Customers hit with automatic 20% gratuities as restaurants combat tipping confusion

[joeypots]

I waited on too many tables and made too many drinks to be annoyed by tipping. I do not, however, tip counter help. 

Just as a company will pay salespeople a % to incentivize them, servers in restaurants are sales people as well as the face of the business. Good servers make or break a dining experience and work their asses off to make the experience for the customer. Good service? Good tip. Bad service? Bad tip.

When you see the same servers in your local dining spots for years and years you know something is being done well. People stay with the jobs and you keep going back. Funny how that works.

[99call]

This thread has me wondering. What tip would you owe the waiter if they perfectly executed a 'Canard a la Presse' at your table?

[BrightonCorgi]

9 hours ago, 99call said:

This thread has me wondering. What tip would you owe the waiter if they perfectly executed a 'Canard a la Presse' at your table?

I've been hunting for a reasonably priced duck press for a long time. Really hard to find outside of the mega priced ones.

[Çnote]

9 hours ago, 99call said:

What tip would you owe

185€ per at La Tour Argent. I'd throw an extra 20€ on top. It's only money, especially at that place.

[REesq]

The worst part is, in LA in particular, there are a quickly growing number of restaurants where you wait in line to order and pay at the counter, sometimes a waiter brings you your food, other times you pick it up yourself, but you pay the tip when you order and the only shown choices are 18%, 20% and 25%. If you want to pay anything else, you need to scroll through a different screen. Not to mention in Santa Monica many restaurants add a “healthcare and wellness surcharge” of 4% before the tip line. It’s just gotten out of control here. 

[carsncigarsuk]

I have never been to the states but as a UK resident this tipping sounds insane...When people say things like try walking out without tipping are you crazy?

If the service isn't great i am not tipping, just watch me leave...

[Chibearsv]

11 hours ago, carsncigarsuk said:

If the service isn't great i am not tipping, just watch me leave...

If the service isn’t great in the UK, can you pay 85% of the check and leave?  

The US tipping system isn’t too tricky. It’s better to just accept that paying a minimum tip is part of the total bill and not focus on “penalizing” sub par service by under paying. Paying more than your minimum for great service is the norm. 

[gormag38]

I was front of house for over a decade in my young(er) days. I would literally get a paycheck for $0.00 every other week. The state/feds tax 12-15% of all credit card sales you made. So what little money should have been on my check, at my $2.50 rate, was all taken (and then some). I agree with the rest of the world that our 'tipping system' is a** backwards and broken. But the fact remains, that if you 'walk out' without tipping, or leave a $10 on a $250 tab, you could quite literally be costing your server money to wait on you. Again, it SHOULD be the restaurant's responsibility to pay all of their staff, but unfortunately that's just not how it works in this country. I think @Chibearsv said it best 'if you can't tolerate that, then get carry out'.

[Çnote]

8 hours ago, gormag38 said:

The state/feds tax 12-15% of all credit card sales you made.

More accurate today, the guideline for withholding is 10% of sales. Most venues will report 100% of CC tips as income and withhold taxes as appropriate from the hourly. 

8 hours ago, gormag38 said:

Again, it SHOULD be the restaurant's responsibility to pay all of their staff, but unfortunately that's just not how it works in this country

Our system is from the Gilded Age. 

11 hours ago, carsncigarsuk said:

When people say things like try walking out without tipping are you crazy?

If the service isn't great i am not tipping, just watch me leave....

It's easy to get away with. Unlike the rest of the world, credit card payment is not often done tableside. Your card is taken to a terminal, and you write the tip on the slip and leave it in a checkbook. Unless you linger quite a bit or hand the checkbook to your server, they won't know the tip until after you vacate.

Some venues keep book on under-tips and you may have a brief conversation with a manager inquiring on the service on your next visit, or an extremely senior server assigned to your party so as to ensure your visit is pleasant. Subtle and often effective. Regardless, it happens and professional servers will roll with the punches.

[ReelMan]

Interesting discussion, and very close to my evening out dinner with my wife tonight.

Minimum wage in Washington State, USA is USD 18.00. The waiters at our favorite pizza place, we know. They do well because we in the community tip generously. They have told me what they make, and they live pretty well. Honorable profession and a living wage. We live on a small island off the coast of Seattle. Tourists, when they come, congregate in the central area of the island. We live and buy most things out of that area, and our dinners out are in what the tourists would call "the sticks". Our local pizza place is always packed with locals. We are so far removed from FIFA as to be on another planet.  

We generally tip 20-25%. These are servers we have known since they were kids. Our bill tonight included a 6% "employee benefits charge". New owners. By state statute, that amount can be, and frequently is, pocketed by ownership. I'll believe that the owner is using this money to cover employee health care when I see the results. Until then, I am not going back.

[Çnote]

2 hours ago, ReelMan said:

 I'll believe that the owner is using this money to cover employee health care when I see the results. Until then, I am not going back.

New ownership often results in staff and guest turnover. When you don't see your server waiting for you, you know.

[Çnote]

On 6/15/2026 at 3:12 AM, Çnote said:

the food distribution network has consolidated is such a way that it's hard to do things correctly.

https://thegrapereset.com/blog/sysco-meets-michelin-the-paradox-of-mass-distribution-and-fine-dining-excellence

What I was getting at has gotten some traction over the weekend.

[El Presidente]

3 hours ago, Çnote said:

https://thegrapereset.com/blog/sysco-meets-michelin-the-paradox-of-mass-distribution-and-fine-dining-excellence

What I was getting at has gotten some traction over the weekend.

How bloody sad. 🙄

[BrightonCorgi]

The Sysco food show is something else if you can go! Food samples of the finest stuff galore. Bring a large cooler as vendors look to get rid of what they brought at the end of the show. One time I left with commercial sized cheese cakes (pre-sliced) and ton of cured meats all for free.