FROMONLINE | 2013-08-18

  • By Tami Lange
  • August 18, 2013
  • 382
                        
Hed: No tip? No problem Summary: Restaurant owner’s idea of service charge in lieu of tip makes good sense all around I have a friend who is a really awesome cook – and an awesomely poor tipper. In fact, his behavior in restaurants – including sending entire meals back because they fell thismuchshort of perfection – is practically legend in our social circle. I no longer will dine out with him. The only person who pays the price more than his dinner companion is the poor member of the wait staff who has to put up with him. Otherwise, he’s a great guy – as long as he’s not within smelling distance of a restaurant. The thing that bothered me most about him was the tipping. If the food is less than perfect, if the kitchen staff is slammed and slow, if the shipment of his favorite wine got trapped in customs – how is that his server’s fault? Once, dining out with my mother and son, we were presented with plates of food so cold and so not edible looking that I actually thought the server was going to apologize. We left her a nice tip, not only because she was a good server, but because she worked in a place with a chef who really should have considered a different career path. My mom has a friend who never tips anyone, ever. She’s got some philosophical opposition to the whole concept of tipping. Service workers might hate her – others would say she might have a point (even if her way of making the point is unfair to those counting on tips) In a recent opinion piece in Slate magazine, restaurant owner Jay Porter wrote about how much service and morale improved in his restaurant when he got rid of tipping and instead, put an 18 percent service charge on each bill. The 18 percent was less than the average tip, he wrote, but it freed up enough cash for the restaurant to give both wait and kitchen staff more money than any of them had earned before. If someone insisted on tipping, the money went into a “Charity of the Month” jar instead. He toyed with the idea of just raising the prices on menu items, Porter wrote, but in the end decided patrons needed to see those actual costs. I’ve never understood tipping. I have friends who have worked in food service, as cosmetologists, as valets who had across-the-board complaints about lousy tippers. They also talked co-workers who didn’t do a stellar job, but still got nice tips from kinder patrons. Back in the day, I worked at Gold Circle. It would have been nice to get tips for me speedy scanning at the check-out – but I got a paycheck for basically doing what I was paid to do. If I did an exceptionally good job, the store management compensated me – sometimes with a raise, sometimes with a bonus. My pay had nothing to do with the quality of merchandise being bought or by how quickly the service desk processed returns. Think of your line of work. Your compensation is determined by your employer, not your clients. Removing tipping not only levels the playing field, it betters it. Everyone in the restaurant get a portion of the service charge … and everyone is happy, according to Mr. Porter. And for those who aren’t happy – like my nightmare friend – they can take it up with the management or simply choose to not frequent the restaurant. No more being arbitrarily punitive with the dollars those employees relied on. I enjoy good service. I also enjoy good food, a pleasant atmosphere and a family friendly dining experience. That all is not covered in a tip. And woe to be the patron who came in AFTER my friend. I’ve got to think he or she probably got a server who wasn’t in that good of a mood. Everyone has a bad day, especially with patrons who set out to “leave an impression.”


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