Thoughts on tip sharing

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Tony

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A discussion came up today on tip sharing with chefs/cooks/kitchen help what are your thoughts?
 
I'm not a restaurant worker, so my view likely doesn't count for ****. But I believe the kitchen people get a raw ****ing deal while servers at many places can make a great living (at least pre-covid). I've always wished the tips I leave would have half go to the kitchen workers. But as with btbyrd, I think tipping should be abolished, and should be replaced by higher wages for both servers and kitchen workers.
 
Tipping is a crappy system but taking its existence as a given I’d say sharing would make things better - it’d alleviate some of the us and them mentality and align the interests of everyone in the business from an organizational psych/game theory standpoint
 
SHARE!

I am not an American... and I am pretty sure @Tony asked in the context of America. From a foreign point-of-view, it seems completely ****ed up to have 'culturally mandatory' tips to support a minimum wage that is not a living wage.

It also creates this weird dichotomy of obsequious, phoney customer service in tipping customer service and potentially bare-faced apathy and rudeness in non-tipping customer service. I know this is not the best representation of non-tipping customer service, but I went with a family member to return an AT&T modem once.... My god... awful.... it was like some level of purgatory or Dante's inferno.

I acknowledge tipping is cultural. To me, 'mandatory' tipping seems to defeat the purpose of what I consider tipping to be: to reward the business/person for exceptional service and quality. Again, I am aware that my opinion is informed by my culture. This is how tipping is viewed in Australia. It is the exception and not the rule. As I understand it, tipping can even be seen as rude or awkward in some Asian countries.

If I were an American consumer I would want to know whether the tips were shared amongst all the staff. If the tips were shared, I would be inclined to be more generous. I find it unjust that the dishwashers have no opportunity to sweet-talk customers into higher tips simply because they are back of house. Yet... I like to eat on clean plates... But thats just me 🤷‍♂️... if we're going to subsidise the minimum wage... shouldn't it be everyones' minimum wage?
 
Not to take this on too far of a tangent but while restaurant and bar and barber and delivery tipping is bad enough since that’s been established And entrenched for some time — Uber tipping is superlatively bogus because that is a brand new thing and the companies had an opportunity to shape the norms surrounding it from the ground up and chose to shirk paying drivers appropriately.
 
GorillaGrunt said:
Uber tipping is superlatively bogus because that is a brand new thing and the companies had an opportunity to shape the norms surrounding it from the ground up and chose to shirk paying drivers appropriately.
Click to expand...

Again... as a non-American I have a different view. Ask yourself why you are tipping? If the reason is to supplement incomes... why not tip gig-economy workers?

The thing that is shafting gig economy workers is electronic transactions. While Australia largely does not tip, some of that is a consequence of digital transactions. We were pretty early movers on those technologies. In the older days, "keep the change" was a pretty common method of tipping - and certainly something you might do to a pizza delivery driver. It is still easily done to taxi drivers. Now that physical currency has been leap-frogged by virtual payments, people in gig-economy arrangements don't benefit from that 'rounding error'.

I simply choose to avoid the gig economy but if I didn't I would seriously consider carrying change for tipping. Why not? Again this comes back to tip sharing... if the purpose is to supplement incomes in these industries... should it matter what platform the service is based on?
 
Actually... it would be cool for non-Americans to get an American perspective on tipping as well.

Why do Americans actually tip (expectation aside)**?

If there is a range of answers to that question, it might illuminate a philosophical difference in attitude to tip sharing with back of house.


** Maybe my understanding/assumptions are wrong.
 
There are countries where giving a tip is not acceptable and could be interpreted as rude. On the other hand there are countries where not giving tip can be rude or simply not acceptable (been to US only once and that was in Boston and I was told by colleagues that tip must be at least certain amount of the ordered food value).

I agree - I would prefer world where the price of the food and drinks I am paying gives the workers a fair wage - the tip comes without taxes, but it also does nothing for your pension or health insurance.

Back to the real world .... I think tips should be shared - the chef in the kitchen is the guy who actually cooked my meal and should get at least 50% of the tip.
 
Matus said:
There are countries where giving a tip is not acceptable and could be interpreted as rude. On the other hand there are countries where not giving tip can be rude or simply not acceptable (been to US only once and that was in Boston and I was told by colleagues that tip must be at least certain amount of the ordered food value).

I agree - I would prefer world where the price of the food and drinks I am paying gives the workers a fair wage - the tip comes without taxes, but it also does nothing for your pension or health insurance.

Back to the real world .... I think tips should be shared - the chef in the kitchen is the guy who actually cooked my meal and should get at least 50% of the tip.
Click to expand...

And in some countries, tipping with coins is seen as an insult but bills are not... Confusing world this is.
 
Luftmensch said:
The thing that is shafting gig economy workers is electronic transactions. While Australia largely does not tip, some of that is a consequence of digital transactions. We were pretty early movers on those technologies. In the older days, "keep the change" was a pretty common method of tipping - and certainly something you might do to a pizza delivery driver. It is still easily done to taxi drivers. Now that physical currency has been leap-frogged by virtual payments, people in gig-economy arrangements don't benefit from that 'rounding error'.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that this is the still case.

