I, a US citizen, am also confused by tipping culture in the US.
this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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Everyone hates tipping, but this won’t affect US tipping culture at all. Paying staff almost nothing and making them depend on tips is allowed by US law. As long as that doesnt change, businesses will always pay their staff as little as they can get away with.
Businesses here are not nice. If a waiter can’t make rent, then its time to fire them and hire another waiter. Which they can do because most states have at will employment. So you can fire anyone at any time, for any reason. No notice needed, and you dont have to pay them any compensation.
This is why its always interesting when people (especially from europe) think that not paying tips is going to cause some kind of transformation. We are a corporate country. If you dont go after the business owners, there will be no change.
What if as a customer I am not satisfied with the product? I certainly will not leave a tip and it may not be the employee's fault, but he is the only one who will not be paid. Once, slavery was allowed by the US Constitution, today paying employees almost nothing and relying on tips is allowed by US law. I know it's not the same (not even close), but how do employees feel when they work, are not paid, and depend on the kindness of the customer?
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Keller said he's changed the system so customers with reservations have to pre-pay for drinks, including a service charge. "It's just to protect our staff,"
So, customers not paying tips is forcing the business to pay a living wage, as well as incorporate wages into the price model of products rather than leave it as a hidden morality tax?
Oh, The horror. /s
I find service charges pretty horrifying. I would like the number on the menu to be the number that I actually pay when I cash out, and service charges don't do that.
I've lived in the US for decades and I would like this too. The whole tip culture here is stupid. Just include a gratuity for the staff by default. Or better still, pay them a living wage like most other countries.
Sounds like a good "problem" to me. Fuck tipping. It all originated from slavery also.
It really obscures costs to the consumer who is required to do math every time. A $20 meal plus tax plus tip lol. So stupid. Just post the price for the thing and be done with it.
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No? They are just going to mandatory tips that are included in the check.
In other countries that's called a service charge and is usually included in the price of what you buy and is given to the employees via a thing called a wage
Also you can't fire anyone without proper cause, and they are fully insured.
They won’t pay a living wage. That is just wishful thinking. They will just replace staff that quit, and continue to pay them nothing.
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Whenever I hear anything about US, I am just realising again and again how I never want to visit this sick country.
Not sure why media is trying to make this a thing, it isn't. There's thousands and thousands of posts/videos by visiting Europeans saying they're pissed because they were lied to about America being a shit hole and everyone there is selfish and rude.
Sow division and create engagement. It is working extremely well. I am so fucking tired of seeing this article reposted over and over.
Well, the US are the only country i know of that shifts the responsibility of making sure employees can have a home and food from the employer to the costumer. In central Europe, we tip when the service was excellent, but not by default, and only when being waited at a table.
THIS. I enjoy tipping for good service, when it's above-and-beyond. But a living wage shouldn't depend on a surprise tax levied 100% of the time. I worked as a waiter and I was pretty good. I enjoyed the tips I earned, but I worked in a country where the wage for a waiter was the same as a cook, and tips were excellent gravy for me and the BoH heroes who made me look good.
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The price on the menu isn't anywhere near the bill the expect you to pay at the end.
Bill = menu-price + taxes + 20% tip
(where 20% is just a rough average)
Should be the employer paying their employee for doing their job, not the customer
America is a broken country that rewards the rich few and has no empathy for the rest
This is just one symptom of that
Exactly. Also just write the price you got to pay, including tax, service, the whole. Just the full price!
(Either that, or I wanna see a full break-up of the costs /s .... how much the farmer charges, transport, wholesale, sellers cost & profit, taxes ... everything)
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North americans are so stupid that some restautants tried in canada and the US to simplify things
menu-price = food + taxes + 20% tip
Final bill ends up being the same price as before but people saw bigger number and freaked out...
They'd rather be lied to by the menu price and then scammed for tips at the very end rather than have clear and transparent pricing....
I dont want to live on this planet anymore
a while ago, I wanna say 2010ish, the new CEO of JCPenney had a bold new vision for the brand. Instead of things being marked up and then perpetually "on sale," what if they just... marked things as the price they are? Sales collapsed by 25% and the company lost a billion dollars in a single year.
There is a reason things are the way they are, no matter how stupid they look. Consumer psychology is a trip.
Edit: and the thing is this probably works on the reader of this comment as well. Consumers, when asked, will say they prefer transparent pricing structures. But their real world behavior is the exact opposite.
Taxes not included is insane.
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Do you have to tip at McDonald's, or BK, and the like?
No.
Generally the historical rule is sit down restaurants only, where someone serves you, or tip a driver if your food gets delivered.
So even if you sit down, if you got up to collect your food and/or bussed your dishes yourself then it's not expected.
At bars generally you tip on all drinks, though I'd say less if all they did was open something and/or pour. Definitely tip on cocktails though.
That being said two things have happened in the past 6 years:
- there was a lot of community support to tip on take out orders during Covid to help local places survive. A lot of places still expect this on take out nowadays which is a shame. That being said I still like supporting local places so tip when I can, but less than I would sitting in and dining there.
- with everyone moving to electronic point of sales systems the owners of lots of places of "fast food" or coffee shops these days are now setting them up so they ask for tips after any transaction, and in many cases where they previously didn't ask, those tips are not going to staff, just being collected by the owners which may be illegal in some places. Not to mention they always have three suggested tip rates, and there's no legal rule they be set to anything specific or they be in any order. So one place may be 15%, 18%, 20%, and another place may be 25%, 23%, 20%. So if you're used to hitting the first option (generally used to be 15%) automatically now you're way over-tipping your usual amount. This results in customers just not returning if they realized what happened, hurting the overall business. But like most owners / marketers they can't see past the next quarter or so of transactions and don't care about long term.
FFS, it's called a price for a reason.
If it were up to me I would turn the fucker around. Maximum listed on the menu, and if the customer behaved like an actual human being instead of an entitled prick, their final bill would be reduced by up to 20%.
Keller said he's changed the system so customers with reservations have to pre-pay for drinks, including a service charge. "It's just to protect our staff," he said.
Protect your staff by paying them ffs.
If tips combined with wages do not reach the state minimum of $7.25, the employer must make up the difference. "If they don't receive any tips, it's impossible to survive in the service industry," Thurnher said.
If your minimum wage is lower than a living wage, your system sucks.
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