I have noticed that at places like Subway, Starbucks and others where you get your food and/or drink at the counter , when it comes time to pay there is either a tip jar sitting there or a request to tip from the cashier. I was given to understand that tipping was to make up for low-paid staff that serve customers, so who is getting that tip money at self-serve places?
My assumption is that it gets split up among the various staffers. I have no idea how much actually gets put into those “tip jars” at most places, however.
At conventional full-service restaurants some fraction of server tips are commonly expected to be shared with bussers and to a lesser degree cooks. I’m not in the industry, but that has certainly been explained to me by many people over the years, including here. Tips are sort of like applauding at a play; the entire cast and off-stage crew are receiving accolades for a job well done, not merely the leading man/lady.
In effect at self service places you’re tipping the “cooks” directly who assembled your sandwich or mega-moka-stupidito. And who are the same folks who bus the tables for customers who can’t be arsed, and dump the trash, and … every other job in those places.
Tip jars are appearing at a lot more than just food service places these days. Which is a whole 'nuther topic probably best addressed in a different forum with a cooking-related name and very few rules.
The Subway I go to has only two workers there at any time. I assume they split it. They do seem grateful when I throw a buck or two in the jar. My daughter worked at Starbucks for a while. They definitely get a portion of the tips.
Except that at the last Subway I went to the tipping option was done by credit card by checking a box on the screen. There is no way for the counter people to keep track of how people are tipping, is there?
probably not, but the store owner knows who was working with the tip came in. If they’re honest, it’s easy enough to give to the employee.
Presumably the store operations software knows who’s clocked in and handles the tip distribution automatically. Net of any owner “intervention” in the process.
A modern “cash register” does a hell of a lot more than register cash. It’s the inventory control and supply ordering system, the financial bookkeeping system, the tax reporting and compliance system, the timekeeping system, the labor regulatory compliance tracking system, etc.
And it’s the management control system. Both for the franchisor corporation to keep tabs on the franchisee owner, and for the franchisee owner to keep tabs on the worker bees.
I recall an earlier discussion mentioned that California has a law that the owner cannot take any of the tips, unless they are actually working the serving area when the tips were earned. (I think it was Heinlein who said if you want to see what people are in the habit of doing, see what they have laws against).
My wife years ago worked in a middle-tier (Canadian) restaurant where tipping was the norm. The rule was the servers had to give 2% of the bill into the tip pool for the kitchen staff. This solved the problem of whether someone was honest about the amount of tips they got, and the incentive to serve better and (possibly) get better tips was still there. There were the occasional “large party of cheapskates” where management had to comp stuff behind the scenes to ensure the server got a decent tip (There’s always a few - “Why should I give the server 40 bucks just because the birthday party for 12, with drinks, came to $400? Ten dollars is a nice tip!” Never mind that was probably their only table for several hours.)
Canada at least AFAIK is civilized enough that it does not have the lower minimum wage for those working in jobs where tips are the norm, but I haven’t heard of any laws about who gets to keep tips. OTOH, unlike the Gestapo of the IRS, the management is not obliged to track the tip amounts paid (via credit card slips) or withhold income tax on them. It’s entirely the honor system by the employee to report tips to Revenue Canada. I heard a few of the servers could make as much as the managers, especially on the bar side when wearing tight shirts. At least one mentioned to my wife that when they switched to a less stressful 9-5 office job, they suddenly had a lot less disposable cash.
Tip jars you see in such places are not, as it appears, tip seeking. They are almost always a repeated request from customers telling the counter help, ‘You keep the change!’, specifically meaning the coinage. People don’t want lots of coin, it slows them down, they’re busy, busy! And counter staff can only say, ‘You don’t have to do that!’, so many times, until it’s just easier to put out a jar.
So please don’t feel pressured, you shouldn’t. And the tips they’re expecting are just coins really. Don’t over think it. They want you to be just easy with whatever suits you, more than anything. So relax and do as you wish without concern.
