I said neither. She must be very cheap indeed to make such an impression. However, if she returns she’d be forced to pay 18% even if service were truly bad.
I don’t see why she would want to go back to a place where she thinks the service is awful (didn’t watch the video) but I think the best approach would be for the restaurant to ban her.
It’s a social obligation to say please and thank you. That doesn’t make not doing so bad behavior.
I voted for neither.
First off, 18%? No, the standard tip is 15% and I’m not much for this creep up that’s happening. That doesn’t mean I don’t tip more than 15%, I usually do tip 20%, but it’s the expectation that bugs me
Secondly, what if she’s given crappy service? She’s still going to have to give her waitron (ugh, I hate that word) a full tip? Going to a restaurant with a group of 6 people or more and it seems we get crappier service because of the automatic gratuity.
Thirdly, I wonder if the manager talked with this person about the quality of the service before giving her this tipping ultimatum? (I couldn’t watch the video at work). Maybe there was a problem with the service she had been provided.
I voted that the restaurant is in the right. If she eats there so often that her not tipping makes her famous amongst the serving staff then she obviously doesn’t mind the service and should tip accordingly. The fact that they gave her an option of tipping in the future or not coming back was incredibly nice of them since they could have just told her to haul her ass out of there and not come back.
Screw that. I know non-blacks who do the exact same thing and blacks who would not be caught dead living up to this stereotype.
As for my vote, they can charge people whatever they want and increase charges to individuals based on past behavior to follow custom. They would also be within their rights to outright ban her. I suppose if I were the owner, I’d just ban her for refusal to honor custom and then offer to tack on an automatic tip if she agreed to it in writing, hoping she’d take her business elsewhere.
I think they’re both in the wrong - I think both parties are handling this badly.
Actually, they gave her the option of tipping 18% no matter what level of service she received. I agree with others that they should have just banned her outright.
They gave her the option of tipping 18% because when she determines how much they should earn she determines 0% every time no matter what service she got. She was given the opportunity to tip like everyone else and failed so now she either tips based on what they deem fair or she doesn’t eat there. If she had been tipping even 10% or 12% or had been eating there so infrequently that no one remembered her none of this would have happened.
Aside from the fact that she doesn’t determine how much servers earn, how do you know that she never tipped anything? And why does the restaurant impose this on anyone who is with her?
How do you know she wasn’t tipping 10%? And regardless of that, your original statement was inaccurate. Her option was more restricted than just “tipping.”
So? The restaurant gave her the option of eating there with an 18% mandatory surcharge for gratuity or not eating there. Still her option.
So it was an inaccurate representation. I thought I made that clear.
The customer. If tipping is not mandatory for everyone, then they’re discriminating against one particular customer. I think EVERYONE should boycott the restaurant.
In my book, tipping is more “customary” than “voluntary.” Yes, the customer decides the tip, but tipping nothing, or tipping less than 15%, would be interpreted by most people that the service was inadequate or not appreciated. One cannot pretend that failure to tip to commonly accepted standards doesn’t send a message to the servers and the restaurant.
I thought the journalist was really amiss by not asking either the customer or the restaurant owner how much the woman typically tips. If it was 12-15%, then clearly the customer is in a gray area in which I can understand that the servers may be frustrated, and the customer was being cheap, but not really being offensive. If she only tipped 10%, I can see the restaurant’s policy as being a reasonable proposal. If she tipped nothing routinely, she should be out on her ass.
Keep in mind that the restaurant appeared to be a teppanyaki grill where the chef prepares the food at a grill right at the customer’s table, and provides kind of a show along with the food. Undertipping at this kind of place where the individual attention is greater than a typical restaurant, I think, is very jerkish.
I was thinking, “Please don’t be black, please don’t be black” even though I knew should would be.
But let’s talk about what’s really important here, which is how bad that video was. I thought local news in LA was bad, then I moved to Mpls and gained some perspective. Then I saw that and couldn’t believe what I was watching was real. That guy, Jermont whatever he’s called, is the worst speaker I’ve ever heard. Why does he get to speak on television for a living?
-
The news article was ok but a little annoying: it conveyed some of the facts, but contrived to make several things sound like a gigantic deal without bothering to actually explain.
-
We don’t have enough facts. Do people normally tip less than 18% at the restaurant? Was she singled out for any reason other than bad tipping? Both are entirely possible, and if so, it was probably unfair of the restaurant to do so, and gives the woman an unfairly bad name, and if so, raising a petition is a reasonable way of saying “yes, you have the right to do this, but I still think you’re wrong, and if you want to go on doing it you won’t get custom”
-
OTOH, it seems more likely that she didn’t tip, and most people did, in which case it’s a lot clearer. The restaurant should have and AFAIK does have the right to dictate whatever terms it likes, and if she doesn’t tip what most people do, asking her to do so is perfectly reasonable.
-
Although, it sounds like they weren’t as tactful as they could have been in asking her to do so, which is always difficult to get right.
-
And if she didn’t tip, and most people did, then surely either (a) she likes the restaurant, in which case she should tip or (b) she doesn’t in which case she should go somewhere else.
-
OTOH, I suppose maybe the food was always good but the service was always really really bad. That could lead to going back and not tipping, although it doesn’t sound like a great idea.
Non- or under-tipping is a lot more common than you’d think. IME, only about 75% of not-poorly-served people tip 15% at restaurants.
Former waitress, so biased.
The problem with giving minimal service is a non tipping customer actually costs money. Things might have changed since I waited tables, but we tipped out every night, based on our sales. We tipped the bartender, the busboys and the food runner.
We had a few regulars that everyone hated to wait on because the tips were consistently awful. We just sucked it up and did it because overall, good tips and bad tips balance each other out.
I usually gave these crap tables excellent server so I could be personally vindicated that it was NOT ME they were just assholes. Which, I suppose is no lesson to people that tip poorly, when they keep getting decent service anyway.
I am honestly unsure if it’s the right or best thing to do, but I love the restaurant’s action (banning her would have been even better!).
She claimed she’d been going to the restaurant for years. Why continue to patronize a business that routinely gives poor service? Is the food that good? Is it the only Japanese restaurant in town?
If there was a problem with the service, it wasn’t mentioned in the video.
I basically agree with everything Shade said. We should also keep in mind that it appears the staff was the driving force behind management’s decision; they didn’t want to wait on her anymore.
You are probably right. I’m still pretty convinced that 15%-plus is the societal standard for an average tip. Shoot, just look at any travel guide to the US, and you’ll see it right there in the “society and customs” part of the guidebook.
Clearly, we need to give more Americans travel guides so they know how to behave in their own country.
My guess is that this is a gross oversimplification of the issue.
Here’s one possible scenario:
– Customer happens to be a bit short of cash one day and has to leave a small tip; or customer receives sub-par service one day and chooses to leave a small tip.
– Next visit, the same server gives her a crap attitude based on her previous tip, which - surprise - has a negative effect on this tip as well.
– Server bad-mouths customer to the rest of the staff, which affects their collective behavior toward her, which affects her tipping, ad infinitum.
Of course I have no idea if this is exactly what happened, but I suspect the truth is more nuanced than simply “she’s a bad tipper.”
I say it was an incredibly stupid decision of restaurant management to impose an extra charge on one specific customer – even if it’s legal and even if they have the right to do so, that doesn’t make it the right thing to do. It shows a lack of spine by caving in to the selfish and entitled attitudes of the wait staff. If I ran the place I’d be hiring their replacements before alienating a regular customer.