My wife disagrees with me on this, but I’m convinced the tip screen question is a confidence thing. If someone actually believed they earned a tip, they’d say it straight: “It’s going to ask if you want to tip me for my service.” Instead you get the vague, almost apologetic “it’s just gonna ask you a question real quick…” like the machine is some third party doing this to both of us.

Real example: small college basketball game, I take my 6-year-old to the concession stand. She wants M&Ms, I add a popcorn and a water. Grown man behind the counter goes, “Sir, that’ll be $12, and it’s just going to ask you a question before…”

A question. My guy! You handed me a bag of M&Ms. In what world am I tipping you?

If you can’t even say the word “tip” out loud, that tells me everything I need to know about whether you think you deserve one. I’ll be enjoying the rest of the game with a clear conscience after smashing $0. That goes for all the worst places to get hit with the “question”.

Exception would be a special event or a date which happen occasionally but even then I prefer the comfort of my home which is quiet and clean. I like cooking and hosting people. I am originally from Europe so I give zero f*cks about the pressure to tip due to workers not being paid enough but my partner (who is American) thinks it’s borderline unethical for us not to tip so I just don’t dine in. Problem solved. The pressure to tip is literally propaganda to guilt trip people into tipping which no other developed nation does.

Beer guy walking around, I wave my hands and ask what beer he has. He rings up my Modelo, it's $20. Fine. Not a great price but it's a 24oz, it's a ballgame, it's hot and I want a beer. So I tap my card.

"It's just going to ask you a quick question".

Options are 20% 25% and 30%. I hit no tip.

Guy proceeds to hand me my beer then as long as he can, in a crowd full of people, "WHAT NO TIP FOR THE BEER GUY???".

I shrug it off, but what the actual hell.

I'm tired of this. I'm about go to fill anti-tipping out of spite.

Went out as a family tonight to celebrate my son going off to college. He chose a Mexican fusion steak house and there was 15 of us. Total bill came out to be $440 that had a $70 automatic gratuity added on. Expected and don’t mind the auto grat at all. I’m a server at a steakhouse too. I didn’t feel we received great service, but alas 20% tip automatically.

Anyways the bill comes and I hand the waiter $500 cash. And he has the audacity to ask me if I want the change back!! I said the tip was included in the total right? He says yes. So I say then yes I’d like the change back.

When I’m working, I never assume to keep the change. I’ll bring you back $1.09 before I assume you wanted me to keep that. Just blew me away that he would expect an extra $60 for sub par service.

I went out to eat with my wife and it’s getting ridiculous:

1. Tipping options stated at 20%
   
2. Tip was after taxes which is sneaky
   
3. Restaurant sub charge was 3.5% ( which I removed)
   
4. Waiter asked me to pay with QR and there was another 1.5% fee to use their QR code (he never came back I had to go find him)

Food was great but the whole payment process killed me because I was supposed to be focused on my date night and this took away from it. I first requested to remove the 3.5 %surcharge and then I had to request to pay with my debit card after seeing there was another 1.5% surcharge to which the waiter said didn’t exist until I showed it to him.

He was a nice guy and actually explained how a company came in and gives them the QR code, then proceeds to give them incentives if enough people use the QR code. I told him if I were him I’d explain to customers there was a charge for this because it’s only listed at the end when you just want to get the hell out of there plus it’s actually taking from HIS tip once people find out. Yes it’s only like 5$ extra for all these charges but fact EVERYONE wants a piece is frustrating.

I’ve been a server for the past 3 years, and now I’ve transferred from community college to a 4 year and am currently not working in order to better focus on my studies temporarily while I settle in. I quit my serving job just about a month ago and already I am starting to see how I fed off of the tipping culture.

I’m not saying I’m anti-tipping, I’m a college student and try to save money. If I did go to a nice place, I would tip, but I feel my feelings towards it have shifted. When considering about where I want to eat, places that do expect tipping have been crossed off my list as it’s another cost to me that I have to incur.

I think feeding off of the energy of other servers, judging by who gives good tips or not, by seeing people in that light I think created a toxic hive mind. In reality, somebody who does poor service should not be working there. However, getting tipped poorly creates an excuse for being upset in the industry.

