suggested tips are not binding. They can calculate them however they want and you're free to ignore their calculations.

@KateGregory, thank you! I usually fell embarrassed when paying less than what they suggest. Perhaps my embarrassment is unnecessary.

@Zuriel that's exactly the point of the suggestion - to try and put you in a position where you'd feel uncomfortable. They're essentially trying to guilt you into giving them your money for no reason. There's absolutely no requirement to tip at all.

@littleadv, Thank you!! I feel much better now!

Don't know about anyone else, but that kind of behavior tends to reduce the amount of any tip from me.

@littleadv: in the US can get arrested for not tipping. nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/time-in-prison/1891307

@Hilmar this is not a tip, this is a surcharge. Many places have surcharges for large groups, and I personally leave no tip in such a situation at all. These surcharges are disclosed in the menu and shouldn't come as a surprise, and refusing to pay them is the same as refusing to pay any other item on the bill, they are mandatory. What they are not is tip.

FWIW, I've seen places add a service charge on the bill and then also ask for a tip. That's a nope from me.

@Zuriel While not legally mandatory, in the US, tipping is morally required excepting in cases of truly atrocious service. Restaurant employees are paid insufficiently and the tips are required for them to make a living. Which is an awful situation, but not one that’s improved by failing to tip, or under-tipping. While I have generally understood percentages to be based on the pre-tax amount, using the with-tax amount comes out to ~2% or less of your bill in “extra”—we’re talking the difference between rounding up and rounding down in most cases. There’s already good reason to round up.

@KRyan The laws around tipping vary from state to state. The net effect is that, depending on the jurisdiction and restaurant's policies (which might be more beneficial to the server than the laws in the jurisdiction require), tips can be anything from fully kept by the server over and above their wage (where the wage itself must meet at least minimum wage standards) to some percentage counted as being the server's money and the server's wage being reduced by the amount of tips which they receive, while requiring the total of wage + tips meet minimum wage requirements.

@Makyen I’m aware, but it doesn't really affect my comment because minimum wage itself is “insufficient” so even in states where wait staff “lose” the first x tips because it is only bringing them up to minimum wage that they would get anyway, they still need tips to be paid “sufficiently”—they just need those tips to add up to some sufficient amount greater than x.

@Hilmar, the link at the bottom of the article goes to another article that says the charges were dropped. nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/… And the original article says it was a "mandatory 18 percent gratuity", which means it wasn't the normal definition of a tip. budgetbranders.com/blog/automatic-gratuities-for-restaurants

FYI, this practice is now super common, it's not just one restaurant trying to pull something funny.

@KRyan "tipping is morally required" because "Restaurant employees are paid insufficiently" seems like a pretty lame excuse that just perpetuates this blatant abuse of labour. Why cover for the crooks that can't even be bothered to pay their employees properly?

@KRyan you're explaining how the restaurants shift the burden of paying employee salaries from themselves to the customers, but we all know that. That doesn't make it "right" or "morally acceptable". More, necessity to not have servers spit in your plates. Which is, IMHO, a pretty awful situation.

@DanMašek Because refusal to tip isn’t going to change anything, it’s just going to result in abused people getting paid less. Absolutely advocate for change, but in the meantime, don’t shaft the people you’re “helping.” Seems pretty obvious to me.

@littleadv No, nothing about the way employers treat tipped employees is morally acceptable. But that doesn’t mean making it worse for the victims in response is morally acceptable. When you are sitting at a restaurant being asked for a tip, you don’t have “make the employer treat their employees better” as an option, you have “give someone who needs money and has earned it that money” or “don’t.” The moral option here is obvious.

@KRyan that's a complete tangent at this point and is irrelevant to the answer. That said, I do usually tip, not excessively (I keep my tips around 15% for table service or 0-10% for self/counter service), but.... As long as you're in this mindset, there's not going to be change. The employers' abuse will only stop if servers will stop coming to work and start fighting for their rights, and for that to happen - yes, customers need to stop covering for the abusers. It may get rougher for a short period of time, but will make things better in the long term....

