In at least the west coast states, tipped workers do not make a lower wage.
I’m not aware of any successful restaurants in the U.S. who have higher prices eliminating tipping and pay their staff a salary. Every instance I’ve seen of this fails.
Servers make more money under a tipping culture over a set wage. They’d rather have tipping.
I’m not defending tipping as the way it should be, only that this is the way it is. Any one coming over to the US and not tipping to “make a statement” isn’t hurting the restaurants, they’re hurting the workers. And while we rightly expect US tourists to respect the customs of countries to which they travel, we should also expect the same of tourists to the US, at least those customs that affect the workers.
These tourists will “make a statement” for these couple of weeks, giving business/money to the restaurants but none to the staff, then leave and nothing will have changed except the bank account balances of the staff. If they wanted to make a statement, they’d seek out restaurants which already more closely aligned with their position.
I’m not aware of any successful restaurants in the U.S. who have higher prices eliminating tipping and pay their staff a salary. Every instance I’ve seen of this fails.
Of course. Practically every other restaurant in USA is charging much lower prices with their much lower wages.
Remove that from the equation (make them all pay actual human wages for people so that they can live in houses and so forth), and no restaurant in USA can do that. Problem solved.
Somehow, restaurants ALL OVER THE EARTH can stay open without tipping.
The only way it’ll work is making tip culture illegal.
Raising minimum wage and undoing the underpaid tippers law.
There’s a special law that allows restaurants to pay something like $2/hr and expect them to get tips. Sure there is a clause for owners to cover the rest to match minimum wage but that’s still BS.
Again. Tip culture won’t go away until it’s made to by law.
It started out at bribery for better service at restaurants damnit. Then somehow got morphed into a law to allow owners to pay thier staff less. What. The. Fuck. Capitalism.
What’s worse. Carry out places all have tip prompts. A tip for what? Putting my donut in a bag? That’s literally your only job.
I never tip anywhere unless I sit down at a place to eat and actually recieve a restaurant experience. Someone cooks a meal and a waiter checks in on me.
Call me cheap or an asshole but I’m not tipping at any takeout spot.
I too wish we lived in that reality in the US, but we don’t. Any more than we use the metric system or have universal healthcare. Maybe one day.
But today, ask anyone in a tipped position if they’d rather work in a restaurant and get paid a flat “livable” wage and they’d say no. So if they don’t want the system to change and obviously the restaurant owners don’t either, you can’t really advocate for the system to change saying it’s on their behalf.
I’d gladly swap if I got an actually livable wage.
Serving is far from the worst thing i’ve done for $20/hr. The problem is that ‘eliminating tipping’ means i’d make $7-12 per hour, which wouldn’t even pay rent.
There are quite a few restaurants and breweries around me that pay their staff a living wage and dont have any tips. You can tip if you want but they specifically have signs up saying you dont have to.
And they all seem to be doing great - theyre pricey but not holy shit expensive.
It depends which servers and at what restaurant or bar or place youre working. Not all of them make more on tips, and that always fluctuates.
Also having benefits and vacation time makes a huge difference. The places near me Im speaking of all give their servers and cooks and etc multiple weeks paid vacation and full benefits.
I know this because im friends with a lot of the bar staff and waiters at these restaurants/bars/breweries and I talk to them when im there.
I agree that this is hurting the workers, but what youre suggesting also just keeps the status quo the same and changes nothing. The entire system needs to be torn up, and that requires everyone in this country demanding better.
Perhaps, but that’s such a high societal hurdle that I don’t see happening any time soon. I like the idea of that, but it’s tempered with the realities of the present.
I’d be interested in knowing which establishments you’re speaking of. I know they exist, but they (in my experience) hardly ever last that long. I’m a restaurant consultant by trade, and have about 75 restaurant clients. I’m in California, a state that (thankfully) does not allow for paying less than the state minimum wage for tipped position, and can tell you that it’s now the norm in California for labor cost to exceed 40% (yes, even in tipped establishments) of sales, and while that’s good for the income of the staff, there’s basically nothing left on the bottom line. Labor cost is high, costs of goods are high, rent is high. Anyone considering opening a restaurant would almost certainly be better off putting money into a CD; no risk and almost guaranteed to return more on your money.
Traditionally, 30% labor, 30% costs of goods, 30% overhead (including rent) has been a rough guideline. That returns (in the best of cases) 10% to the owner. You open a restaurant with $1 million in sales, you get $100,000. If your labor it at 40%, there’s nothing left and thus no reason to open in the first place. That there still are places trying is amazing.
Again, being in California I get a skewed look at things. Skewed because benefits for employees is already required and in many cases paid time off too. $17/hr plus tips isn’t a lot, but it’s as livable as things get living in CA.