I’ve considered serving jobs, but I’m leaning towards good hourly jobs as I’m far more concerned about stability than I used to when I was living with my parents. I think that’s how it should be ideally, good hourly wages, and transparent pricing. It’s not so much a revelation, but this is an interesting transition in thought.

In almost every thread, both anti and pro tippers bring up server wages to defend their POV. A server wage, with or without tips, shouldn't be a reason for a customer to decide how much to tip. A tip is not meant to be a sympathy gesture or financial support. It's a gesture of appreciation/gratitude. You tip because you are extra-satisfied with the service, not because the server's wage is low. Conversely, you tip for the same reason, even if the server is making more money. Customers need not to concern themselves with a restaurant employee's wage and living situation period. That's their own business and responsibility. Let's' leave the issue where it belongs?

Genuinely curious what both pro-tippers and anti-tippers think about this.
I get tipping 15-20% on a normal bill. Whatever. But once you get into expensive restaurants, the math starts getting ridiculous.
If my bill is $1,000, why is the expected tip suddenly $200? If it’s $600, why is $100+ considered normal?
Especially when the bill might only be that high because I ordered an expensive steak or a $300 bottle of wine. Did opening and pouring the $300 bottle require 6x more work than opening a $50 bottle? Why should the tip go up another $50 just because I picked the more expensive one?
At some point it seems like the tip should just cap out. Maybe $30-$40.
I just don’t understand the logic that a server automatically deserves $100-200+ from one table because the restaurant charges a lot for its food or because the customer ordered something expensive.
And before someone says “if you can afford a $1,000 dinner, you can afford a $200 tip” that doesn’t really answer the question. Being able to afford something doesn’t explain why that amount is owed.
So for the pro-tipping people: why shouldn’t tips have a cap? What additional service is being provided on a $1,000 check that makes a $200 tip reasonable?
And for the anti-tipping crowd: would a cap make tipping more tolerable, or is the whole percentage system fundamentally stupid?

I went to a sit down restaurant in California and had standard service, the usual order taking and bringing drinks/food/check. Didn't do anything above and beyond. Of course, the prices of the items are higher than they used to be. It felt ok and right to tip 10%

Now I'm thinking 10% will be my standard, and less or more depending on the service. Thoughts?

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8cdfpYr/

Would you tip a car detailer? Pls advise.

I have always been a pretty generous tipper. At restaurants I’d usually choose the higher percentage, tip delivery drivers well, tip on carryout, and generally tip whenever there was an option to because I figured if I could afford the service, I could afford to take care of the person providing it.

But recently I had a bit of a realization: the cost of basically everything has gone up significantly, while my income really hasn’t.

For example, if a restaurant meal that used to cost $50 now costs $70, a percentage-based tip has already increased from $10 to $14 at 20%, even though I’m not necessarily making more money than I was when the meal cost $50. Then there are tip screens seemingly everywhere now… carryout, coffee shops, counter service, etc. I realized I’m spending considerably more on tips than I used to simply because the underlying prices are higher AND I’m being asked to tip in more situations.

I’m not talking about suddenly stiffing servers or delivery drivers. I understand that a lot of workers depend on tips, especially in the U.S. I’m more questioning my previous mentality that I should always be exceptionally generous or tip every time I’m given the opportunity.

It kind of hit me that everyone’s dealing with the same economy. The person serving me needs money, but…I also need my money. My employer isn’t increasing my salary every time restaurant prices, groceries, rent, or other expenses go up. At some point I have to adjust my own spending too.

Has anyone else had this shift in thinking? Have you changed how much or how often you tip because of inflation/cost of living? Where do you personally draw the line between being fair to service workers and protecting your own budget?
I’m also genuinely open to hearing if there’s another way I should be looking at this.

They just add whatever percentage without telling anybody? I don’t want to pay that wtf?

Can someone help me understand how two people can dine at a restaurant/bar in Milan, order 2 alcoholic drinks, complimentary bread/butter, 4 dishes, dessert, and 2 bottled waters, and walk out with a total bill of $56.16, with no 20% tip expected?

Meanwhile, American restaurants want us to believe tipping or mandatory service fees are necessary for them to stay afloat.

