
Two more restaurants in Toronto just got rid of tipping - colinprince
https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2020/08/restaurants-toronto-rid-of-tipping/
======
smnrchrds
No, they did not. It is more accurate to say two restaurants in Toronto just
mandated 18% tipping:

> _Tips will still be split between front and back but Ten will now be "adding
> a flat untaxed 18 per cent service charge onto each bill no matter the size
> of the group,"_

The more sensible thing would have been to increase menu prices by 18%. But
they are not being sensible. They just increased their prices while pretending
they have not done so. I hate it when you have to treat a menu like a legal
document and be looking for the fine print.

~~~
bronson
Covered in the article: "To me it really doesn't seem like too radical of a
change, my hope is that after people get comfortable with this, we will be
able to scrap a service charge completely and just increase our menu prices by
18 per cent and then pass that 18 per cent into higher salaries for all of our
staff."

I hope it catches on.

~~~
jbob2000
Urbanite restaurant-goers aren’t so price sensitive that they can’t handle a
price increase from $20 to $22. I think they’re doing it this way so that if
it doesn’t work out, they already have the previous infrastructure in place to
return to tipping if need be.

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vecinu
I'm so happy to hear this. I cannot stand tipping and genuinely get anxiety
when I'm out with friends and the wife and she sometimes pays without knowing
what the right "tip amount" is.

It happens to me too, where I have to pay attention to what the
waiter/waitress is doing that is exceptional or bad so I can adjust my tip
accordingly.

It's bad for the customer and the employee, the employer is the only one
winning by exploiting its own workers. I wish we would just pay our servers a
living wage with health benefits and stop hiding those as "Extra surchages" as
San Francisco is doing.

While we're at it, show me the final price with taxes included please.

~~~
tptacek
You do not in fact have to pay attention to how well the server performs. You
can just take the final price, divide by 10, multiply by 2, and round
whichever direction you want. You should look at tipping as a cost sharing
measure, not an incentive system.

~~~
Jedd
> You can just take the final price, divide by 10, multiply by 2, and round
> whichever direction you want.

a) this sounds horrendous, and

b) so there's zero pretence that tipping is somehow related to quality of
experience?

(I ask as a fairly well-travelled Australian, but who rarely sojourned into
North America.)

~~~
tptacek
Why is that horrendous? (I get "annoying"). It's the restaurant sharing the
cost of labor with the diner, which you're doing one way or the other, but
tips have less price stickiness than list prices.

There's certainly a "pretense" of tipping as an incentive, and you can treat
it that way if you want to (to a point; you can't reasonably tip much below
15%). But you should ignore the pretense; it's not worth the psychic energy.

~~~
Jedd
> Why is that horrendous?

Hmm. Imagine that you _never_ had to consider any kind of unstated, fuzzy
mathematical wrangling at restaurants, hairdressers, hotels, in taxis, at
stores, etc - your entire life every financial transaction was
straightforward.

If you came from that environment, this arrangement would seem horrendous (and
annoying).

I understand that there's some cultural exceptionalism involved - there always
is - but for _most of the (rest of the) world_ this kind of intentional,
onerous, relentless, and needlessly complex obligation is some combination of
bewildering, disrespectful, and anathema.

~~~
blaser-waffle
Calculating 10% ain't that hard killer -- just move the decimal point over.
36.22 becomes 3.6. Multiply that by 2, round up/down as you feel is warranted,
and go with it. Plenty of the card readers even offer pre-calculated options
when paying with debit/credit (usually 15%, 18%, and 20%).

If that's too difficult, horrendous, and annoying to do then chances are you
shouldn't be eating out in the first place.

~~~
Jedd
Thanks, but as a metric-loving Australian, you don't need to espouse the
benefits of base-10 to me.

My point remains that forcing everyone to consider a tip of varying amounts in
a wide range of social / fiscal interactions, is a needless cognitive burden.