When the EFTPOS terminal isn't connected to the register you can see the person key in the value then hit enter twice. Between the two is a prompt for tip amount (you can see the label when they only hit enter once)
 
This is a good discussion

I'm actually in Canada and in this situation, staff are paid competitive wages. Tips are not expected but appreciated

Also since covid there is no dine in, take out only

Those who are in favour of tip sharing how would you split or what formula do you use
 
I get the idea of doing away with tips but for this discussion, foh/boh staff are already paid good competitive wages
 
** edited completely after seeing Tony's clarification **

I don't think "servers earn their tips through their job performance" is a compelling argument in my experience. I don't know anyone who adjusts the tip based on service, and generally people just pay a certain percentage no matter what. Even for terrible service I've seen people pay their typical amount out of a sense of duty, knowing it's a big part of someone's living wage. The server would have to personally insult their mother or do something egregious to reduce the tip.

That's said from a college town. I can imagine a very different tipping culture in a waterfront tourist-dominated area, for instance. I guess it depends on the typical behavior of the customers.
 
Last edited:
AT5760 said:
Does anyone (besides restaurant owners) actually like the U.S. mandatory tip culture?
Click to expand...

I'm good with tips as an option but I believe it should be a bonus not part of your wage. Appreciate it but don't expect it

I don't agree with what I hear about the US industry paying little to nothing for wages I've seen posts about $2-3/ hour wage
 
AT5760 said:
Does anyone (besides restaurant owners) actually like the U.S. mandatory tip culture?
Click to expand...

I can only speak for my own experiences. Here I'd say, it is not common to tip.

Many of the restaurants I have extremely bad service, some worse than others. This is, of course, also a matter of whether you go to an expensive, average or inexpensive place.

When I went to US for honeymoon, it was always good service. So, maybe tips help in that regard?
 
Having travelled a fair bit my conclusion is that paying 'the check' in the US is the most difficult bit after having found my way through the (sometimes ridiculously) plentiful options of the menu, water waiter, seater, doormen, waiters separate tips or all in one tips and how much....

I could easily see that many would welcome that ritual dance being replaced by the knowledge that all workers get a decent pay. In the end the total bill does not get that much higher. Tipping to me is a bonus, to be applied where appliccable.
Would the pretty easy way of hiring and firing in the US not have more influence on service than tipping?

To me service is an attitude, which ought to be fostered by restaurant owners as much as serving quality. BTW; I do vary my tip according to the quality of the food, the level of service/how I liked the whole experience.
 
GorillaGrunt said:
Not to take this on too far of a tangent but while restaurant and bar and barber and delivery tipping is bad enough since that’s been established And entrenched for some time — Uber tipping is superlatively bogus because that is a brand new thing and the companies had an opportunity to shape the norms surrounding it from the ground up and chose to shirk paying drivers appropriately.
Click to expand...

If the Uber company was a human being you'd punch them in the face and anyone who was there would deny they saw anything.

I dont think a lot of people outside of tech understand just how bad they are; this is a company that passed the line of outright mistreating all of their staff minus c-suite and engineering a LONG time ago and has now moved into I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream levels of awfulness.
 
As a chef currently in Canada, and having spent time in the US, I’ve seen the different angles, from terrible to decent wages, and no tips for kitchen to pooled tip out for kitchen, the variance is quite astounding.
I believe that tipping should be removed from its current feeling of “requirement” in North America. Prices should be raised and salaries should be given to everyone. As this seems entirely unlikely, tipping out the kitchen should be a must.
We currently use a 3.5% of total sales model for tip out to kitchen staff (which is the highest I’ve seen). In our kitchen that correlates to about 50% of 1 paycheck a month in cash, sometimes hiring depending on how busy.
 
Dhoff said:
When I went to US for honeymoon, it was always good service. So, maybe tips help in that regard?
Click to expand...
Generally very good service down here (that I've experienced) without tipping, so maybe it's culture.

redisburning said:
If the Uber company was a human being you'd punch them in the face and anyone who was there would deny they saw anything.
Click to expand...
Indeed. I refuse to use them as a result of their corporate behaviour since the very beginning.
 
Tony said:
I'm actually in Canada and in this situation, staff are paid competitive wages. Tips are not expected but appreciated

Also since covid there is no dine in, take out only

Those who are in favour of tip sharing how would you split or what formula do you use
Click to expand...
I also live in Canada. Tips are very much expected here. Servers are the only workers in my province that can be paid below minimum wage. At the end of the day, they still make more money than the cooks because of tips.

Our card reader terminals have tips options on screen before the customer can pay. There are preset buttons for 15%, 20%, 25%, “other amount” or “no tip”. Customers will not be treated as well on their next visit if they choose not to tip. This is common in all restaurants here.

Our kitchen staff get a tip-out equal to 3% of sales, split among the BoH according to number of hours worked. The servers must pay this amount into the kitchen pool regardless of how much they made in tips. (They always make more) If a table does not tip, the server must still pay out 3% of the bill to the kitchen pool and would lose money on that table, but this is very uncommon. Other restaurants that I have worked in did 2%.

We continue to have dine-in service here, despite covid, but take-out business has increased dramatically.
 
I am not answering the OP’s question; but a lot of places in my area have requests at check out for Tip in places that are take out or self serve.

I have become accustomed to considering all restaurant fair to be 20% more than what the menu lists. I routinely TIP 20% for good service.

But for take out and self serve to routinely ask for the same 20, 25, or 30% TIP is just an attempt to take advantage of custom.

A business should charge what it needs to properly pay every one. It should not be left as an option to pay. And if the service sucks the business is responsible.

I have no issue paying for what I get. Optional TIP- BS.
 
My daughters have worked in restaurants. Everyone shares in the tips. I see nothing wrong with the concept of tips but it should be used for merit. In other words great service great tip. Lousy service lousy tip. Pretty simple.
 
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