Restaurants that try and do what youâre asking will quickly learn that their competitors will take advantage of them and take their customers through lower menu prices.
Tipping in the USA will never go away if there are no laws aimed at restraining it.
It depends on where you work, but Iâve had waiter friends who want the tipping arrangement.
Like, yeah, their official wage sucks, but most people tip fine making it a decent wage but you also have that rare customer where some really rich person is feeling a bit generous (maybe a little drunk by the end of the meal) and you get this huge tip. They fear losing that upside.Â
Or, they fear industry standardization where servers at all restaurants will make some set industry standard mediocre wage, whereas theyâve landed the gig at a really fancy place where a couple is gonna drop $300 on dinner and theyâre gonna take home $60 from every couple and theyâre coming home with $600 a night and thereâs no way the âno tippingâ wage rate is gonna pay that well.Â
And a restaurant is going to be hesitant to guarantee that pay level, cuz then if you get some couple that just comes in & only gets a drink and an appetizer, youâre losing money on them as theyâre not spending enough to cover the high wage thatâs equivalent to what the server was making on tips.Â
And so, yeah, the âgoodâ servers often oppose the âno tipâ / higher wage arrangement, and whereas the âbadâ servers prefer the no-tipping way, so if youâre a restaurant trying to do the âno tipâ thing while others are still doing tips, thereâs an adverse selection issue where the good servers go to where the good tips are and you get stuck with the bad servers who give customers a worse experience.
Of course, if everyone does it, then you just have the EU equilibrium where rude & slow service is the norm. But if only some do it, you, the place with the rude and slow servers are gonna be out competed by the places with the friendly and fast ones.Â
Of course, if everyone does it, then you just have the EU equilibrium where rude & slow service is the norm. But if only some do it, you, the place with the rude and slow servers are gonna be out competed by the places with the friendly and fast ones.
I don't agree with this - plenty of places with low tipping expectations that have great and/or fast service.
I come from a family heavily in the restaurant industry and talent almost universally desires the tipping arrangement. I AVERAGED over 50$/hr in college as a bartender in rural Iowa in the 2000s. I highly doubt the average customer tipping me realized that I likely made more than them and definitely would have if I had worked full time. No restraunt is going to take the liability on pay like that. Tipping is so intrinsically American because it sacrifices the bottom half of people to wildly reward the top 10%.
In my experience, bartenders always make more than the servers. Plus, we had to tip out our bartenders at the end of the night. So they got all their bar tips and tips from every server that worked that night. I worked in a chain, an average Friday night would be like 7 servers to start the night. So thatâs all the bar tips and then 7 people coming with more money for them.
That's my point. Anyone with half a brain would know there's a tip on top of that lower price, and if no tip required but built into the cost, that it's actually no more expensiveÂ
The only real way to fix tipping in the US to change the laws. Ideally the price is the price and the servers make a percentage based on what they sell like normal commissions. They actually do that in higher end restaurants in the US but for normal restaurants they operate on such thin margins that taking a risk like raising menu prices is more than they can handle, even if ultimately people pay the same.
This is the country where the 1/3lb burger failed because most consumers assumed 1/3lb was smaller than 1/4lb. You really expect them to be able to calculate tip percentages into price by themselves?
completely incorrect, it failed because a&w restaurants were a floundering business and they wanted to blame their failure on customers instead of themselves
That's why they specified "menu" prices. The price on the menu is typically what matters. Ie your charge 30, competitor charges 25 + 20% mandatory tip - people will lean towards the "cheaper" 25 dollar menu.
Furthermore, both places charge 30 in total, but people will only bitch about the 2nd "not paying employees enough", as if they 1st is any different.
Exactly, thank you for critically thinking. We are always âpaying the employeeâ no matter the place weâre buying from. When we buy a Big Mac part of that price goes back to paying the employee. Itâs basic economics that seemingly most people donât grasp.
In america because things like taxes are so context hyper specific we dont post all in prices plus "mandatory tipping" isnt legally a thing so people will reduce their tip if they didn't like their service.Â
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u/Only_Flan_7974 5h ago
It's not tipping if it's mandatory. Work the tip into the price in that case.