These days, the expectation at U.S. restaurants that diners will tip their servers is a key part of the culinary economy: tips subsidize a server or bartender’s salary at the vast majority of the nearly 650,000 restaurants in the country. But tipping wasn’t always part of the U.S. dining landscape — …
Why The Fuss About Tipping?
In the food and beverage service industry, discussion or even mention of tipping is guaranteed to garner a heated reaction. In the United States, tipping is a deeply rooted practice with a long and fraught history. Subject to ongoing legal and social debate, the future of tipping is undecided though a growing cadre of critics and industry workers are pushing for a change to the practice.
How We Got Here
Tipping in America is a social practice rooted in slavery, specifically post-emancipation attitudes where diners and businesses moved to avoid paying newly freed Black workers. Though a widespread practice today, tipping as industry standard was not always a foregone conclusion. It has faced waves of successive pushback since the early 1900s.
This week, the House of Representatives will have a chance to end a pernicious legacy of slavery. Lawmakers will vote on the Raise the Wage Act, which would boost the minimum wage across the country to $15 an hour by 2024. This would be a crucial step toward the first federal minimum wage increase …
The Case AgainsT Tipping
Opponents of tipping argue that the practice perpetuates a racialized class structure and widens the opportunity gap between white and BIPOC workers as well as front and back of house staff. In addition, issues of racism, sexual harassment, and worker exploitation remain serious concerns with tipped food and beverage service positions.
When a night at a restaurant or bar finally comes to a close, most Americans engage in an instinctive ritual. They dig into their wallets, fiddle with their smartphone calculators, and then decide how much money to give their server or bartender for a job well done. Tipping, while practiced around …
Three years ago, Jay Porter, a former restaurant owner who abolished tipping at his restaurant, made a powerful case against the practice, an industry standard in the United States. Everything at his establishment, he wrote in a 2013 Op-Ed for Slate, improved after he enforced a mandatory 18 …
Today's Tipping Climate
The pandemic has further complicated the discussion of tipping, though opponents argue that the disruption of COVID-19 offers an opportunity to remake parts of the service industry, including tipping. As some restaurants try to navigate a post-tipping reality, diner pushback has become a concern as many diners reject higher costs for menu items. Enter service charges as a way to manage customer perception. In addition, not all industry workers are happy to leave tipping behind.
One year after we first spoke in July 2019, Andrew Hoffman tells me I need a “disclaimer” for this piece. “This article was started pre-pandemic. Back in the Great Before,” jokes Hoffman, co-owner of Berkeley’s Comal and Comal Next Door, who eliminated tipping at his table-service restaurant around …
I knew there would be a storm of criticism when I dared to challenge people to take the focus off themselves and consider tipping even when the service is not gold star. Nonetheless, I was stunned by people’s lack of empathy for folks who wait on them. And the name-calling and swearing was over the …
On a hot night last summer, Shelly Ortiz gulped down water, put on two masks and tried to muster the excitement she used to feel heading into work at the Clever Koi, a hip ramen-and-cocktail spot in Phoenix. She loved the banter with co-workers, and the regular customers whose orders she’d …
When it comes to pandemic behaviors, it’s easy to look at anyone doing a fun thing riskier than what you’re personally comfortable with and think they’re an asshole. I love restaurants, but I haven’t eaten in one since March 9, 2020, a week before Los Angeles issued shelter-in-place mandates. Being …
ANXO, Seven Reasons, and Thamee are experimenting with how to provide their employees with higher wages and more robust benefits. Since they’ve …
Jillian Melton and Paul Sklar work at two restaurants hundreds of miles apart. And when it comes to the $15 minimum wage debate, their differences in views could almost be as vast. The push by Democrats to raise the federal minimum wage would also eliminate a decades-long practice of paying …