Approximately 95% of the planet gets by somewhere between 'just fine' and
'much better' without it.

~~~
boring_twenties
I've never been to Australia, but my experience traveling in Germany, France
and the Netherlands is that service ranges from "adequate" at best to
"abysmal," with the average case being much closer to the latter.

In the US, I'd say service is "excellent" more than 95% of the time, and I
don't think I can recall a single instance of worse than "adequate" in my
life.

I have no idea if tipping sufficiently explains this, but it sure seems at
least plausible...

~~~
Jedd
FWIW, my anecdata is different. I've travelled - both short work stints and
holidays - in ~30 countries over the space of a few decades.

I don't know if I could confidently pick the worst service experience across
that time, but a sit-down dining comedy club in Manhattan (NY, USA) would
probably be towards the top of the list.

I tend to be non-demanding, accommodating, and convivial etc, so that may have
skewed most of my experiences across Asia and Europe towards the positive end
of the spectrum.

~~~
boring_twenties
There are some other contenders for "worst," but this is the most fun story to
tell.

Restaurant in the Netherlands. We walk in, there's a podium and a sign to
please wait for the hostess. We wait for several minutes, finally get
impatient and walk around the restaurants. Find two young girls chatting away
in the back. They notice us, but continue their conversation for another
minute, then ask us what we want. We ask to be seated.

No problem, they seat us. Another 5 or so minutes go by, we get up and find
the girls again. "Can we have some menus, please?"

It didn't get any better from there :P

Ever since that I avoid all sit down restaurants in that country, full stop.
Luckily, I don't mind döner kebab for breakfast lunch and dinner!

~~~
Jedd
Yeah, that would put anyone off.

I've only spent a week in Amsterdam, but I don't recall any negative
experiences at all.

When travelling I do tend to eschew touristy areas - other than having to look
at specific places / objects, access museums or historic sites, etc - then a
quick escape to less tourist-heavy areas.

I'm sure we all do the same in places we live, and therefore know well, but I
guess holiday mode puts us in a more sanguine mood.

------
wenc
I hate the idea of tipping. I tip generously. Both of these statements are
simultaneously true.

The vast majority of the countries in the world (that I've visited) do not
believe in percentage based tipping as we do in North America [1]. A tip
either involves rounding up to the nearest unit of currency, or takes the form
of a small service fee added to the bill.

In North America, we've arrived at a situation where waitstaff actually prefer
a tipped environment (due to high upside potential, especially where alcohol
is served) and are also beholden to the tip (due to huge downside potential
i.e. laws that mandate a lowered minimum wage for tipped workers).

Getting rid of tipping by instituting a living wage can sometimes result in
lower upside, so many workers end up being against a fixed livable wage. The
calculation is that stochastic/high upsides (at bars, large groups) is
preferable to stable but middling upside (i.e. living wage).

On the other hand, the laws of supply and demand still apply. Without high
food prices and corresponding demand at those prices, a restaurant can't
sustain an untipped staff. So getting rid of tipping is a gamble and not many
restaurants, especially low end ones, are able to swing it. Restaurants that
are looking to get rid of tips are banking on the fact that the demand will
remain the same at higher sticker prices (which in theory, should be true
since the effective prices have not changed -- culturally a 15-20% tip is
almost mandatory) but psychologically this often isn't the case -- unless you
have a sign at the door that says (no tips required).

It's a little bit like Uber/Lyft. The economics doesn't actually work out, but
there's something propping it up. In the restaurant world, it's tipping.
Getting rid of it is like getting rid of VC money for gig companies. There's a
tightrope you have to walk to balance the books.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuity)

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
The thing I don't understand that mandatory fixed service charges (in lieu of
tips) are _already_ standard for large groups in many if not most US
restaurants, because negotiating tips and who pays what in this situation is
even more complex.

