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At a local cafe in western Massachusetts the printed bill contains something I’ve never seen before: At the bottom is a list of percentages—15, 18 and 20—with suggested gratuity amounts based specifically on the bill’s total. While tipping is a social norm in the U.S., it’s a hassle to figure out the right amount to tip. The tip amount is rarely suggested, and never in specific dollar terms (though sometimes a gratuity is included for larger groups of diners).
So why not do this everywhere? Perhaps it could be viewed as crass; but it saves time and makes the social norm explicit (as it already is in our minimum wage laws)—and it might shame those who refuse to tip. I hope this innovation spreads rapidly in this time of apparently decreasing social cohesion.
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Well, some people (like me) tip 20% all the time just because the math is easier to do in your head. If the amounts were printed on the receipt, I’d be more likely to tip just 18%, unless service was excellent. So it might work out to be a losing proposition for the waitstaff. But I wouldn’t complain if this caught on…
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This. Where I live, the tax rate is 8.25%, and the tax is usually printed on the bill, so it’s easy for me to just double the tax to tip at 16.5%. But when the bill says what 15% is, it’s even easier to just write that down, which reduces what the waitstaff gets.
(I have had trouble with the “double the tax” policy… I once ordered a drink in a restaurant to find that they included the tax for the drink (from the bar) in the price, and the tax on the bill only covered the food. My tip would have been significantly low if I hadn’t noticed it)
In Indonesia, especially in Jakarta where i’ve lived for a year. The bill has included what we call with “Service Charge”. Basically it means the tips we are ought to pay. In general, the service charge costed you between 2-5.5% from your total cost.
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Why not go the next step and just include service in the item price.
Though I understand the principle, I’ve never seen the point in tipping in reality. If you want to charge for it – put it on the bill.
I don’t believe many people really put too much thought into the quality of service when calculating what to put down. So I doubt it serves much purpose.
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I saw this at least a year ago.
Tipping is a way for restaurants to pay their workers less in the hope customers will make it up and not notice that prices are higher than those published in the menus. A better system is to pay workers more.
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In Eastern Massachusetts, we saw something that did even more of the math. The server at Legal Seafoods brought a portable credit card swipe machine to our table at the end of the meal. There were keys labelled 15%, 20%, etc.
All you had to do was swipe your card, press a key labelled with percentage of your choice, and the tip would be computed and added to your bill. (There was also a key labelled something like “manual tip” for those who wanted to enter a tip that was not a suggested percentage.)
It makes sense–fewer and fewer people can do math without a calculator anymore, and probably those who have had a few drinks at dinner are even less well equipped than the general population.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I recently visited some Canadian cities and saw this in about half of the places I went to. I come from a non-tipping country so I was grateful to have it simplified on the machine that way.
The practice is fairly common, pehaps you don’t eat out that much! I would love to read a Freakonomics analysis of what servers make per hour. My guess it is $$$+ in fancy restraunts and not much in low end establishments.
The official BLS numbers are way low because tips are under reported.
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Last I heard, the IRS said that 17% (pre- or post-tax not specified) was the average tip on bills paid by credit card, and they assumed that bills paid by cash or check were the same. This assumption is how they calculate under-reporting of tips. As people pay more often with plastic — and almost everyone uses plastic in more expensive restaurants — the underreporting is declining.
I always tip less if I am tipping in cash because I know that cash tips are essentially under the table and will never show up on any tax return.
Most restaurants make you report 15%-16% regardless of whether or not that was what was made, so it will show up on a tax return regardless, unless you’re actually being generous with your tips. Since you didn’t leave any percentages or math in your comment, I’m going to have to assume that by less, you’re implying less than 15-16%, but by all means, please correct me so that I can stop assuming you’re a jerk.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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If a restaurant is making you report wages that might not actually exist let alone provably exist then you work for the wrong restaurant. One of my best friends is in the restaurant business and let me tell you he is making a lot of $9990 cash deposits in the bank. What is his taxable income? What can be proven on credit card receipts and then whatever portion of the cash will make things sound plausible. Hell, you’re lucky if an all cash business is only cheating on its taxes…much of the time they are money laundering fronts.
Mike, did you actually read what Ashley posted below (I can’t reply to your reply)? It’s reported for them. Whether they made it or not. Your later point about your friend being a criminal really isn’t relevant to wait staff tipping and their taxes. They make a wage lower than minimum and then they have a tipping percentage reported.
All of those things are fact. Your points about money laundering and criminal activities may well be true for some restaurants (and other types of businesses too) but you’re using them not to say, “so I don’t use establishments that are criminal” but instead to say, “I’ll try to rip someone off because I feel their boss might be a crook.”
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Sorry Jen, but I think if you re read his first sentence….
i have seen this in many places, and yes, it should be an standard practice…… waiters deserve more, if they perform well.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Tip should be outlaw since its hurting the business. However you are not required to tip to food service.
Move the decimal on place to the left, then double it for 20%. Bill of 51.27? Tip is 5.1 times two … $10.20. Round the tip amount if the addition makes you nervous.
I always begin to scale my tips once the bill reaches a certain amount if the amount paid in the bill does not actually reflect the amount of effort the server has put into the meal. Sort of like how eBay reduces its final value fee in increments as the closing price rises. This makes sense as each new table incurs a fixed cost to the server in terms of effort, but additional meal items, costlier items or additional persons at the table have much less marginal costs so I reflect that in my tip.
I retract my earlier comment, since I see you’re simply a jerk. I can just picture you at one of my tables now…nitpicking everything and being overbearing, controlling and demanding…and then leaving me a “generous” 15% cash tip.
Most of my tips are 18-20%, but I’ll be dammed if I’ll give some server $20+/hr to put food on my plate. Who do you think you are, an auto worker? If you want those sorts of wages go get a real job. Using people to serve food is an astonishing waste of human capitol and it hurts the country to encourage it.
BTW, do you know why most people give you tips at all? It’s because of the threat of social penalties if they don’t. The waiter will either spit in their food or key their car or get them banned from the premises or other customers will do something similar. If you were to get people honest opinion about if getting their food served to them was worth the tip amount I doubt that many would think so and state that they only tip because they felt they had to. Congratulations, you are employed in an extortion racket.
If the Restaurant owners were forced to internalize their cost of service labor then they would be able to minimize those costs and pass the savings onto the customers. The current system allows price pressure on the food, but allows the service staff to extort their wages from the clientele in sort of a weird informal cartel. This whole 15-20% thing is basically a nationwide service price floor. I don’t ever recall seeing signs advertising a 10% or 5% tip standard so because tips are ostensibly voluntary we have all ended up paying more. Anyway, thanks for not spitting in my food, I look forward to you coming by my house and remarking what a shame it would be if it were to catch fire.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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