Can someone explain what's up with the tipping culture in America?

To impress a pretty young girl woman.

It is easier to cheat on taxes.

It’s not that we like it so much as that is the state of things here.

Some restaurants from time to time attempt to buck the trend by promising to pay their staff better wages and thereby actively discourage tipping, but those are few and far between, and I don’t know how successful they are. That is, I don’t know how successful the business itself is, nor do I know how well they attract and keep the best service staff, and nor am I aware of how their “service wage” is for the earners.

Good servers in high-quality establishments can do quite well on tips, but those are exceptional, too. That is, the high-quality joints themselves and the servers who work there. For barely-making-it roadside diners and production-line servers in mid-market chain restaurants, the earnings from tips are decent enough to keep most staff, but hardly worth writing home about.

And for diners to attempt to buck the trend on their own, how would you suggest attempting that? Offer to pay more for the meal, for the restauarant owner / manager could divide up the excess among the staff in some equitable way? That would be an iffy proposition to start with – relying upon the honesty and ability of the manager to perform the financial acrobatics required, and … how would it differ to the diner from tipping?

I’m not always a big fan of gravity, either, but it’s what we have to work with, so we make the best of it.

It sounds as if its a mentality. I find it funny that people are apparently okay with paying $100 for dinner and tipping $20, but aren’t so keen on paying $119 for dinner, tipping $1, and on top of that, knowing that their servers are being paid a liveable wage…

@Magical_Muggle It’s not that we don’t agree with you; it’s just that the system is entrenched. There are some restaurants in the nation – look up Danny Meyer’s corporation – that have changed to paying their workers higher wages and charging more for meals with no tipping but that is not yet the norm. Until the restaurants pay a living wage, tipping will continue.

I agree that people in the US don’t generally like the tipping situation and I think most don’t like the idea that anyone isn’t paid well. However I have arguments from some business-minded people that there is some sort of need for restaurants to pay very little and have staff rely on tips. And I have heard arguments against minimum wage and various benefits for all types of employees on the grounds that businesses won’t be able to afford it and will either fail or otherwise find ways to employ fewer people.

I think that the arguments against paying people much and against providing benefits are part of a growing toxic scarcity and survival mindset which is related to fears about the eventual collapse of capitalist-based economy, and attempts to deny that. Many people want to believe that economics will just naturally lead to people who are willing to work being able to support themselves and prosperity for all. Sigh.

However, at some restaurants, servers can make quite a lot of money with tips. In some places, it can pay better than many skilled professions.

I have no idea why “we’ve always done this” is a justification for customers paying staff wages. It seems insane to me, and I live in Canada, where the average tip is also about 15%. However, I think our minimum wage is generally a lot higher for servers, so there isn’t the same kind of shaming culture around tipping less or not tipping.

It is little more than custom, but it is a national custom.

Best service I have had in a long while was in February at the North End Grill in lower Manhattan. They telluou front there is no tipping. But the total bill was still competitive, and the service was excellent. I would have tipped 25% if I was tipping.

I was a waiter throughout college years. I was a pretty good frame carpenter, but I couldn’t do day work and still carry a full load in school. The highest paying gig was waiting on tables at night, so I concentrated on high-end restaurants. I started out as a bus boy on a three man team. One guy worked the tables on our station, ran the coctails, took the orders, summoned the sommolier, prepared some dishes tableside and served the food and beverages. The other guy took the order from the first guy, delivered it to the kitchen, kept in touch with the kitchen, delivered the food to the first guy on a tray and tray stand, or brought out the garadon for the first guy to cook on. He generally backed up the first guy and the bus boy when he got behind. The bus boy tore down and reset the tables, watered the people constantly, and helped bring out the food on big orders, ran for anything when the other two guys got backed up. Front man and back man routine. The front man and back man would split the tips and give the bus boy 15% of the team total. I soon became a front man.

My rent was $300/month. My electric bill ran about $65/month. I owned my car. Gas was about 35 cents a gallon and you could get 3 eight ounce draft beers for a buck at the dive tavern down the road.

My weekly check was about $35/week.

For $35 a week, I couldn’t even keep my tuxedos clean.

Skilled, non-union carpenters were getting $5/hour. 40 bucks a day before taxes, a barely livable wage at the time. As a front man, I made $100/night on a slow night. If I lit something on fire at the table, I would increase my tip. So, I pushed a lot of flambe dishes prepared tableside. If they ordered coffee after dinner, I would sell them cafe diablo. Sometimes I would light shit on fire with cheap 151 rum from under the garadon that should have never been lit on fire. Hell, I would light ice cream on fire and call it mini baked Alaska.
One night I lit myself on fire. But the oohs and ahs meant it was a bank night for me and my boys.

