Posted on 05/27/2026 8:07:00 PM PDT by Red Badger
In many US cities tips of 20% are now expected at restaurants
The debate about tipping culture in the US has reignited in recent years, with social media posts about waiting staff angry that they haven't been left enough money going viral. Is this increased pressure to tip, and to do so generously, now spreading around the world?
Lillian Price thinks that tipping in the US is "out of control". "It's too much," she says.
"You might just be grabbing something to go, and you are expected to tip," says the animal care worker who lives in Philadelphia.
Price, who says she tips 15% in table-service restaurants, adds: "If somewhere is providing a service, that's fine, but I don't see why you need to tip in other places, or worse still, that they expect one. It's for any little thing… when do we stop giving tips?"
Price's policy of tipping 15% in a restaurant might seem generous to many people, but in certain cities in the US it could very well result in a frosty response from a waiter or waitress. In places like New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago 20% is now more often expected.
For Kate Santos, a waitress who works at Sanger Hall, a bar in Queens, New York, tips are an essential part of her income.
"Servers in New York make $11 (£8.18) an hour, so basically I make my salary off tips," she says. "If people don't tip, it's a bad day for me. In New York, there's an unspoken rule that you tip 20% minimum and if the tip is less, then people think it's terrible."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Years ago soon after I moved to Japan I tried tipping a bartender in Tokyo and he refused it . No tipping culture here . So , every once in a while , we give the family owned restaurants ( no chain shops for us ! ) we frequent gifts like fruit , souvenir sweets from places we visited , etc...Thing is , they will eventually give us a gift of some kind in return ! This is Japanese culture .
I go to a bakery where the services consists of the staff reaching behind the counter, grabbing a loaf of bread, and putting it in a bag
They then turn the payment screen towards you with the tip boxes set at 22%, 25%, and 30%
I HATE THOSE PLACES!.....A local restaurant diner does that.................
I also told them Fridays were the worst for tips. They didn't believe me.
After a couple of weeks, they'd come up to me, "Dude, you weren't shittin! Fridays SUCK!"
“They then turn the payment screen towards you with the tip boxes set at 22%, 25%, and 30%”
And probably no easy way to choose 0%
Eating in restaurants contributes to shorter life.
The food is pre-prepared, frozen and thawed, often microwaved, deep fried, overly salty or sugary, emulsifiers, additives, lots of those chemical words on the ingredient list that you have to look up to learn what you are ingesting.
Generally crap ingredients, even many of the salads or so called healthier choices, that the body stores the stuff it can’t easily breakdown.
And many people tip for the pleasure of harming their body with restaurant or take out foods? Same as convenience food at supermarket. Even the salad bar comes as mostly precut, pre-prepared additive laden veggies and salads.
Met a vegetarian friend at a vegetarian eatery and same thing, just organic sugar and additives but still mostly crap ingredients not real food.
Eating out is for people who don’t care for the body God gave them. If you
Can’t cook for some reason, make a deal with family, friends, neighbors who do, to prepare healthy food for your fridge or freezer 1-2 times a month.
Or expect the consequences of stuffing waste in your fuel tank.
I'm waiting for the day when a customer comes in to deposit, say, $10,000 into her account, and, after the transaction is completed, the bank teller snidely asks, "Well?! Didn't you like your service?! How am I supposed to feed my children? Maybe you shouldn't use a bank at all if you can't afford to tip!"
I'd say that, if the bank teller provides a truly exceptional banking experience - is friendly and courteous, and provides prompt service - they deserve at least 15% on every deposit/withdrawal.
Regards,
I tip the local resteraunt and brewery folks well and it pays off. They know me and the wife and when they see us coming they have a beer waiting or bring it over as I’m sitting down, they ask the wife which flavor of seltzer she’d like today, know what we like to eat and ask which we’d like that day...it’s our regular Thursday date day..lunch that we have around 2:30. I switch up on a 2nd beer and it catches them off guard. I have to do that before they bring a second one over (we’re the 2 and done couple as well). We seldom if ever do dinner dates, we’re home by dark and cook our own, enjoy the deck and local wildlife.
We don’t show up on a Thursday they tell us they missed us the previous week next time we’re in so they keep track.
Nobody else gets tips. There’s tip jars at gas stations, some local stores and the hotel housekeeping is really asinine.
If I am at a sit-down food business and have an actual human being attending the table, I will tip. If an order-taker simply hands me the order over a counter or thru a window, no tip. I especially despise the little card machines that are programmed to not offer a zero percent tip.
There is usually a skip button or similar..................
Have a local BBQ place here that does an awesome business. They have a sign at the register that says NO TIPS ACCEPTED give to a charity of your choice instead.
I identify as black when it comes to tipping for bad service and cashiers.
The tipping culture is out of hand. First and foremost, a tip is very simply a reward for good service. If the service I receive is decent, I’ll give a tip, usually 15% of the before tax price of the meal. If it’s better, I will give a better tip, and I will certainly give a worst tip or no tip at all Services lousy. A tip is a way of saying thank you. I despise the fact that restaurants make a tip mandatory, and always at a level of at least 18%, depending on the size of the party. Good service doesn’t depend on the size of the party, it depends on the attitude of the person rendering the service. If the restaurant is super busy, they need to hire more people, not put pressure on the existing wait staff.
As for people in the food service industry complaining about not being paid enough, nobody forced them to become waiters or waitresses, they chose that. I never worked that type of job, but I worked plenty of minimum wage jobs when I was younger, and nobody tipped me or any of my coworkers. And those jobs were the jobs that I chose to work in. I had no basis for complaint, any more than waiters and waitresses do.
By the way, if I’m picking up food, and a waiter or waitress isn’t delivering it to me, nor suggesting a particular choice that is recommended, there’s nothing to tip about. There is no service. And as for those people who say that if you don’t tip enough, you shouldn’t be going out to eat, they really don’t have much of an understanding of economics, do they? Because if that’s the attitude, then people will stop eating out as often, and there will be less jobs in food service.
Frankly, all of this nonsense about tips is more about our general culture than it is about the specifics of the issue. People are way too spoiled, and they expect everything to be given to them on a silver platter (and, by the way, that particular phrase is based upon premium service being rendered by a waiter). Whatever happened to working hard and doing a good job for those you serve?
I’ve gotten to where I usually leave 20% also.
Agree California minimum wage has put a lot of places out of business even some fast food joints have closed because of low sales.
Even the illegals feel the pinch at the car washes due to a $30.00 deal....................................
What really irks me is that everywhere you go, people have tip jars out. Why would I tip a clerk for ringing up my purchase? Or worse yet, when I check out from any large store they ask if I want to round up my purchase to some nondescript “charity.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.