Miss Manners says something much like that, although she cites etiquette books, not laws. Her example was an old etiquette book she owns that informs you not to blow your nose in the tablecloth. She pointed out that modern etiquette books don’t feel the need to mention that.
A friend of ours owns a number of coffee/boba tea/bakery restaurants. All counter service.
They sent their teenage son into one of those places to “work” but he just took his laptop or tablet and worked on his homework.
At the end of his four hour “shift”, the manager (another family member) emptied the tip jar and gave him a third of the contents. Next day he shows up, sets up his computer and the two counter workers walk out.
“Nobody wants to work anymore!”
Can’t speak to every province, but BC has had lower minimum wages for tipped workers. Don’t know what the law now is. And in the past, don’t know about now, it was illegal for employers to set up tip pools. Didn’t stop them.
As I recall, the tip pool system for kitchen staff was administered voluntarily by one of the senior servers; technically participation was voluntary (try to imagine a server getting kitchen staff cooperation if not participating). Management specifically stayed out of it, because if management is giving kitchen staff money or requiring it of servers, it counts as wages with all the baggage involved - wthholding taxes, reporting as income, etc.
Since it’s not prohibited, it must be OK. Good to know in this modern informal era that the tablecloth is now an approved hankie. HOOOONNNNNNKKKKK!!! 
More accurately, and I know you know this, nobody is willing to work for utterly ignorant and greedy management anymore. Which comes as quite a rude shock to the ignorant greedy manager class.
Yet the registers have self serve pinpads that default to a list of tip options with no tip at the end. There’s no coinage from a card or phone app.
Usually cashiers try to step away at that point to reduce pressure to tip, but the fact it’s listed as an option rather than older pin pads like at grocery stores where tipping isn’t offerred shows something.
There’s a small ice cream chain by me (and the OP, actually) that used to have tip jars at the windows where you order and pick up your ice cream. I always assumed the tip jars there did very well because the ice cream isn’t too expensive, and you always end up with change, and you’re generally in a good mood when you are out buying ice cream.
I’ve gone a few times already this summer and the tip jars are gone. I asked the kid at the window if they still had them and she says “Yes but they are under the counter now.” I immediately took that to mean that the tip jars had been stolen enough to force the owners to put them away.
While it is nice to not feel pressured to tip, it feels weird to me to not give these kids tips, considering the points in my first paragraph. I’m sure their tips have gone WAY down since the jars went away. I hope maybe their base pay went WAY up.
Oh, also now that I know, I can leave them a tip when I pay.
I hope you realize servers have zero input in what appears on the devices. Likely owners and mangers as well. Corporate hires the software, no one gets a say, it arrives as it’s packaged, to reach the broadest audience. Yes, changes can be requested, but that costs extra, so corporate makes no changes.
Servers hate that ‘no tip’ last bullshit, because they know people hate it, but, again, they have no say.
Yes, likely there’s a simple restaurant management software that comes default with the tip option. I assume it could be customized to remove the option, but for some, “no it’s getting too technical” to dig into the configuration. Whether a simple fast food place needs a restaurant system rather than a retail system depneds on how customizable the menu system is, typically they track things like configuring the individual items, extras for “add cheese” etc… Whereas, grocery stores and other retail establishments will have a different cash register system that simply tallies separate items for a purchase. Larger establishments like McD’s have their own software which doesn’t present a tip option.
But these point-of-sale kiosk type touchpads were specifically built for counter service, not table service. They’re on little stands and they either rotate around or the screen flips over to face the customer, so why would tipping be enabled by default? Since the owner/manager has to input all their menu items, prices, and any other changes, tip/no-tip has got to be a simple checkbox in the configuration menu. This is the case for Square POS systems, see the “device settings troubleshooting” here (pdf).
So yeah, the servers (and likely managers) don’t have control over that, but I’d say owners definitely do, and they’re choosing to take the chance that someone will add a tip even though they’re not obligated.