[Drinking] Tip your barstaff!

[BBassic]

British pubs are adopting American-style tipping, but customers aren't happy: 'It's gone too far'

Until recently, pub tips were modest: a few odd coins tossed into a jar on the counter after pouring pints—but now that's changing.

fortune.com

For UK pubgoers, the biggest choices are generally straightforward: beer or whisky, draft or bottle, pint or half.

But now, beer-drinking Brits face a new and increasingly frequent quandary—to tip or not to tip.

Some of the country’s biggest pub chains are asking guests to top up the tab with a gratuity of 10% or more, making for awkward moments at the public house, an institution whose age-old appeal is ingrained in the reliable fabric of British tradition.


With pints regularly approaching the £7 price point they'll not be getting a tip from me.

 

[GT49er]

British pubs are adopting American-style tipping, but customers aren't happy: 'It's gone too far'

Until recently, pub tips were modest: a few odd coins tossed into a jar on the counter after pouring pints—but now that's changing.

fortune.com

For UK pubgoers, the biggest choices are generally straightforward: beer or whisky, draft or bottle, pint or half.

But now, beer-drinking Brits face a new and increasingly frequent quandary—to tip or not to tip.

Some of the country’s biggest pub chains are asking guests to top up the tab with a gratuity of 10% or more, making for awkward moments at the public house, an institution whose age-old appeal is ingrained in the reliable fabric of British tradition.


With pints regularly approaching the £7 price point they'll not be getting a tip from me.

So they're acknowledging that they're underpaying their staff then?

 

[dazzer6666]

British pubs are adopting American-style tipping, but customers aren't happy: 'It's gone too far'

Until recently, pub tips were modest: a few odd coins tossed into a jar on the counter after pouring pints—but now that's changing.

fortune.com

For UK pubgoers, the biggest choices are generally straightforward: beer or whisky, draft or bottle, pint or half.

But now, beer-drinking Brits face a new and increasingly frequent quandary—to tip or not to tip.

Some of the country’s biggest pub chains are asking guests to top up the tab with a gratuity of 10% or more, making for awkward moments at the public house, an institution whose age-old appeal is ingrained in the reliable fabric of British tradition.


With pints regularly approaching the £7 price point they'll not be getting a tip from me.

Don't t Canada - absolutely loads of shops add a 'tip option' when you pay.

 

[BBassic]

So they're acknowledging that they're underpaying their staff then?

Quite!

And a lot of (most I would imagine) pubs won't be. Minimum wage isn't it? So then even cheekier to be asking the punters to top it up.

 

[The Lemming Stomper]

I'm with Mr Pink on this....

 

[Comrade Sam]

I'm happy to tip the underpaid, I just can't be arsed to leave a review. I've taught thousands of children and decorated hundreds of houses and never asked for a review, yet buy a bracket for £1.05 on eBay and the seller uses my personal email address to hound me for a review.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Most bars I go to I pay at the end; I always add tip.

 

[studio150]

One for the FAB to discuss with PBOBE.

Will the Albion agree to tipping on pies and pints.

 

[GingerBeerMan]

Don't t Canada - absolutely loads of shops add a 'tip option' when you pay.

Not in many retail shops, but almost everything else, yes. It's absolutely out of control. How society has decided which profession deserves a tip is beyond me, it seems to be "if it's a cool job, we can pressure you into tipping". Walmart employees provide a much better service but are content with minimum wage.

As an example, at a busy bar I bought a can of beer. They barman turned 180 degrees, grabbed a beer from the fridge and opened it for me. That ten seconds work apparently warranted a $1 tip. Based on how busy the bar was, he must have been serving about 60 beers an hour. That's $60/HR in tips, or to put it another way, a higher hourly wage than a doctor who spent 7 years at medical school.

Absurd.

 

[beorhthelm]

seems opportunistic, sneak in a tip payment on the card reader.

and £14.80 for two pints of lager ffs.

 

[beorhthelm]

Not in many retail shops, but almost everything else, yes. It's absolutely out of control. How society has decided which profession deserves a tip is beyond me, it seems to be "if it's a cool job, we can pressure you into tipping". Walmart employees provide a much better service but are content with minimum wage.

