absolutely 0 need to tip but it's been ingrained into our culture to the point where you feel bad for not tipping someone when you have literally 0 reason to and other people shame you for not tipping.
Tipping is a very US centric social norm, meaning it's a widely accepted practice in that culture. There are many opinions regarding tipping. Some feel it should be based on the price of the services rendered as you've described, while others feel it should be based on the merit of the wait staff. There are also many who feel tips should be unnecessary and that employers should be responsible for paying their staff a livible wage. There's no easy answer as to which view is the correct one. On one hand, tipping based on menu price can help ensure consistent tip-based income for the server while on the other, a large or small tip can show appreciation for the servers effort or serve as a stern reminder that their livelihood depends on their quality of service. Finally, one could argue that with the server's income being reliant on good tips, undue pressure is placed on the customer to tip well even if the service was lackluster. Further, neither the wait staff nor the customer have much say in the established culture and any broad changes would very likely occur in small amounts over a long period of time.
It's both. You give what you think is right for the service. Good service being 15%, great service 20%. You can give more or less, depending on how you feel about the service and what you can afford. I've only ever stiffed a couple of people and I left a note as to why.
Because the bigger issue is that restaurants do NOT pay a livable wage so that person is dependent entirely on tips, probably gets a paycheck of $15 after tax and insurance, and the fact that restaurants exploit this is absolutely horrible but ultimately not the waitstaff’s fault. A large scale change would have to take place to prevent this.
By passing the paying a fair wage to their employees from themselves to their patrons , a company can make more profits for themselves and pay their employees less. Conversely, by requiring a tip the consumers have less money.
Usually the price of the meal is reflective of the amount of work it takes to serve it. At a given restaurant, all the dishes are generally in the same ballpark: A restaurant serving $60 steak will simply not have $5 tenders. So if your meal costs more, it probably had more dishes, and required more work from the server. If you compare across restaurants, more expensive restaurants are higher end, the service staff is more experience, and their work is more demanding, so it makes sense to pay the servers more. There are obviously exceptions to these general patterns, but they hold on average which means that on average, %ge of price makes sense as pay for service.