The harsh reality is that while in many states the tip credit allows restaurant owners to offload the cost directly to consumers, in more progressive states like California or Washington state, labor is close to pricing themselves out of the market.
And again, thats literally how everyone keeps the status quo, by saying well this is the reality right now it will be really hard to change it. You gotta start somewhere and do something
Im in MA and there are places all over like deadhorse Hill, armsby, wooden bar, fox farm, jewel box, novare res, Maine beer company, treehouse, etc
Your choice of establishments do not disprove my point. Most are breweries, which don’t have the typical sit-down type restaurant experience in which a tipped position is most common/expected. But, nonetheless, I looked at each one.
Deadhorse Hill. Eschews voluntary tipping for a set 20% service charge. This is just tipping with another name.
Armsy Abbey. No mention of tipping policy on their website or menu. Perhaps they do in person.
Wooden Bar. No mention of tipping policy on their website or menu. Perhaps they do in person.
Fox Farm. Does not have food.
Jewel Box. Permanently closed.
Maine Beer Company. Does not specifically call out tipping policy, but notes “All contributions made above and beyond your final check will be donated to nonprofits,” suggesting that tipping is not expected. That’s pretty cool. Also appears to have counter, not sit down, service, and a very limited menu.
Novare Res. No mention of tipping policy on their website or menu. Perhaps they do in person.
Treehouse. No mention of tipping policy on their website or menu. Perhaps they do in person.
By sit down, I mean there’s a server who takes your order and brings your food. The type of service most associated with tipping. I’ve never been there, but Maine Beer Co. really really doesn’t look like that’s the type of service. I’d put money on it being “counter service.” The only “full” sit down restaurant on your list appears to be the first one, the one that has a 20% service charge. You can’t use this as an example of no-tipping. It is still a tipped establishment.
It’s all fine and good that the establishments say that, but they’d be well advised to advertise the fact.
I’m a restaurant consultant by trade, with 75 clients currently, and managed restaurants for twenty years. I have no doubt your friends at these places are well compensated, but I’m wary of the claim that they are so specifically because of a no-tipping policy.
They exist, but I feel like I could count all of the one’s I’ve seen in my lifetime on one hand, and even then people usually still tip out of habit and it generally feeling weird not to.
Nobody is saying they like that tipping is what it is in the US, just that it exists and that not participating in no way harms anyone other than the workers themselves. There’s nothing false about that.
This is just showing the cruelty of the European assholes who thought it was a great idea to visit our besieged country with the intention of enjoying themselves.
Don’t force to take a picture with ICE, guys. Or visit the fucking concentration camps. Buy a MAGA hat before you go.
The thumbnail above is fucking accurate. The"chad" guy looks like he’s a rich, European prick that’s had work done. The kind of guy that moves into an LA mansion and pretends he’s humble.
Fuck these trash people. Power to the fucking workers. Down with these scabs.
Having been in the industry for 25+ years, I’ve never seen anything like that. Besides, how would staff know they are getting stiffed before the bill is paid.
Yeah I think that’s an anti-worker stereotype used to characterize workers as greedy, violent, and spiteful.
Most of the people in foodservice i’ve known ended up there because they love food. They enjoy handing someone a great meal or suggesting the perfect cocktail to pair with a dish. They aren’t going to ruin someone’s food like that because they genuinely care about their profession and craft.
Yeah, they’re more than happy to take it out on the foreign customers but not their bosses. Which follows how the US handles politics too.
Happy to take it on the immigrants but aren’t holding their leaders responsible.
By the way, maybe some of you yanks will take my lack of tipping for you pushing your stupid tipping culture overseas and ruining other places too. I’m joking though. I’m not going to the states any more.
[edit] downvote me all you want, it’s not like you’ll actually vote for anything that actually matters [/edit]
I’m in a more progressive state (that does not allow for less than minimum wage) so my perspective may be limited. But I think if you looked at a profit and loss statement at 99 out of 100 restaurants where tipping is the norm, you likely wouldn’t be calling restaurant owners “rich bags.”
Tipping at US rsatauranrs are simply how servers are paid. If you decide to eat oit in the US, tips are part of the social contract for table snd bar service.
There’s lots to unpack here.
I’m not defending tipping as the way it should be, only that this is the way it is. Any one coming over to the US and not tipping to “make a statement” isn’t hurting the restaurants, they’re hurting the workers. And while we rightly expect US tourists to respect the customs of countries to which they travel, we should also expect the same of tourists to the US, at least those customs that affect the workers.
These tourists will “make a statement” for these couple of weeks, giving business/money to the restaurants but none to the staff, then leave and nothing will have changed except the bank account balances of the staff. If they wanted to make a statement, they’d seek out restaurants which already more closely aligned with their position.