Four to six hours work a night.

I don’t know why this is or how it ever happened. I imagine it was the result of some American Restaurant Association lobbying effort that took place long before I was born. But it’s nationwide. Minimum wage laws have never applied to the restaurant business.

I surrendered to it long ago, and have tipped a minimum 20% for service in restaurants ever since. It’s just the way it is. It would literally take an act of congress to change it, and their would be a helluva lot of pissed off service personnel it was change, on the high end, anyway.

I’ll never understand it. If the happiness of my customers and reputation of my business depended on someone doing their job, I would be falling all over myself to make sure THAT person had a very good reason to make me successful.

When I go out with my family in Manhattan, we’ll be maybe 8 or 9 people and we always go to a high end restaurant. In addition to dinner, it’s many appetizers, desserts, a few cappucinos and much wine. In these places, an entree may be around $40. I never see the bill but I know it comes to well over 100 bucks a person so we’re talking a thousand dollars at least, roughly. There will be one main waiter and a bunch of other guys who do things like bring water, refill bread, etc. We’ll be at the table for maybe two or three hours. If the waiter gets $200 bucks tip from that, no way would or could a restaurant make up for that with his salary.

Although much of America is flat, there are many parts that are gently hilly, and smaller parts that are mountainous. This means that it is difficult, in some cases, to build homes and other structures at perfect right angles, straight up and down.

So architects created a means of constructions called “tipping culture” – meaning that the buildings being constructed don’t need to be straight, but are allowed to tip. A major tipped building might be 3–5 degrees off center, although most tipping buildings are only a degree or two off center,

Tipping culture is an outgrowth of Italian renaissance tipping culture, which is most known for the leaning Tower in Pisa.

@jca – there are a hell of a lot more waiters making pittance at Applebee’s than there are at your swanky Manhattan restaurant. They deserve a fair living, too.

Absolutely @Seek. Very few and far between are the restaurants like that.

It’s the same as anyone working on commission, whether it’s sales or service based. The business gets to pay less guaranteed pay and the worker potentially has higher income, so their goals align with the business. Sell more stuff.

Servers are (for the most part) considered a commodity here, by the businesses and by the patrons. As patrons, collectively we expect a lot of front of the house staff. There’s no consensus on what “great service” entails, but good servers eventually go do something else. The skills it takes to be a good server are more valuable just about anywhere else. It’s just not worth it to do forever unless it fills some other need.

So a high percentage of the staff won’t be doing the same job in a few years.

It’s not that we cling to the culture, we just don’t want to be the guy who made some college kid miss rent because he was a little slow with our tea refill. It just doesn’t matter that much whether we pay him from the menu prices or get to choose the amount at the end.

There’s also a portion of it for me that if I can show you I appreciate your effort with something as simple as a few bucks, and in a situation where that’s not insulting, I’m going to go for it. It’s a few dollars, thank you for making my day easier. Genuinely.

I take umbrage with the idea of money as gratitude, too. Gratitude is a feeling, not a commodity. It’s like buying politeness or respect or love.

It’s all gross.

It’s an expression of gratitude. Like a smile, or a genuine thank you, or a hug. You don’t do those things because of the return, you do them because they express the feeling you have in an appropriate way.

Put another way, if I hug the server, it’s not the right place or time. A tip is the right way to express gratitude in that setting.

There is no tipping in anywhere in China and I think it is great. In my experience the service is always first class and friendly whether we’re in a cheap noodle place or a swanky restaurant. Knowing you don’t have to tip makes the relationship between you and the serving staff more equal and natural.

I think that the US tipping culture is an example of intent vs. effect. The intent is to encourage service industry employees to go above and beyond to “wow” the customers. The theory is that the employee will earn more money and the establishment will have a better reputation than their competitors, thus earning the business a better profit.

In some cases, it works. Looking more closely, it has more to do with hiring people who genuinely care about creating a positive experience, staffing the appropriate amount of of employees to handle demand, and providing the training and tools to successfully do the job. It has nothing to do with tips.

The effect has led to a culture where tipping is expected, tipped employees receive a lower minimum wage pay, some don’t report their earnings on tax returns, false sincerity, customers are frustrated by calculating the “appropriate” amount for a tip and the extra cost, etc.

After spending time in countries where tipping isn’t the norm and still receiving good to great service, I wish the US would move away from this practice.