Tipping

One of the most controversial topics in the San Francisco Chronicle's food critic's blog is the topic of tipping. Whenever he writes about it, the comments become practically violent.

Tipping at a restaurant in it's most basic concept is pretty simple to understand - if someone does a good job, you want to reward them for their service. Somewhere along the way, tipping has become a compulsory part of dining - it is no longer a reward for good service, but rather more likely the absence of a tip is a punishment for bad service.

I actually feel that tipping has become a mechanism that restaurant owners have created to make the experience of dining out seem cheaper, and if their staff doesn't earn enough, it is the fault of the "cheapskate" customers, not the restaurant owners. It is somewhat conflicting with our capitalistic society that diners should tip extra for service that should be expected - if the service is not good, ideally diners would not attend that restaurant, thus causing the restaurnt to either hire better servers or go out of business. In this sense, it's the diner's fault for frequenting restaurants with poor service that the entire tipping concept exists.

The topic becomes even more confusing when proper tip amounts are discussed (20% is now expected in SF and most cities, because 15% is "so 20 years ago", which doesn't make sense to me because percentages shouldn't change with inflation), who should receive tips (waiters versus chefs versus hosts versus busboys), the taxation of tipping, tipping on $100 bottles of wine versus $5 bottles of wine, etc. And then when you move outside of restaurants to coffee shops, hotels, or any other business, it gets even more confusing.

But the reality of the situation is that restaurant staff do depend on their tips for their living, and so I participate in the system even though I feel it is not correct. I am personally leaning towards the belief that the restaurant staff should be paid by the restaurant, and the corresponding raise in prices should be reflected in the menu. That way the animosity between the staff and the diner is removed, the wait staff gets a dependable wage, if the restaurant doesn't pay proper wages they will have trouble hiring good staff, and if the staff is bad the restaurant will have a hard time attracting customers.

In the end, tipping has definitely departed from its original intentions - when I fill out the tip portion of my bill the service quality only affects a very small part of my decision.