Of course. Practically every other restaurant in USA is charging much lower prices with their much lower wages.
Remove that from the equation (make them all pay actual human wages for people so that they can live in houses and so forth), and no restaurant in USA can do that. Problem solved.
Somehow, restaurants ALL OVER THE EARTH can stay open without tipping.
Figure it out
USA resident here.
The only way it’ll work is making tip culture illegal.
Raising minimum wage and undoing the underpaid tippers law.
There’s a special law that allows restaurants to pay something like $2/hr and expect them to get tips. Sure there is a clause for owners to cover the rest to match minimum wage but that’s still BS.
Again. Tip culture won’t go away until it’s made to by law.
It started out at bribery for better service at restaurants damnit. Then somehow got morphed into a law to allow owners to pay thier staff less. What. The. Fuck. Capitalism.
What’s worse. Carry out places all have tip prompts. A tip for what? Putting my donut in a bag? That’s literally your only job.
I never tip anywhere unless I sit down at a place to eat and actually recieve a restaurant experience. Someone cooks a meal and a waiter checks in on me.
Call me cheap or an asshole but I’m not tipping at any takeout spot.
Worse, it started out as a way to not pay non-whites a decent wage while ensuring they must act servile to get by.
I too wish we lived in that reality in the US, but we don’t. Any more than we use the metric system or have universal healthcare. Maybe one day.
But today, ask anyone in a tipped position if they’d rather work in a restaurant and get paid a flat “livable” wage and they’d say no. So if they don’t want the system to change and obviously the restaurant owners don’t either, you can’t really advocate for the system to change saying it’s on their behalf.
other countries still have tipping. it’s just not necessary to survive.
I’d gladly swap if I got an actually livable wage.
Serving is far from the worst thing i’ve done for $20/hr. The problem is that ‘eliminating tipping’ means i’d make $7-12 per hour, which wouldn’t even pay rent.
There are quite a few restaurants and breweries around me that pay their staff a living wage and dont have any tips. You can tip if you want but they specifically have signs up saying you dont have to.
And they all seem to be doing great - theyre pricey but not holy shit expensive.
It depends which servers and at what restaurant or bar or place youre working. Not all of them make more on tips, and that always fluctuates.
Also having benefits and vacation time makes a huge difference. The places near me Im speaking of all give their servers and cooks and etc multiple weeks paid vacation and full benefits.
I know this because im friends with a lot of the bar staff and waiters at these restaurants/bars/breweries and I talk to them when im there.
I agree that this is hurting the workers, but what youre suggesting also just keeps the status quo the same and changes nothing. The entire system needs to be torn up, and that requires everyone in this country demanding better.
Perhaps, but that’s such a high societal hurdle that I don’t see happening any time soon. I like the idea of that, but it’s tempered with the realities of the present.
I’d be interested in knowing which establishments you’re speaking of. I know they exist, but they (in my experience) hardly ever last that long. I’m a restaurant consultant by trade, and have about 75 restaurant clients. I’m in California, a state that (thankfully) does not allow for paying less than the state minimum wage for tipped position, and can tell you that it’s now the norm in California for labor cost to exceed 40% (yes, even in tipped establishments) of sales, and while that’s good for the income of the staff, there’s basically nothing left on the bottom line. Labor cost is high, costs of goods are high, rent is high. Anyone considering opening a restaurant would almost certainly be better off putting money into a CD; no risk and almost guaranteed to return more on your money.
Traditionally, 30% labor, 30% costs of goods, 30% overhead (including rent) has been a rough guideline. That returns (in the best of cases) 10% to the owner. You open a restaurant with $1 million in sales, you get $100,000. If your labor it at 40%, there’s nothing left and thus no reason to open in the first place. That there still are places trying is amazing.
Again, being in California I get a skewed look at things. Skewed because benefits for employees is already required and in many cases paid time off too. $17/hr plus tips isn’t a lot, but it’s as livable as things get living in CA.
The harsh reality is that while in many states the tip credit allows restaurant owners to offload the cost directly to consumers, in more progressive states like California or Washington state, labor is close to pricing themselves out of the market.
And again, thats literally how everyone keeps the status quo, by saying well this is the reality right now it will be really hard to change it. You gotta start somewhere and do something
Im in MA and there are places all over like deadhorse Hill, armsby, wooden bar, fox farm, jewel box, novare res, Maine beer company, treehouse, etc
Your choice of establishments do not disprove my point. Most are breweries, which don’t have the typical sit-down type restaurant experience in which a tipped position is most common/expected. But, nonetheless, I looked at each one.
Jewel Box was open a month ago when I went and as far as I can tell is still open based on both their website and their Instagram.
