Tipping is tacitly mandatory. So much so that servers have been known to go after diners who leave less than the expected 15% of their bill. And this is for a good reason. Federal law basically allows bartenders to be paid below minimum wage, with tips going to make up the difference. This is why servers are paid as low as $2.13 an hour in some areas. Even in New York, starting pay is only $5.00 per hour at restaurants.
However, more and more restaurants are starting to ban tipping. It has become common for some restaurants to include a tip for parties of six or more. Others now include it for all tables and on their menus. It is true that this makes a restaurant appear more expensive than one that has lower prices on the menu but you expect to be tipped appropriately. People generally don’t think of a tip as an actual amount to factor into the price of a meal.
Why ban tipping?
There are several reasons to eliminate tips. First, the amount of tip people leave varies widely and is greatly affected by things as arbitrary and discriminatory as the waiter’s physical appearance, gender, race, and age. Other factors include things beyond the waiter’s control, such as the quality of the food. Diners often think that the amount they leave depends on their personal criteria. However, in reality, leaving a bad tip is tantamount to stealing the waiter’s wages.
It remains fundamentally flawed that select professions have salaries left to the whims of clients. If a lawyer charges $60 an hour, he gets paid $60 an hour no matter how his finished work turns out. If a business charges $60 to mow your lawn, you pay them $60 no matter what. If cleaning your teeth costs $60, you pay $60 without first judging how much whiter your teeth have gotten.
In the restaurant business, “backs” such as cooks and janitors are paid a set amount for a set number of hours worked. If so, why shouldn’t the “front” of the place (waiters, bartenders, even valet) get the same treatment? Like any other role in a restaurant (or any job for that matter), the server brings the expected quantity and quality of labor, so they must be paid a constant and reliable amount in return.
First, the percentage base is also fundamentally flawed. Does bringing you a $2 plate of fries take less effort than a $20 sandwich? And how many of us can mentally calculate 15% of anything?
