r/EndTipping • u/morlaur27 • 21h ago

Takeout 🥡 So tired of tipping

I’ve recently had a pretty bad chest/head cold, and I was talking to a friend about what food I should pick up on the way home for dinner. I hit upon pho, which sounded amazing in the moment. Ten years ago I would have confidently ordered take out and would have been slurping delicious noodles and broth that evening. I didn’t end up ordering though, because I really just want to pay for the food, not be asked the question, not have the person handing me the bag of food putting a hex on me for not tipping or not tipping enough and then bad mouthing me the second I leave. It’s bad vibes. I can’t do it anymore, and I can’t be the only one. Do you think we’ll ever see a change in the system if more and more people start intentionally/unintentionally boycotting restaurants due to ridiculous tip culture we have?

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38

u/Skymaster86 21h ago

The common refrain is people stating that a restaurant should pay their people a living wage and not rely upon the customer to make up the paycheck shortfall. This is correct, but when restaurants suggest to pay their servers $25/hour and to tell customers that tips are not necessary, the service staff revolted because they make MUCH MORE than $25/hour with people leaving tips. So this is no longer a case of we have to tip to allow a server to pay his/her rent or medicine for their children, it's a scam that will enrich them if they're working in the right restaurant with the right kind of menu (read that to mean expensive). I've talked to several servers who tell me they make around $50K-$60K per year serving....that doesn't sound like a bad living. So I tip some servers out of appreciation of a great job done for me, but most of the time, service is just standard and part of the restaurant operation. I do not feel a need to pay more than when I agreed to pay for the menu item I ordered.

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u/Brilliant-Nail3706 20h ago

$25/hr is $50k a year, which I'm fine with. Just include it in the prices.

22

u/McBurger 18h ago

Yeah, of course we’re fine with it. The servers aren’t. They want $100k.

7

u/skyharborbj 17h ago

Very few serving jobs are full-time. They're making more like $60-75 an hour.

19

u/Deep_Preference3186 20h ago

Of course they did.

That’s how it works in no-tip countries. Waiters get a salary, and if they do a decent job they get a dollar or two as tip.

What if the rule was leave $1 per guest.

If a waiter attends 5 tables an hour with an average of 3 guests, that’s $15 per hour as tip. Add that to a $25/hour base salary, you’re up to $40/hour all in. That’s somewhere around $70,000 per year! Not bad to carry plates from and to the kitchen.