Maine Beer Co has sit down service for sure
And the others pay their workers living wage, most have it on signs in the restaurant/bar/brewery and again i know most of the people there.
Perhaps I was looking at the wrong Jewel Box.
By sit down, I mean there’s a server who takes your order and brings your food. The type of service most associated with tipping. I’ve never been there, but Maine Beer Co. really really doesn’t look like that’s the type of service. I’d put money on it being “counter service.” The only “full” sit down restaurant on your list appears to be the first one, the one that has a 20% service charge. You can’t use this as an example of no-tipping. It is still a tipped establishment.
It’s all fine and good that the establishments say that, but they’d be well advised to advertise the fact.
I’m a restaurant consultant by trade, with 75 clients currently, and managed restaurants for twenty years. I have no doubt your friends at these places are well compensated, but I’m wary of the claim that they are so specifically because of a no-tipping policy.
They exist, but I feel like I could count all of the one’s I’ve seen in my lifetime on one hand, and even then people usually still tip out of habit and it generally feeling weird not to.
This is 100% true, even if people dont like it
It’s 100% false, even if you don’t like it.
(see the rest of planet Earth for examples to contrary)
Nobody is saying they like that tipping is what it is in the US, just that it exists and that not participating in no way harms anyone other than the workers themselves. There’s nothing false about that.
Absolutely no clue why anybody wouldn’t like it, other than just being stubborn and not listening.
A general unwillingness to accept that any issue may be more complex than a paper thin façade.
“What’s the best way to oppose this anachronistic holdover of Jim Crow? Why, to punish the oppressed, of course!”
Aside from agreeing with your statement, I’ll also never not upvote comments which use diacritical marks correctly.
Removed by mod
This is just showing the cruelty of the European assholes who thought it was a great idea to visit our besieged country with the intention of enjoying themselves.
Don’t force to take a picture with ICE, guys. Or visit the fucking concentration camps. Buy a MAGA hat before you go.
The thumbnail above is fucking accurate. The"chad" guy looks like he’s a rich, European prick that’s had work done. The kind of guy that moves into an LA mansion and pretends he’s humble.
Fuck these trash people. Power to the fucking workers. Down with these scabs.
Unionise and change things, or keep whining about being stiffed. Take your pick.
Maybe. But those doing the stiffing are still cheap assholes doing it for their pocketbook, not the betterment of the workers.
People don’t stiff waiters here. That’s how you get spit in your food (to name the least offensive thing they’ll do).
Workers protect their own. And good for them, because management certainly doesn’t give a shit about them.
Having been in the industry for 25+ years, I’ve never seen anything like that. Besides, how would staff know they are getting stiffed before the bill is paid.
Yeah I think that’s an anti-worker stereotype used to characterize workers as greedy, violent, and spiteful.
Most of the people in foodservice i’ve known ended up there because they love food. They enjoy handing someone a great meal or suggesting the perfect cocktail to pair with a dish. They aren’t going to ruin someone’s food like that because they genuinely care about their profession and craft.
I think it’s a pro-worker stereotype, in that it gives people a self-interested reason not to be an asshole or stiff their waiters.
I worked in a restaurant for many years and i can’t tell if you all are bullshit.
The Europeans arent making aome grand statement about tipping cukture,mtheyre just rucking cheap.
How about you guys make your richbags pay your employees instead of shifting the blame on us
Were trying, and I agree that tipping is ridiculous. But in the meantime, don’t take your frustrations about it out on the servers by not tipping.
This is it right here. Protest by not going to tipped establishments.
I’ve done one better, I’m just never going to the US again.
Yeah, they’re more than happy to take it out on the foreign customers but not their bosses. Which follows how the US handles politics too.
Happy to take it on the immigrants but aren’t holding their leaders responsible.
By the way, maybe some of you yanks will take my lack of tipping for you pushing your stupid tipping culture overseas and ruining other places too. I’m joking though. I’m not going to the states any more.
[edit] downvote me all you want, it’s not like you’ll actually vote for anything that actually matters [/edit]
I’m in a more progressive state (that does not allow for less than minimum wage) so my perspective may be limited. But I think if you looked at a profit and loss statement at 99 out of 100 restaurants where tipping is the norm, you likely wouldn’t be calling restaurant owners “rich bags.”
Why the fuck are you entitled to tipping restaurants when you don’t agree with how they do business? Truly what is wrong with you people?
no, i just don’t give money to beggars, That’s not the same as being cheap.
Tipping at US rsatauranrs are simply how servers are paid. If you decide to eat oit in the US, tips are part of the social contract for table snd bar service.
no, it is not
You are incorrect.
learn your own laws
👌