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Friday Poll: End of Tipping at Restaurants?


Yesterday I posted a story about a restaurateur who was ending tipping at his establishments, because he thought this more equitable to all his employees:

Under the current gratuity system, not everyone at a restaurant is getting a fair shake. Waiters at full-service New York restaurants can expect a full 20 percent tip on most checks, for a yearly income of $40,000 or more on average — some of the city’s top servers easily clear $100,000 annually. But the problem isn’t what waiters make, it’s what cooks make. A mid-level line cook, even in a high-end kitchen, doesn’t have generous patrons padding her paycheck, and as such is, on average, unlikely to make much more than $35,000 a year.

The fact that the people cooking your food often earn less than the people who serve it is a troublesome issue not just for the cooks themselves, but also for their employers — especially in a high cost-of-living city. “We’ve never faced a shortage of talented cooks like we have this year,” Meyer told me. “We’re in a day and age where there are more talented cooks than there ever have been, but fewer of them who want to live in New York to start a fine dining career.”

Whatever your own reasons for voting, would you vote to keep or end tipping at restaurants?

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The Phantom Stranger
10 years ago

Call me Old School: I like to be able to reward good performance with a very generous tip; and to leave a small tip for underperformance.

Karl
10 years ago

Easier not worrying about tipping.
Pay and go!

Tony
10 years ago

tipping gives more options to express an opinion on the meal plus service