Tips aren’t included in the meal prices over here (Wales), our servers just get paid actual wages for the actual job that they’re doing.
Tips included in the price of the meal? You mean the meal being the actual price instead of the tips being part of the payment for the meal?
European here. Tipping is not already included in the price of the meal. Living wage is included in the price of the meal.
Tips is completely voluntary, if you think the service was excellent then you really just round up to the nearest nice round number (something like 22.85 becomes 25)
My guy/gal/pal.
We do things differently in different parts of Europe.
You’re right, I made the same mistake as OP. There is no “European system of tipping”.
Pittsburgh has the slang term “Yinz” which is used like “y’all” and I’ve taken to using the singular “yin” for a gender neutral replacement for “guy” in the phrase “my guy”, because “my yin” still carries that condescending tone that’s vital (to me, anyways). Not telling you what to say or anything just fun to come across some grappling with the same language problem
Well, a lot of restaurants add a few percent tip to large parties in my experience (and some try to start that shit for tables of 4).
Tipping is not already included in the price of the meal. Living wage is included in the price of the meal.
That is the tip. In the US, “tipped” labor often has a reduced minimum wage, under the expectation that they make the difference up in tips.
In the US, if you are never going to return to an establishment, why tip?
Because you care about other people?
Why should I when their employers don’t?
Because they’re a part of the society you rely on and they are quite literally serving you. I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about people, regardless of whether others care about them
So tipping is for charity? Why should the wait staff get priority over the Tibetan koala sanctuary (or any other charity of your choice)?
There are many more people in the world who deserve greater care than 1st world plate carriers.
If I were taking advantage of their services, I would tip them too. As I’m benefiting from a first-world plate carrier’s service, I’ll tip them. Participating in a society by only doing things that help others when you might suffer consequences (via poor service on a return visit) is poor manners at the very least.
I don’t think this conversation is going to be very productive (at least on my end), so I’ll cut it off here. Have a good one.
Yup, something like $2.50/hr, when federal minimum wage is ~$7.50. If a server doesn’t make minimum wage, the restaurant is required to step them up.
It’s a stupid system IMO, because not leaving a tip is a giant slap in the face, when it really should just mean “you did just okay.” If the service is really that bad, I will complain and expect a comp or something on the bill, so the bill should reflect “good enough” service. I’d actually like to pay tips if it actually meant “fantastic service,” like putting up with my screaming children, convincing the cook to make something off-menu, or still providing good service when we’re not spending much (we don’t drink, and that’s like 50% of the bill). I’d prefer to tip based on the service, not on the size of the bill.
Oh, and if we had such a system, not taxing tips would make a ton of sense since it’s pretty literally a gift.
American here. I understood most of what you said, except for the phrase “living wage”. Could you explain this to me? I’ve never heard of it before.
Livable wage, is that a better term for it?
Cuz noone else pointed it out to you, the comment you responded to was sarcastic. It wasnt a language barrier thing.
Ah. I thought I had used the wrong term.
Nah, all we have are poverty wages and billionaires here.
Oh man how I wish to tell you all about Belgium’s healthindex.
i you mean it, tip 10-15% of the bill! (often the “living wage” is still precarious.)
To add to that I’d say there’s no drama attached to not leaving a tip.
Totally, waiters don’t expect a tip at all. So if it’s given, it’s appreciated even more.
But that means if I don’t tip they’ll think I thought the service wasn’t excellent :(
In the US, sure. But in Europe, a tip isn’t expected, so any tip you give means “better than average service.” As in, what tips should’ve been all along.
I have no problem giving tips, I have a problem with tips being expected.
someone once told me tips where invented to skip the queue at the bar… and apparenty its also some witty acronym for that as well (the brits supposedly invented the concept and they famously like to play with their words)
edit: “To Insure Promptness”, but apparently that’s just a backronym that someone made later… damn, i enjoyed that factoid, never should’ve checked it xD
Ensure would be the right word here, but tep doesn’t sound as nice
haha now that you say it… maybe i didn’t question it cos it involved money to ensure xD
Just say it with a New Zealand accent
Saved.
There’s literally no profit? Like aside from already running a successful restaurant (hard), doing this will earn the business owner no extra income.
It is still based af because then the wait staff gets paid a lot more
increase prices
people have to pay more money
How has no one thought of this
What’s with the OP image? Seems to invite contempt, which corrodes the legitimacy of the message? I’m saddened by the decision-making ability of most artists these days.
Fuck off thats my William
does he top
He has a kid so, yes.
Tipping culture should die.
I’d rather have meals on the menu be what I pay. Include tax, service fees, and other garbage fees.
I went to Japanese restaurant in NYC. They took my card and they returned it. I asked about the tip. They said it was all included. Fucking dream.