@littleadv You claimed that “there is absolutely no requirement to tip at all,” and that just isn’t so. And your “rougher for the short term” seems very much spoken like someone who has never relied on tips to feed and shelter their family. It shouldn’t be on the victims of this system to fix it.

@KRyan it shouldn't, and the customers are just as victims. As to requirement to tip - there is none. Your personal moral obligations are your personal, and the fact that you feel obligated to tip because whatever trauma you went through, doesn't mean it's an actual requirement. No, I have never relied on tips to feed and shelter my family, I grew up in a country with a livable minimum wage.

@littleadv The customers are benefitting from reduced prices due to the cheaper labor that the restaurant has, and know it. They would be better off if things were clearer and more upfront, and we might give a pass to a tourist who honestly does not know, but that isn’t the case for the overwhelming majority of diners. That makes designating them “victims” a bit of a stretch, at least relative to the employees. And if you have never lived in a country with such a reality, you should probably not offer inaccurate advice on living in one.

@KRyan The customers are benefitting from reduced prices due to the cheaper labor - a) citation needed and b) but they are not, you claim they are required to compensate the difference. And if you have never lived in a country with such a reality - I'm living in one now, but having lived elsewhere I can tell you that the fact that it's screwed up doesn't mean it has to be screwed up. This is actually a common pattern with Americans - because they've never seen or experienced anything different, they assume that their reality is the only one. It's not.

@KRyan by the way, in my home country the tip culture existed, but was effectively eliminated through legislation. But in the American political system it would be impossible, given that it's an oligarchy. One other alternative is unionization, which I hope will eventually happen in the service industry. In the end though the only way for servers to get paid adequately is to refuse to be abused, but that requires a social support system that the US is specifically designed to not allow. After all, it was built on slavery.

@littleadv In your rush to insult, you contradict yourself: you claim I’m ignorant because (you assume) I don’t know that it can be better, and then claim my country is terrible because it can’t be better in the US. Well, my entire point was prefaced in the US, so the former is irrelevant (and the assumption I don’t know it inaccurate), and the latter is absolutely true—and my entire point. We don’t have the option to make things better right now. We do have the option to tip people who have earned the money and need it. The moral choice is, again, obvious, and imperative.

@KRyan Wouldn't the obvious and imperative moral choice be to stop the abuse? The claim that it can't be done "right now" seems kinda odd -- it's not really something recent, is it? And from what I'm reading here (it's been a while since I've been there) it's kinda going downhill (seriously, 20% now?) ... From my perspective, this "morally obligate" tipping is just a way for people to feel better while keeping the status quo. | Dunno, seems a bit like treating the symptoms instead of the disease, when the cure is available (but maybe costly).

@DanMašek I do not have the power to change the abuse. I do have the power to tip. “End the abusive tipping custom in this country” in not an option set before me, “tip this underpaid waiter” is. The moral question is only “do I tip or not?” not “do I tip or do I end the abusive practice of tipping?” I of course advocate for change on this front, but to be quite honest, no one—no matter how supportive—has any idea how it will ever happen under the current socio-political realities of this country.

@KRyan yes you do. Don't tip. Vote for people who'd raise the legally mandated minimum wages. In the area where I live (Northern California) the legally mandated minimum wage is more than double the Federally mandated one. In some cities it's even more. I don't need to tip much, because I voted for representatives who challenge the status quo you demand preserving.

@littleadv I do vote for those who support increasing the minimum wage. It is still insufficient; it may shock you to learn that my single solitary vote is not able to dictate the minimum wage in my city. Between elections, failure to tip would does nothing to change anything except make one poor overworked waiter that much poorer. Your sophistry is nothing more than rationalization to convince yourself that your selfishness isn’t.