I didn’t vote as there was no choice that fits the way I look at it. I go to a restaurant based on many things, food quality being the big one. The style of payment just doesn’t matter.
Anxiety and social/emotional stuff? There’s none of that. You go into a restaurant expecting to pay your bill and leave a tip, and there’s no more thinking beyond that. It’s completely mechanical.
I have this annoying habit of not liking to see that the final bill has cents instead of .00. So I normally end up tipping more than the prescribed 15% on the rare chance that I do go out. So the moral of the story is that I save money with the proposed restaurant. 
Love it
I chose “Other things being equal, I’d prefer it but it doesn’t bother me”, although like others I suspect that American servers at these places would still expect to be tipped. I wouldn’t like getting that attitude from servers if I were going to a place that marketed itself as being a no-tipping restaurant.
I used to live in Japan, where there’s truly no tipping*, and I liked that just because it was easier to judge what my final bill would be while making my selections from the menu and there was less messing around with change. But it’s not like it’s some horrible ordeal to calculate the tip or do the whole “Okay, here’s $2 back from the change you just gave me” thing, so I don’t care that much.
*FWIW service in Japan is excellent.
I always tip at least 15 percent and I don’t like the way some Dunkin Donuts do not allow tips. My friend that waitresses makes a hundred a night on tips in an upscale restaurant but she works her tail off. How do we know the restaurant is paying a living wage?
Personally it would make the server lose incentive to give excellent service if there was no tip involved. They hustle for the tips not the pay.
I make my elderly clients tip at restaurants and they get mad but I tell them it isn’t 1920 anymore and catch them trying to not leave decent tips all the time. Just yesterday a client tried to get out of paying a 4 dollar tip and I had to tell her we were not leaving until she paid the tip. This woman is very wealthy but is frugal. I carry a tip card in my wallet and show them what is expected.
Tip is generally calculated on the pre-taxed bill, so your equation should be $100+$8+$15, $123.
I don’t think it would bother me one way or the other.
If its a place where I am a regular, I generally tip better than I would in other places. I like knowing that I get that little extra attention from my server.
But otherwise, it wouldn’t make much difference to me.
I always pay the tip in cash so whatever they do with the money after that is between my server and the IRS.
The OP’s idea would be impossible to implement because Americans, as a rule, think it is extremely rude to not tip, no matter what. It would be very difficult to change that social pressure.
I even tip in countries where tipping isn’t the custom, and I’ve seen other Americans do the same. (Although I might tip less than 20%, maybe just leave the change.) I can’t stop myself. It just seems so rude. Yes, it’s dumb, but it’s just that ingrained.
I expect servers in tourist locations around the world love seeing Americans coming, knowing there’s a good chance they’re going to get a nice tip.
ETA:
Hahaha, what on earth are you talking about?
It is something I feel – I really dislike the tipping system.
Firstly, there’s the weirdness of who to tip and who not to tip: the standard in the US seems to be that you tip those in low-status jobs (barman, waitress, guy who carries your bag, guy who delivers your papers) but not high-status jobs (vet, doctor, accountant). So there’s the awkward element of noblesse oblige that I strongly dislike.
But I can’t be the only one who dislikes there oddness/awkwardness involved in deciding how much money to deign to give the person who just served me?
pdts
This is exactly how I feel also.
Giving a little extra in appreciation of good service - fine, but deciding how much the service was worth by a tip?
Not comfortable with the concept at all.
Especially when I have an incentive to stiff the poor person.
Tips are the best thing about American service!
Having lived in Germany, and once working as a waiter over there, I can tell you that in countries where tips are not really a big deal, neither is the service; it generally sucks.
Think about it - if you get the same money if you do a good job, or a bad job, what makes you want to go out of your way for a single customer?! Worst I ever saw was back in the East Berlin before the Wall came down. They got paid the same no matter if the restaurant was full or empty - so often you would go into a restaurant or a bar and, even though have the tables and seats were free, they claimed the place was full and wouldn’t let you in. You could order something and wait forever to get it, and if they screwed up the order, the attitude was “tough shit - sucks to be you.”
Every foreign visitor I have ever had come visit me in the states has commented on how good the service is, and how friendly the wait staff is - and they they realize that tips are important, and a good thing to keep people on their toes.
Yes, working for tips means going the extra mile - but at least if you have a customer like me, you will be amply rewarded for doing so. For me, 20% is minimum, but I have left far more if the service was extra good or they had to go out of their way for some reason.
Granted, there are jerks who stiff the service staff, and horror stories of people who cause no end of grief and leave a quarter - but for the most part, I think Americans have learned to tip appropriately, and realize most wait staff live off that money; especially anybody who has ever worked in a restaurant.
Out of curiosity, are you American? Because most Americans grow up watching their parents tip and it’s not really difficult or weird trying to figure out who to tip and who not to. I learned who to tip from my parents, just like I learned not to talk with my mouth full and to wait until everyone is seated before eating.