There is a korean place I love in a city in a neighboring state. Worth driving over an hour to get that sweet sweet meal with tax and tip included in the menu price
Waiters are against it as they may get way more than if they were paid by the owner. Also they automatically get raises when menu prices increases.
What blows my mind is that American do tip everywhere and also give cash to some workers at the end of the year (mail man, garbage man,… Etc).
Waiters are against it as they get way more than if they were paid by the owner.
They’re not against it, and they don’t.
Source: was waiter for a decade
If you are paid $15/h that is 20% of $75. Don’t you think that the clients you will serve will pay way more than that during an hour?
See, I don’t need to think hypothetically. I lived it. This “you’ll akshually make more money this way” is the shit owners spout so they don’t have to pay you. Self-serving prop to feed those who don’t know better, simply and completely untrue.
I used to love looking at my negative dollar paychecks showing my paltry 2.13 didn’t even cover the fuggen taxes on my tips while the manager espoused that falsehood in the mandatory monthly meetings
Sadly, though, there are a lot of servers who do buy the lie… Doesn’t make any sense to me but I’ve seen plenty argue quite vehemently against ending tips
Yeah… You’ll find those types in every industry really, thoughtlessly accepting boss-mans self-serving lies… like if you’ve been working any length of time you see they’ll step over your corpse for a nickel but they are paying me less… for my benefit? This is for me? Maybe if it has ever seemed like any of my bosses cared that i was a human being with needs, but naw. Maybe i’m the weird one. Maybe im too prideful. Maybe im just untrusting in general . But im not wrong here, as a rule. Why would anyone believe they have our interests at heart when we live the way they treat us every day?
Answer? Lots n lots of people.
You must have been paid very well as a waiter to do better than tips.
If youre interested, id be happy to detail the realtities of waiting tables. Here’s a big one non-waiters don’t always know: all your tips are claimed these days. Your gross tips are taxed, after which your tips are split (either required tip-out % or full tip pooling) between the other staff.
Yes I am interested in the details.
Ive written a couple other responses itt, now idunno where to start. is there anything in particular you’d like to ask? :)
I have never worked a full service restaurant but I was at a huge pizza chain for 8 years, 6 as general manager. We only had the drivers report credit card tips and cash was left alone. They also didn’t tip out the kitchen. What has changed to make cash tips reported? Couldn’t you just lie about the amount?
When I moved cities I got a delivery job with a different company. It was fantastic. So much less volume, less stress, and the other drivers wanted to just chill and smoke weed so I would take most of the orders. A few times I broke $300 in tips on a 12+ hour shift if someone called off. Good money if you have a reliable car and put money back for when it inevitably needs repairs.
We only had the drivers report credit card tips and cash was left alone
Where i worked mgmt claimed the irs would come after them and us if we didn’t claim our cash tips. I don’t know if that is true though since mgmt would come have a talk with you if your cash tips claimed were less than 10%. Even back then cash was such a small percentage of my daily sales that i didn’t really care bout it.
In only 10 years of experience i got to see the business change for the worse.
My first waiting job (at red lob in '97) was so so different from the last one i had in '10. In '97 there were no mandatory tip-outs. When i came back to the business in '04 i was shocked that i had to tip the bartender, the busser. I have since witnessed the restaurant business getting only worse. Expo/host tipouts, full pooling, you name it. One time i went to a restaurant where they shifted staff between front and back of house so everyone got 2.13/hr. Its only gotten more dire since i got out.
I don’t have personal experience with delivery but there is a guy i know who works for himself delivering wood. He would often get tipped even so, for doing a great job or placing the bundles exactly where the customer wanted. I’m just guessing but its kinda likely you’d have gotten those sweet tips even if your boss had paid you well.
One time i went to a restaurant where they shifted staff between front and back of house so everyone got 2.13/hr.
That is so stupid and greedy. Straight bullshit.
Thia is where you should name and praise the restaurant
All hail Kermit, the Japanese restaurant
Sugarfish. They have to two in NYC. I’ve been to both.
Not being an American the whole idea of not including tax in the stated price just seems so alien. You expect me to work out what 12.5% of my bill is on the fly as I’m shopping? Fuck you, that’s your job. You are the one actually paying the tax to the government, you work it out
We generally tip 15% or 20%, depending on quality of service, 10% if it’s bad but not atrocious. And that’s pretty easy:
- 10% - just move the decimal place once
- 20% - move the decimal place once and double
- 15% - in the middle of the first two (or move decimal place once, cut in half, and add that to the 10% figure)
You are the one actually paying the tax to the government, you work it out
Also they would only have to do it once per item, shoppers have to do it every time!
Also “They took my card”. That is apparently an American thing.
Hell we still sign a receipt an we only just got them chips recently
Do you guys still do the hilarious chip & sign thing or have you finally switched to using a PIN?
