I’m not sure how this applies especially to waiting tables, as opposed to any other job. I mean, do you go to work each day with the attitude of “Fuck y’all, I get paid the same whether you’re happy or not.”
Do you apply this when buying, I dunno, an umbrella? Shouldn’t you send some money to the minimum wage guys and gals on the production line, since you have no way in place to guarantee the money goes to them?
I have read approximately a gazillion posts explaining how you have to tip because the wait staff don’t make a living wage otherwise. Now I learn it is just to modify behaviour. Surely if you are right then there’s nothing wrong with any given person just deciding they aren’t interested in paying extra for special serivice. Yet clearly many (most?) Americans consider that tipping is essentialy compulsory if you are not an asshole.
Which is it?
To me, a person shouldn’t have to throw down that additional 18% if they are stuck with a rude waiter/waitress.
God bless you always!!! 
Holly
You don’t?
Huh.
I can take it or leave it. Technically, the new restaurant doesn’t “cost more” because the revised prices are roughly equivalent to the current standard price+tip. It’s also different than a standard 18% gratuity, because the waiters aren’t paid a “living wage” they are paid the same low wage + tips as today.
Personally I don’t change my tip much, I’m not suddenly going to fork over an extra $10 for my meal because you showed off your waiter skillz. Waiting tables is a job that entails a reasonable amount of effort and consideration, I don’t want to be impressed, I just want my food and drink provided in a competent manner.
The only trouble with a no-tip restaurant is trying to back into the “normal” price scheme when I’m trying to compare your prices with other restaurants.
I don’t think it would be successful in North America and I think a lot of the posts above explain why, but it would be great if there were such restaurants available.
It is such a minefield eating out in North America, I come from Ireland where a 10% tip was expected pretty much no matter what the service was. Here (in Canada) am I expected to judge the service and pay the server as if I was their employer? I really don’t want to have to decide to reward or punish some random person when I eat a meal out. It seems so unfair to the server as well, if they have a bad day they get less pay for the day, that sounds like a bad way to have to live your life. Maybe they’re having a bad day because you couldn’t sleep the previous night because they were worrying about having enough money to pay the bills.
I think a no-tipping restaurant would be a pleasure to be in, the servers could work cooperatively since you’re not working ‘for free’ if you assist a table which is not in your section.
I think an improvement could be a profit sharing scheme where the servers (and cooks, busboys etc.) had a vested interest in the medium and long term success of the restaurant. This would mean that servers were more interested in making a repeat customer than in making you spend as much as possible for your meal, also the cooks would be more invested in reducing waste and increasing the margin for the restaurant.
Shit, I’m supposed to tip the tow truck driver? What about the guy at the impound lot, and the arresting officer?
Do not-I repeat, do not-attempt to tip the arresting officer. 
However, in Philadelphia, tipping the judge is encouraged.
I don’t think it would be successful. Most customers would simply see an 18% higher cost compared to an equivalent meal elsewhere, so they would go elsewhere. I doubt most people would take the tip into consideration when comparing prices.
And I wouldn’t like it because it seems like there would be less incentive for the server to provide good service. If he or she gets paid the same regardless of the quality of service, why go the extra mile for the customers? Just do the minimum. My service industry days are far behind me, but even as a salaried corporate drone there is a % of my pay that is based on the quality of my work and the people I work for get to decide what that is.
Most of the restaurants outside the USA operate like that…
Most everything everywhere operate like that.
It’s gone up. I grew up with 15% in the 80s, but it’s steadily been increasing. I’m not exactly sure how upward creep in tipping works, but it does. Around here, closer to 20% is considered standard. I basically just double the tax (9.5% in most of Chicago) and round up.
One must also remember that the minimum wage laws vastly differ by state. In California, for example, the minimum wage for tipped employees is $8/hr. In Washington, it’s $9.19/hr. I still tip the standard 15-20% when I’m there, out of habit, but the $2.13/hr minimum wage for tipped employees is hardly universal. See here for info.