And this wasn’t some tiny restaurant in a village in the mountains of Lombardia. It’s an established and well known Spanish restaurant in Milan.

I understand that operating costs and cost of living can be higher in parts of the US, especially cities like NYC. But c’mon, you’re already charging me a crazy markup for food that, in many cases, I could make at home for an entire family for roughly the same price.

Then on top of that, I’m expected to pay another 18–20% because the restaurant apparently can’t build employee wages into its pricing?

Give me a break.

I am a federal worker, we are getting 0% raise this year and got 1% last year. Because inflation is about 3% I am cutting my 20% tips to 15% unless everyone lobbies congress for us to get a raise to match inflation or get us exempt from income tax. The income tax exemption makes sense since the federal gov pays us, to pay them, which wastes our HR hours and extra IRS hours so it would also thin the federal govt.

Being a server is a legitimate job. Deal with it.

I was dining at an semi-upscale Asian brunch restaurant in Milpitas, CA last weekend, and saw a 18% service charge on my bill. I didn’t expect that at first, especially the fact that we only had 3 people in our party. I looked at the front of the menu, and low-and-behold, there it was printed right there “18% Service Charge Will Be Applied In The Bill (Dine In Only)”.

I already let this go, because it was a full-service restaurant, and it meant I didn’t have to tip anything extra on top. But I then did the math in my head, and the tax on the bill was AFTER the 18% service charge. Which, by now, I started to get pissed off. I flag down a waiter and they tell me that there’s nothing they could do, because it was “built-in to the system”. And that they’re required by California law to charge the tax AFTER the service charge. Myself, I guess not knowing the law properly, went into a whole schpeel of how unethical that was.

The waiter told me that maybe twice or thrice a month, he gets the same thing: someone arguing about the tip; post-tax. He proceeds to bring me a thick binder filled with the California tax laws, with that section already highlighted. And it said (paraphrased): “Tips and gratuity are non-taxable. WITH THE EXCEPTION OF: A mandatory service charge will be considered as part of the meal price and is subject to sales tax.”

I literally had no idea this was even legal. Needless to say, I will not be patronizing that restaurant anymore. But still, it is really preposterous what Newscum can pull off.

PS: Love seeing the Libtards and Conservaturds squirm in the comments. 💀 And no, I didn’t vote for the flaming cheeto head either. All while living in the most liberal part of California. I bet that pisses you off even more, doesn’t it? 🤣🤣 I'm an equal-opportunity political discriminator. Good Riddance to the sheep on both sides. 😘

Because there is already an entire anti-tipping subreddit, yet some of y’all apparently can’t get enough of your own echo chamber. You have to come over here too and dump on anybody who thinks tipping is reasonable.

If you despise tipping that much, cool. You literally have a whole community dedicated to that position. Why does every tipping discussion everywhere else also need to be turned into the same anti-tipping circlejerk?

I keep seeing posts/videos with Owners/Operators trying to disguise the message as shouldn’t the back of the house get tips also, or why should the servers make more than the cooks, etc. How many of you think this is just manipulation to tell us to make sure we understand that the server doesn’t get 100% of the tips so we feel sorry for them and they can justify their crazy suggested tip about a of 20%+!? “If you don’t tip me at least X%, then I actually lose money because I have to tip out!”

And prices get adjusted to compensate..

Tippers will save money they never cared to save and the non-tippers have to come out of pocket more as they were previously (greatly) benefitting from a system that let them spend less..

Half or more of the non tipping crowd is obsessed with saving money. Either out of a lack of excess funds, cheapness, selfishness..etc.. a fake desire for people to be "paid a livable wage" whilest being upset at how much some make with tips, they have a million reasons.

Surely this is counterproductive?! What am I missing???

There are fast casual places - Mendocino Farms, Tender Greens where you order at the counter and food is brought to your table. My local Tender Greens even clears the table. I have been tipping $1 as there is some “table service”. Does anyone else tip in these situations?

Didn't see this coming but I must pay 35.7% more than the menu prices - 20% is "Equitable wages", 5% of to "offset SF ordinances cost" and the rest is taxes.

Well, at least I don't have to tip more on top.

How you spend that much on pizza but don’t tip the delivery driver