(I didn’t learn how MUCH to tip, though! Which is a good thing - turns out my mom is a cheapskate. She thinks I’m some kind of crazy person for tipping 20% instead of 10%. Must be a generation gap thing.)
I’m not really sure how this restaurant benefits me. As long as tips are still allowed, there will be people who feel obligated to tip. And thus, eventually, the system will again match the current system, but with a 15% markup on everything.
I’m not really against the idea of the American tipping system. The basic idea of paying more for people who do a better job is very good. However, it also seems to mean justifying lower base salaries, which then creates a sort of societal obligation to tip even the worst service. And it makes a lot of waiters desperate, causing them to be more annoying, or even willing to use underhanded tactics such as insincere flirting, appealing to emotions with sob stories, acting like they are going above and beyond or giving special deals when they are just following policies, etc.
And then there’s percentage creep. When I first was taught about tipping, I was taught to use 10%, if they deserved a tip at all. Then I was told that 10% implied I thought the service was lousy, and that it should be 15%. Then I’m starting to learn here that that’s just the base, and that I’m supposed to tip 20%. All the while, the actual cost of eating out has went up, so we’d be paying more on tips back at 10%. And the economy has been going down.
My family used to go out to eat every week. Now we really can’t afford to. The only thing that lets us go at all now is that we’ve stopped worrying about tipping. If we have extra money, we tip. If we don’t, we don’t. And, guess what? Our service is exactly the same. The best are still the best. The good are still good. And the few that are bad are still bad, and still wind up not working there after a while.
I don’t know. I’m American, and half the time I don’t know who the fuck is supposed to be tipped. Just a couple weeks ago my SO and I were trying to figure out whether we were supposed to tip the maitre d’ at a semi-fancy restaurant for checking our coat (there was no special coat check person). We both guessed (and I think correctly) no, but neither of us was completely sure. Another time, at one of those Advanced Autoparts stores, after buying a car battery, I had the guy install it. The terminals were really corroded, so he had to go in, get some anti-corrosive to clean them off, and then finally installed the battery. I figured, yeah, this is definitely the time to tip. Guy waved away my tip (it was 5 or 10 bucks).
So, no, it’s not always that easy to figure out, especially since these days it seems everyone wants a tip, with tip jars appearing in places one would never have expected to see them just a decade or so ago. I mean, people sometimes tip me when I work, and I’m the owner of my own company. From what I understand, you don’t tip owners of companies. My policy used to be to refuse all tips but now I’m like, hell, if people want to throw a couple extra hundred dollars at me, I’ll do something to at least earn that extra worth.
This isn’t my experience- I’ve found the standard of service in restaurants to be pretty much the same wherever I’ve eaten, regardless of whether it’s an IHOP in Los Angeles, a Kopitiam in Malacca, a “Greasy Spoon” in London, or a cafe in Auckland, and regardless of whether or not tipping was expected/required/even part of the local culture (when I was growing up in NZ tipping was regarded as appallingly offensive, for example).
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The HR aspect of dining out should not be my concern as a diner. Pay your staff properly and give me a total, all-inclusive bill at the meal’s conclusion.
God I feel like Martini’s twin, but yeah - I gotta concur.
In New Zealand, I have generally found the service to be friendly and excellent, and there is no tipping culture. Fair enough, I haven’t eaten in the States so I don’t have a means of comparison though.
Back there, the reward of doing a good job is all that is expected, those that have a “good attitude” will give good service, regardless of the pay. Those that don’t, won’t - simple as that.
In Singapore, tipping is not the norm (although there is a 10% service charge that is imposed by the restaurant, but this does not go to the waiters - its just a way for the restaurant to hide the true cost of the meal).
Again, some people do provide really good service, some provide horrible - its all down to their attitude. Malaysia the same - you can quite clearly see the people that are “happy” in what they are doing. Many of these places we go back to again and again and again - and have never tipped.
But you don’t get the same money - if you do an exceptionally good job, the customer is free to pay you more than they are contractually obliged to pay as thanks, and if you do a shitty job the customer complains and you get your ass fired.
The reason I don’t like the U.S. tipping system is because the agreed upon price should assume that you’re actually going to do the job I’m paying for. I shouldn’t have to pay 15% more than we agreed upon just to stop you sabotaging your product.
Adding to this, the way that it works in New Zealand, is that those that do a “good job” get promoted, more shifts, taken care of better by employer, more access to better jobs, can ask for more pay - so doing a “good job”, indpendent of pay is often its own reward.
Oh, you’re the one who decides how the world should and shouldn’t work! Wow, isn’t that a heavy burden for you? I can barely keep my own life from falling apart.
It’s not that hard a concept. If you enter a contract with someone to provide service A for $X, you don’t get paid extra for providing the service you are contractually obligated to provide.