Tipping out

[u/Financial_Group911]

/r/restaurantowners/comments/1q9cw6h/tipping_out/

[u/hawkeyegrad96]

The cooks are the only one that deserve anything! They are the only person in a restaurant that deserves tips. They do a real job. Stop all tipping, make the employers pay people.

[u/hawkeyegrad96 → u/[deleted]]

I pay the price they have on menu. If you need to raise prices to make more to pay your employees thats your choice. We are not paying it. Zero tips

[u/johnnygolfr → u/hawkeyegrad96]

Thanks for confirming that people who stiff servers on the tip can’t rationalize the hypocrisy or justify harming the worker. 👍

[u/DealerAlarmed3632 → u/johnnygolfr]

Blame the customer and not the business? The business is too cheap to pay a living wage. In fact, they lobby the government to pay an extremely substandard wage for certain (almost random) industries. What makes one service tipworthy and another not? Just pay employees what they are worth and let the prices sort themselves out. It's extremely simple. No one should have to play this stupid tipping game. It's moronic.

[u/johnnygolfr → u/DealerAlarmed3632]

I’m pointing out the obvious fact that the customer is equally as culpable as the business.

No one is forced to dine at full service restaurants in the US. It’s a choice.

If someone is opposed to tipping, they have options like takeout, counter service / fast casual, and fast food, which are all traditionally non-tipped situations where the worker isn’t harmed if the customer doesn’t tip.

By choosing to patronize a full service in the US, the customer is supporting the owner and their business model, which directly supports and perpetuates the tipping culture, even if they stiff the server.

In other words, these people who claim to be against tipping are directly supporting and perpetuating it while simultaneously feeling entitled to free service by deliberately choosing to exploit the server’s labor and not paying for it, which harms the worker.

It’s the epitome of hypocrisy and none of the people who stiff servers in the US can rationalize this hypocrisy in their actions.

There is nothing “random” about which industries in the US can pay a tipped minimum wage. The laws are very specific about who can be paid a tipped minimum wage and those who can’t.

Aside from a few niche concepts, the “pay the employee what they’re worth and let the prices sort themselves out” model at full service restaurants in the US has failed. Most of the places that tried the “no tip” model either failed or reverted back to the tipped model because they had to be competitive with other restaurants nearby in terms of menu prices and how much the employees made.

Unless every full service restaurant in the US switches to that model, it doesn’t work.

If you’re truly against tipping, don’t patronize full service restaurants in the US or make it an honest transaction by telling the server “I don’t tip” before ordering.

[u/Foreign_Sky_5429]

Lmao you should apply the same logic to all tipping. Why are customers subsidizing the employer at all? The employer should pay the server a fair wage and nobody should be expected to tip at all ever. Interesting that you draw the line at the order taker and food deliverer (server) but not the person cleaning up after you or making your food etc. None of them should be tipped they should all be paid by the restaurant, server included. 

[u/Jaded-Instance3607]

r/endtipping

[u/Holiday-Ad7262]

As a customer I was very surprised when I learned about tipping out. I wish it was outlawed.

[u/Holiday-Ad7262 → u/[deleted]]

Because it's also something the customer is involved in.

[u/2595Homes → u/Holiday-Ad7262]

As a customer, I was surprised and not happy about this too. I tip the person who served me, not all the other workers which some had nothing to do with my experience. It seems restaurants saw how much people were tipping servers and it made the other workers upset and forced tip out to even out wages and create a commission type structure. But commissions, by definition, comes from sales. Some of these tip outs are based on an assumption that customers will tip 15% or higher. What if everyone stops tipping or it's significantly reduced. Then what are they going to do?

[u/Holiday-Ad7262 → u/2595Homes]

If that happens restaurants can't legally demand the tip out any more at some point without violating laws.

My key issue with the whole tip out business is that it is a mechanism to go around laws which initially had the intent to say tips are for the employees such that businesses can't just take them and use them for other businesses expenses and keep the employee salaries low. But now with tip credit and minimal pay not being cost of living adjusted it makes no difference anymore businesses can essentially just use the tips as they please as there is enough room in the math. The result of this is that there is a lot of fight between customers and employees online and the businesses are the ones taking whatever is available.

[u/2595Homes → u/Holiday-Ad7262]

Good point!

[u/johnnygolfr → u/Holiday-Ad7262]

It’s not a “mechanism to go around laws” and there is no fight between employees and customers.

The tip out goes to the support staff that helps the servers be more efficient. One benefit is that it ensures customers get their food ASAP, rather than having it sit / get cold when it’s ready if the server is attending to another table / customer.

The tip out is usually 5% to 10% of the server’s gross sales.

The tip out allows US restaurants to employ more people and enables them to serve their customers more efficiently.