Since arriving in the US some 18 years ago, I spent a number of years making a living as a waiter so the provocative question Why Tip? in 'Food Fights', the Food Issue of the NY Times Magazine (October 12) got all my attention.
Paul Wachter looks at this topic through the example of The Linkery, a popular eatery in San Diego.
Its owner Jay Porter decided to ban tipping altogether and instead ads an 18% service charge on each check.
Adding a twist to the way the money is shared usually, it is pooled and then split 3 to 1 between service and kitchen staff.
After reading the piece, I went looking for best practice and bad excuses from around the globe.
Let's start with the bad to worse on Best Restaurants of Australia. If the attitudes reflected in this forum are the local norm, it sounds to me that our friends down under look for every excuse not to tip.
Jessica's elements of etiquette on Tipping in Italy (ItalyLogue) are that "in most sit-down restaurants, especially the nicer ones which have no counter service, you may find both “il coperto” and “servizio incluso” written on the menu. “Il coperto” is the cover charge, which is generally one or two Euro, and which takes care of things like bread before the meal and a glass of tap water. “Servizio incluso” means that service is included, meaning they’ve already figured in a tip for you - it’s usually around 15% - so the total due on your final bill is all you’ll owe. If the service has been particularly outstanding or you’ve had an exceptional experience, leaving a couple Euro on the table is a lovely gesture to let the waiter know. Tipping after a meal is only done if you don’t see “servizio incluso” on the menu, or you specifically see “servizio non incluso” (service not included). In those situations, a 10% tip is fine, left in cash on the table or handed right to your waiter. If you eat “come gli Italiani,” or like the Italians do - standing at the bar to grab a quick bite - no tips are necessary."
In Tipped Off (NY Times, October 2005), Steven A.Shaw shared some insight from Michael Lynn, who studies consumer behavior and marketing at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration and "has concluded that consumers' assessments of the quality of service correlate weakly to the amount they tip".
Mr. Lynn offers instead that "customers are likely to tip more in response to servers touching them lightly and crouching next to the table to make conversation than to how often their water glass is refilled - in other words, customers tip more when they like the server, not when the service is good. (Mr. Lynn's studies also indicate that male customers increase their tips for female servers while female customers increase their tips for male servers.)".
Going East, on Travel All Russia it is offered that "Russians don't tip because they remember what waiters were like during soviet times. In the USSR food supply to households came in two forms. Official stores (there were no private stores) sold food at fixed prices, much lower than the market prices. As a result, speculators (it was considered a bad word in the Soviet Union) bought the food from the official stores and sold it on the back market, at market prices."
They continue by stating that in the (then) Soviet Union "restaurants were a part of the Soviet industrial machine. Their supplies were determined by how well their managers negotiated with government officials (often times this meant how well they "dined" the government officials). Good service for the government clerks meant more resources for the restaurant which would be then sold on the black market or provided to restaurants employers. In this dilapidated model waiters and waitresses did not need any tips. In fact, they were some of the best-off people with a never-ending access to foods and alcohol that could be easily transformed into any other goods, such as vacations, cars, and furniture or consumer electronics."
In the UK, Richard Tyler (Telegraph, August 2008) quotes a base pay of 3.5 Pounds and feels that "if the hospitality industry is so dependent on cheap labor to survive then it is in a far weaker state than I ever imagined. The key point is surely that tipping for good service is exactly that - an additional pat on the back for exceptional attention to all those little details that make a dining experience memorable. Hopefully by ensuring that waiting staff are paid a base salary that meets the nationally acceptable minimum it will put an end to the demand that a tip is paid as standard."
What's your take?
Related: Can Restaurants afford Poor or Bankrupt Cooks?
Recent Comments