Sure. Some days.
Fair enough. Your position is entirely ethical–as long as you tell the business that before you get service.
Because they have a rational expectation that you’ll tip them, and they’ve chosen their job accordingly. Their bosses have that rational expectation, and have set wages accordingly. And you know they have that rational expectation. When you agree to the exchange of money for goods and services, everyone involved knows that one side expects a tip to be part of that exchange. The amount of the tip is, within certain implicit limits, your choice; but both sides know of the expectation of a tip’s existence.
It’s a free market, though. You’re welcome to refuse that implicit expectation. All you have to do is, when the hostess greets you, say, “Table for two, please–and we don’t tip.” That way, everyone involved knows that you are asking for a different arrangement from the normal one, and there’s no lie-by-omission on your part.
If you don’t tip, but you don’t tell the wait staff or management ahead of time that you don’t tip, then you’re committing a low level of fraud. You’re getting services and goods offered at one cost (including an implicit cost), but once you’ve received them, paying a different cost.
…its one thing to stretch definitions and its another to accuse someone of not tipping of fraud. Fraud is a crime. I doubt many people end up in court because they chose not to leave a tip. If you want to throw “fraud” into the tipping mix: then the restaurant and the server are committing “fraud” because they are advertising their product at one price but there is a hidden implicit expectation of a higher, secret price. Lets not descend into hyperbole, shall we? And I say this as a person who quite happily tips in a culture where tipping is not expected.
It’s ethical anyway. The price of a Coke is $2.00. I pay $2.00, I get a Coke. The price of an ounce of Corryvrecken is, say, $12.00. I pay $12.00, I get an ounce of Scotland’s finest Islay. What’s unethical about that? What’s fraudulent about that? What’s unethical, or at least foolish, is to expect me to reward someone 20 cents for pouring a coke or $1.20 for pouring an ounce of scotch. Explain precisely what the scotch-pourer has done to earn a dollar more than the coke-pourer.
Tipping is a reward for exceptional service here. And I play that game. It’s not rational at all to expect me to automatically shore up the low salaries their cheap bosses offer them, any more than it is to expect our clients to show up and hand me a wad of cash just cuz.
Really? All business involves the exchange of money for goods and services. Do you tip the 7-11 clerk? The McDonald’s cashier? The cleaning staff where you work? The guy who sold you your last car? The people outside doing road work?
I agree with this. I am aware of the expectation of a tip’s existence.
No, I don’t. A pair of shoes costs the price tag, plus tax. A plate of crab legs costs the price tag, plus tax. I see no difference (aside from the flavour).
The normal arrangement is that I pay what the product is deemed to be worth, and the employer pays his employees. That’s how it works everywhere else, I see no reason to consider restaurants to be any different.
No, to dine-and-dash would be fraudulent. I ordered something, I got it, I paid the requested price for it. No fraud there.
And oddly enough true not just for tipping.
Imperial measures, mono-coloured money, guns, religious fervour, odd prudishness… strange spelling…
(I’ve loved visiting the US… but you have to admit, you guys are weird). 
:dubious: You don’t think the fact that the custom of expected tipping at (US) restaurants is so ingrained in the culture that restaurant owners in many places are allowed special legal exceptions for paying their employees less than legislated mandatory minimum wage rates (precisely because tips are assumed * in law* to constitute a certain percentage of restaurant servers’ income) counts as a reason “to consider restaurants to be different” in this respect?
I call bullshit. You’re not actually naive about the fact that restaurant labor and wage policies customarily and legally have significant differences from those of other businesses. You’re just pretending to be in order to freeload off the more responsible restaurant patrons whose tips help keep menu prices low for you.
There’s no tipping in Germany… well, you can tip if you like (a German would never refuse) but the total will already have the gratuity added to it.
Not pissed in your scotch?