I refuse to tip when I order and they just hand me my order. The items are generally already overpriced. I’m fine with tipping when I am served but not to get the item I stood to order and picked up myself at the counter.
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This thread is long now, but does anyone know if, when the tip screen appears, the server gets most of that tip? Does management keep some of the tip? Are there rules about this?
My child works at a coffee and specialty bake shop. It is a small family owned on Main St. in town. It is counter service. Should she be tipped? I’m not sure, I think so but so many here have a problem with counter service getting tips. She is counter service but she is providing personalized service.
The bakery portion often does large, expensive orders that are hand picked and she will carry boxes out to cars where people are often double parked. She makes specialty coffee drinks in addition to serving the bakery items. I do go in and watch her interact. She works as hard/harder than any bartender. The line is always out the door and she is quick and accurate on all of the specialty coffees and cold drinks. She makes recommendations and knows what her regulars like. She knows there orders and gets them in and out quickly so they can get to work. She offers tastings of specialty drinks and remakes drinks if people aren’t happy with their selections. There are many hundreds of coffee combinations and she is fast, accurate, and friendly. She also makes pastry recs. and boxes large take out, party orders from the cases. There are 8 tables and she buses and cleans them. She answers the phones for custom orders and goes over the daily selection availability over and over and over again (while also ringing up the customers in the line). It is small space so there are typically only 2 of them working, never more than 3. The owners are in the back baking or at home (they come in during the wee hours of the morning to bake fresh each day and are typically gone home by 10 am). She doesn’t sit, she never gets a break. The weekend line is constant. Even when a ‘slow’ time there are 2-3 people lined up and at busy times the line is out the door and down the sidewalk until the daily pastries are sold out - then they still come for their chai and iced coffees… If the line is manageable for one person up front to handle, she is in the back washing up dishes, out front wiping tables, and restocking cups, syrups, milks, boxes, etc. for the next rush. Now, it’s a great job and she loves it but she is providing as much of a service as any restaurant server and bartender who are traditionally ‘tipped’ jobs. She makes just above minimum wage but the tips make her job competitive with other peers part time jobs.
I guess I don’t understand reading this thread why everyone tips bartenders w/o a thought but so many think it is a problem to tip the counter service barista at their local coffee shop. They seem the same exact type of job.
I tip at our bakery every time. The folks there go above and beyond.
IMO it’s more about the service than the kind of food establishment.
Sounds your D well earns her tips!
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Just was in a small mountain town and got hot after hiking. In the small general store I bought an ice cream bar around $3.50 from the frozen section. It asked for a tip on the CC screen I put no. Then H went into the same store a few minutes later and bought the same thing. He bought it with a $5 bill and they then told him they did not have change- so he ended up leaving a big tip by default.
I don’t think most people think a bartender deserves a tip but a barista doesn’t. I do think the expectations/presumptions for the tip are out of control. The percentage expected is absolutely out of control. And it is clear that more and more people who don’t typically get tips are expecting them.
This thread has already been running for a long time, but as I said months back, when I’m being offered a screen with a 30% tip option, they’d better be cutting up my food and feeding it to me. A 30% tip should not be the expectation. Not that your child personally expects that, and there are absolutely times when a server goes above and beyond, but it should be at the discretion of the person doing the tipping. I truly dislike when management has that option on a screen.
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I guess I’m conflicted.
Why couldn’t the bakery or the coffee shop or insert any small business, increase their prices so that they pay their employees a working wage.
That’s what they do in Europe.
A big sign, we pay our employees a working wage, your tip is reflected on the prices.
I’m just so tired of over thinking all this tipping. Where to tip, what to tip?
And no change for a $5. That feels deceitful.
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I don’t think to tip a barista. Maybe because I’m not sitting down. I may tip depending on the mood. But they’re just calling my name and leaving a drink on the counter. There’s no relationship like with a bartender.
What’s interesting though - a $5 hot drink or $12 cocktail. Do they deserve different tips?
It goes back to - you buy a $20 steak or $40 fish. You tip on the fish more - double in fact - but why ??
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Your D does seem to provide a lot of service and deserves tips. I don’t think what she does qualifies as simple “counter service” for which people are hesitant to tip. Examples of the latter would be simply handing over an order that was placed online and packaged in the kitchen, ringing up self service items, etc.
Even for these I think a lot of people (including myself) do usually leave some tip - but when people are coerced into leaving 25% tips it’s a turn-off.
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Your daughter sounds like a very hard worker. And her job entails much more than handing over a bagel someone ordered. I think that is where people have an issue. (For example)
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I call bull_ _ _ _
They didn’t have $2 - two one dollar bills? Unless they say “no cash accepted” I think they should have accommodated him in some way
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I almost did put this on the scam thread.
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Exactly. If someone is making me a strawberry ice cream sundae with double whipped cream hold the cherry but go big on the nuts and oh maybe put a couple of spoonfuls of shaved chocolate on the top… you bet I will leave an extra thank you for indulging my picky ice cream fix. If someone just picks up a bagel off a tray, shoves it in a paper bag and hands it to me… that’s a different situation.
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If the business is this popular and busy why can’t they pay their employees a higher wage or hire more employees so the current ones aren’t over worked? It’s the expectation that the customer not only pay for the product (which has a profit built into the price) but also part of the employee’s wage (which is the employers job) I find problematic. Good service should be the rule not the exception.
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At least with bartenders (and waiters/waitresses), I can see another difference besides more personal contact. For owners, bartenders are more akin to a commission based worker. Owners want bartenders (and waiters and waitresses) to sell more than 1 drink and encourage their customers to spend more. Also good bartenders (and waiters and waitresses) are a reason why customers will make more frequent visits. They and the owners’ interests are aligned. Good bartenders, waiters and waitresses can make very good money, that is why a great many favor the current tip system. They really see it as a sales commission. The barista’s efforts do not affect sales in the same way, unless they are very slow/fast or incompetent/rude.
When we look at the different tips for a $20 steak or $40 fish, it is not just the labor involved in the service. If we view compensation purely as time spent/effort expended, the tip amount should be the same. But as a form of sales commission, percentages make sense.
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I think it’s hard for employers to get help so they are overwhelmed and overworked.
The difference in a worker at a bakery and a bartender is their pay scale. A worker at a bakery makes at least minimum wage. A bartender makes servers wages, which assumes that patrons tips. The bakery worker’s wages do not.
Someone on this site said it best. Their college kid was very happy with the $20/hour wage for their internship until they found out that the worker at jimmy John’s made the same wage.
And there lies some of the issue. How are we the consumer supposed to know that the worker who waits at a counter for us is the one making minimum wage and depending on tips? Or the one making $20/hour and being paid a better wage?
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I encountered the tipping screen for the first time in 2019 at Panera Bread in Oneonta, NY. I was so surprised and felt trapped.
At the time, Panera Bread in MA near me did not use this software yet. Soon after, it seemed every business has used it.
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Yup, it makes living here (UK) less stressful and less socially awkward. And where tipping is customary (mainly restaurants), it’s a standard 12.5%.
Yesterday, D22 and I were out and about and she suggested that we buy bread from an artisan bakery nearby - this place uses software with a tipping screen but the cashier, who was friendly and helpful, swiftly skipped it so we only paid for the price of the bread. Very much appreciated that.
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I think the only folks that should be tipped are those that legally make less than minimum wage, basically wait staff. I thought that was the whole reason tipping started.
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Maybe businesses should post the hourly wage of employees at the entrance.