20%?

One of the most intriguing debates in the restaurant industry revolves around a uniform tipping policy. The Europeans have chosen an automatic tip concept, and in America (with the possible exception of Per Se in New York) we tend to allow the customer to determine the amount of the tip. Both systems have their flaws, and every so often someone steps forward and renews the argument.

Yakup Ulutas is a former waiter who founded a non-profit organization (Fairtip.org) in an attempt to persuade the restaurant owners of America to back his proposal to change the system and institute a 20 percent service fee on every check. He claims that some 2500 servers have already joined.

My position on this is very clear, and I always tip a minimum of 20%, so the percentage has little to do with my thinking. Having been a waiter, I appreciate where Mr. Ulutas is coming from, but I still disagree with him.

People who choose to wait on tables come in very different categories. There are the professionals who take the job very seriously (and tend to make excellent money), and at the other end of the spectrum there are the people using the restaurant to get where they are really going. In between are servers who are trying to do their best, but can hardly be designated as professional. Fortunately, most of them have little to do with those who are merely passing through.

Somewhere in category #3 is the server who is cheating the restaurant and the public, and doesn't really care – they just want to make the money. These people scare me, and I'm wondering how many of them have already committed to the Fair Tip organization. I believe the public needs the right to tip what they so desire especially when getting truly inferior service. There is a suggestion that research shows there is no relationship between tips and the actual quality of service - I just don't believe that, and I don't care what that study says.

Maybe there is a better way to go, but it's not an automatic 20%! In point of fact, I hope it's never an automatic anything.

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