As an example, at a busy bar I bought a can of beer. They barman turned 180 degrees, grabbed a beer from the fridge and opened it for me. That ten seconds work apparently warranted a $1 tip. Based on how busy the bar was, he must have been serving about 60 beers an hour. That's $60/HR in tips, or to put it another way, a higher hourly wage than a doctor who spent 7 years at medical school.

Absurd.

i've heard US side coffee shops and takeaways expecting tips for handing you cup or bag. it might be ushering in a pushback, especially where there is significant minimum wage, making the purpose of tipping invalid.

 

[Beanstalk]

The grey line becomes when you have pubs that do both bar and table service. I think tipping is hugely important when I'm being waited on, but for a pub to expect tips when they are offering a bar/collection service is ludicrous.

The service industry should be better paid regardless of tipping: long hours, often having to deal with difficult people, and irregular working patterns. It's not an easy job.

 

[Dr Q]

b*ll*x to that!

 

[Justice]

I'm happy to tip the underpaid, I just can't be arsed to leave a review. I've taught thousands of children and decorated hundreds of houses and never asked for a review, yet buy a bracket for £1.05 on eBay and the seller uses my personal email address to hound me for a review.

Last year I ordered some work socks from eBay, tbh I had forgot about them in February whilst ordering something else I messaged the seller no response, a week later I left a bad review item didn’t arrive no feedback from seller.
The next thing I had the husband on the phone saying my review had damaged his wife’s business. WTF I paid for something I didn’t receive you f***ing clown it’s hardly my fault.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

I recall being presented with a 10% service charge at an all you can eat self service Chinese buffet in Burgess Hill a few years back. The only service we had was a waitress bringing us one round of drinks (pint of post mix soft drinks £4 each) we questioned this and asked for it to be removed, which the manger didn’t like.

It was lost on him that paying £15 to serve one round of drinks to a group of 6 wasn’t proportionate or reasonable in any way , considering the drinks were charged at £24 alone.

Cash only as well - oh how we laughed

 

[Badger]

Don't t Canada - absolutely loads of shops add a 'tip option' when you pay.

I haven't really seen it in shops but I do find it annoying in somewhere like a bakery where you might order a coffee and also pick up a few groceries. They turn the terminal around and there are tip percentage options for the full bill, not just the coffee. Similar if you buy beers in a brewery to take home.

I've kind of set some ad-hoc rules for myself:
- I'll usually tip in a small, independent coffee shop. Starbucks have started giving the tip option but they can f*** right off.
- I'll tip in a bar if I'm getting table service and/or ordering food.
- They usually have 3 preset tip options on the card machine, if the minumum one is 20% or more (I often see 20, 22, 24 as the options) then I'll manually go in and enter a lower percentage. I've kind of accepted the tipping culture but don't take the piss and assume I'm giving you a high tip.

Canada is different to the US too. We do actually have a minumum wage for staff, so they don't completely rely on tips.

 

[heathgate]

In my retirement years,... early retirement, I helped out running the bar in a few pubs locally here in the west country. Currently doing 10-15 hours a week at a pub that does food,.. a good quality one that has table service for diners, drink and food,. Recently a table of 16, most had two courses, most had two drinks.... total tip... 30p from one old lady.. we have frequently had zero from tables paying bills of more than a hundred, great quality food and service, reasonable prices... no excuse.

 

[StonehamPark]

Slippery slope, don’t do it.

Canada has become AWFUL and people customers are fed up of it now. Asked and sometimes pressured to tip for almost anything these days, with preset tip options at 20%+.

It’s pure greed on behalf of the business owners, so they don't have to pay appropriate wages, and pass the responsibility onto the customer.

In some cases (and I know this first hand) the store managers and/or owners will often take a large (50%) scoop out of the tips for themselves as a ‘bonus’, with the full tip amounts often not going to that particular server/employee.

 

[Papak]

A pub related thread with no mention of 'Spoons after 18 posts - what is wrong with NSC today?

 

[abc]

Tipping is (or was) a thank you for exceptional service/going the extra mile, not for doing your job and certainly not to enable staff to be underpaid. I would love to see a campaign against ‘discretionary service charges’, I think it would be popular.