Yes, the former. This country mannnn
Funny thing, we didn’t do chip and pin because the credit card companies thought we were too stupid to figure it out, in spite of the fact that we already used pins for debit cards… We now do have chip and pin, but only for bank/debit cards
We just do chip, no sign unless it’s over some threshold (must be pretty high since I’ve spent nearly $1k at a single Costco trip). I’ve never used a PIN on a credit card, and I haven’t needed so sign anything in years unless it’s a contract of sorts.
You think that’s hilarious? There are a lot of places in the world that still do a manual shhk-shhk of a card only a few years ago. Now that most cards don’t have raised digits, they’ll write it down. If they even take a card.
Places where the Internet goes down if it rains and there is no mobile service. Imagine the horror.
The other side of the coin - paying with debit (which has a pin) is stupid in the US. Unless you can’t control your spending, credit card is the way to go for every legal purchase you don’t mind being tied to you forever. CCs have far superior consumer protection than the law.
Not only that but many of them give you cash back, so if you never carry a balance (and therefore never pay interest), and don’t use it wherever they charge a credit card service fee, it’s basically a free discount almost everywhere.
In Canada, they have the wireless chip readers everywhere. It was nice since a large chunk of stolen credit cards are when employees scan it before charging it.
Some places in the USA is starting to do the same thing. But yes, the US is way behind.
They have had wireless chip readers for years, but many restaurants still take your card anyway. Some places bring the payment device to you, which is nice, and some have it there always so you can see exactly what’s on the bill (sometimes you order on it too).
But taking the card is a cultural thing, not a tech thing. Even back before wireless readers were a thing, they still had portable payment terminals and could have you swipe there or have you pay up front on the way out. It’s not an issue at all.
They took my card and they returned it
Welcome to 2000 ? I cant remember the last time i carried a card, wtf.
I have 1 credit card on my phone. I carry 1 debit card, my driver’s license, and about 4 other credit cards with me.
I really don’t like the idea of losing my phone and my only way of paying for things at the same time. At least if I lose my phone, I can still pay for stuff. If I lose my wallet, I can still use my phone to pay for stuff or to call.
I have a physical copy of my car insurance and I also have it on my phone.
And then no one goes because it’s too expensive. People are super, super price sensitive when it comes to food and restaurants go into a death spiral very quickly when business drops off.
These places typically tell you that’s the deal, and have the servers tell you that too
OOP jokes, but I’ve went to one or two restaurants that tried to do that in the past. I deducted the pre-included tip from the optional tip, and then never went to those restaurants again
Yeah, fuck those restaurants for paying their workers a living wage! My wallet comes first!
for the cognitively impaired
/s
This has big “ill pay $20 if it has free shipping, but won’t pay $15 + $5 shipping” energy.
Id rather buy food from a restaurant that doesn’t need tipping and is more expensive because they pay their workers fair wage instead of a place where the workers feel like they have to do the food service equivalent of pan handling on the side of the street.
They get paid the same. One is less dehumanizing.
Leaving your wage up to a fickle customer is hell. Getting paid less because the cooks accidentally overcooked the customers steak so they felt like they werent “treated well” or some bs is ridiculous.
(The bottom half of this rant isnt aimed at you, but at tipping in general)
You both said the same thing. If tip is included in the price, then there is no need to tip additionally.
You misunderstand. I’m willing - excited, even - to have restaurants that charge more upfront. I’m not willing to pay double the expected tip just because the restaurant hoped to hide additional costs in the bill and hoped that the payer wouldn’t see it. In case my original comment was not clear enough, that was what they tried doing. 15% gratuity tacked on in small letters at the end of the bill, and this charge was never mentioned at any point, and there was additional space to add tip (of course, with the recommended option being 15% after the 15% gratuity). The sum of the pre-included tip and the tip that I gave is equivalent to tip that I would have given had restaurant not tried this kind of shady bullshit. So I fail to see how I’ve done the workers of the restaurant any wrong.
I choose not to revisit that restaurant for their shady business practices, not because I was unwilling to pay a mandatory tip. Given the original post, I figured that that was clear that that was what I had meant. Clearly I was mistaken.
wouldn’t this mean less profit? unless you steal all the tips
Yup, that’s the joke. And it happens more than you likely think.
Aw yeah, this is big brain time
The tipping culture is very rooted in Americans. I was at restaurant in Europe and there was a customer (certainly American). He ate during 30 minutes or less, the waiter was nice but he wasn’t doing it for tips and the customer only saw him when he ordered the food and at payment. The prices are high end.
When he paid he was surprised that there was no tipping options (unfortunately we started seeing them in some European countries) and asked him to pay another 10€ as a tip.
In Spain, a server was nice to us, and even though I know tipping isn’t necessary, I gave extra. The server returned the money and gave us tips of how not to get pick pocketed. I guess they think tippers are easily scammed.
I forgot the name of the restaurant though. We sat in the bar and we ordered a bunch of small dishes, like open sandwiches. It was really nice.
