Member-only story
How Much Should We Tip at Restaurants?
Until the industry and/or law changes: as much as possible
Customer “A” depicted above doesn’t have to AITA. They are the a$$hole.
If you’ve ever known someone in the serving industry or been a server yourself, you know: skinflint tippers are a$$holes and no-tippers are European.
But it wasn’t always that way: some apocryphal tales say that U.S. tipping of wait staff dates back to the 19th century when Americans began traveling to Europe to gain “culture.” There, they observed wealthy aristocrats tipping service staff and brought the practice home.
Another account of tipping’s origin in the U.S. dates to the Civil War. Formerly enslaved men and women were given post-war jobs as porters, servers, and barbers. The “businesses” that employed them didn’t pay them at all. They recruited them to work for tips — only.
Many people are unaware that there is more than one U.S. federal minimum wage. The main federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour. Tipped workers, however? The U.S. federal government says they don’t need to be paid more than $2.13/hour by their “employers” (I use that term loosely — since in no other area is salaried/wage employment so obviously connected to slavery).