Why is it so hard to just extend this existing, well accepted practice to
smaller tables?

~~~
wenc
I think it's cultural. Minnesota is doing it though.

[https://www.minnesotamonthly.com/food-drink/new-
restaurant-s...](https://www.minnesotamonthly.com/food-drink/new-restaurant-
service-fees-and-tipping/)

The other issue is US consumers get confused and don't know what to do. The
difference between a tip, a surcharge, and a service fee is so subtle that
it's a mess to keep up with.

[https://laist.com/2019/08/26/restaurant_surcharge_tip_los_an...](https://laist.com/2019/08/26/restaurant_surcharge_tip_los_angeles.php)

I think for this to work, it needs to be established as a new widespread
social norm. Otherwise the confusion actually increases the friction of dining
out (well pre-covid), and restaurants lose. It takes brave restaurants to risk
being a casualty of confusion. A good number of restaurants might need to be
sacrificed.

------
sudeepj
As someone from India, I never understood the the tipping culture when I went
abroad. It is not that tips are non-existent in India. It is not mandatory in
India. However in UK, any tip < 10-15% is judged and hence the reputation of
Indians as poor tippers. This leads to lot of mis-understanding.

I was surprised even getting a simple haircut had to be tipped in UK. I do not
mind if the appropriate tip amount is factored in the price itself. The
guilty-feeling and ambiguity whether I am being miserly or not made me avoid
such places whenever possible.

Note: I learnt later that waiters in an restaurant are not that well paid and
they have to "earn" it via tips.

~~~
Accacin
Where in the UK is this? I don't think I've ever tipped, although some
restaurants do add an optional service charge (if you pay by card, it'll ask
when you're paying).

I've never once even considered tipping for a haircut, and I've also never
heard of Indian's having a 'poor tipper' reputation :)

I sound grumpy, but I do tip when I feel it's required. Once I went to a
restaurant with family, and realised that they had no vegan food (my dad had
thought a green 'V' meant vegan), and the chef and waitress went way above in
preparing me some off-menu food for me, even though it was quite late in the
evening. For me, that was an example of where tipping was required and I've
been back many times since.

~~~
sudeepj
Since I do not have evidence for what I had experience. Here are some advice
on the net:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/tips-on-
tippi...](https://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/tips-on-tipping-how-
and-when-should-you-give-extra-money-for-good-service-8570518.html)

[https://www.lhaa.co.uk/blog/how-much-to-tip-a-
hairdresser#:~...](https://www.lhaa.co.uk/blog/how-much-to-tip-a-
hairdresser#:~:text=The%20minimum%20level%20of%20tip,around%2020%25%20of%20the%20bill).

Although it is always worded "if-you-want-to" or "if-you-can-afford". I feel
this is a bit ambiguous.

------
rascul
Give me the price up front, including cost for the staff to get whatever is
determined to be a decent wage. At the same time, pay staff a decent wage.

------
scott31
Ugh, I generally pay 0% tip and these kinds of restaurants just add friction
where I have to send the bill back for them to remove it.

------
Pfhreak
Several restaurants have gotten rid of tipping in Seattle, either through just
eliminating it or through the "we charge a fixed additional fee that goes to
staff". Either way, I'm a fan (though I prefer the former) if the business
provides a living wage, benefits, etc.

------
lostgame
Good riddance. Tipping is racist/sexist, and is more often than not an excuse
for the restaurants to use it for exploitation. I live in Toronto and everyone
I know working in the food industry is happy to hear this.

~~~
skj
Racist/sexist in that it allows racists and sexists to express their biases
via poor tips? Or something else.

~~~
Pfhreak
Are tips universally distributed? I would suspect that unconscious bias can
impact tipping norms and result in certain classes of people getting smaller
or larger tips. I don't have data to back up my hypothesis, however.
Additionally, tips tend to go to front of house staff, where certain groups
are more/less represented.

~~~
skj
That's fair. To be clear, I wasn't denying the claim, just asking for your
thoughts around it.

I tip 20% rounded up to the nearest dollar every time, unless I'm really
disappointed with the service which is quite rare.

