A few, key tourist spots to hit if you ever find yourself in New York City are the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan and Madison Square Park located in Uptown. Once you finish browsing the Van Goughs and Picassos of MoMA, walking the infamous, urban park grounds, stopping by the museum eateries for lunch and grabbing a milkshake at the original Shake Shack afterwards are a must. You may have to take some time in the Uptown park to then recuperate from the day’s indulging, but you should feel accomplished to have eaten at some of the most famous places in NYC. You have also been helping fuel businesses that all belong to one man: Danny Meyer, CEO of the Union Square Hospitality Group.
This chief executive’s name has popped up in the news lately because of a policy that he is phasing into his New England restaurants. The new policy brings on two main changes. It bans customers from voluntarily tipping their servers and it raises menu prices. Instead of people leaving an extra amount of money for the waiters and waitresses who helped them, Meyer proposes a service charge instead – a standard fee that customers must pay on top of their increased meal costs. This system is being put to action in many joints around the U.S., and not only in Meyer-owned businesses, igniting a nationwide conversation about the way we Americans have always done things.
The discussion on tipping has gone back and forth for over a century now with people debating whether it is American to tip since we’ve always done it, or if it’s un-American because of the deep-seeded implications that come with it. The way I see it is that tipping creates a hierarchy between server and customer – a power dynamic that shouldn’t exist. Why should a hard worker have to depend on the customer for this extra bit of gratuity when studies show that the amounts people leave behind are completely random? Characteristics like race and gender play into how much someone tips more than a waiter’s actual serving performance, so the argument that tipping is an incentive for employees to work harder can be scratched.
The real motivation for servers to perform well should come from the establishments themselves. People like Meyer in New York and Yoon Shin in Eugene, owner of Sushi Station and Miso Japanese Restaurant, should pay their workers a more livable salary. It’s true that the cost of living in New York is a lot higher than in small-town Eugene, but pay equity, labor laws and the rising costs of today’s economy are becoming even harder to manage, especially when working for minimum wage.
Because of this rising cost of living, UO alum and Sushi Station waiter, Josh Adams, 22, doesn’t think restaurants in Eugene should get rid of traditional tipping, since he relies on the extra money.
“If I were to just get my minimum wage and that just be it, I would be living paycheck to paycheck with having to pay for rent, my bills and food,” Adams said. “Tips also motivate me to work harder. If they didn’t exist, I would still do my job but probably not as well, since my pay on its own is not really worth it.”
For Adams, one downside to relying on tips is that the sushi restaurant has a large international clientele, people who see tipping as a foreign concept. Adams finds himself constantly explaining the American system to his customers, hoping they grasp it.
“I have to run through this whole process more than you can imagine,” Adams said. “This entire concept that when we go out to a restaurant, we tip for service; we tip for good food; we tip for all these things that matter and make our experience in a restaurant more enjoyable is odd to a lot of those who are coming from abroad.”
In some cultures, tipping is even considered an insult, which are my thoughts exactly. Just the fact that Europeans are the ones who brought this idea of gratuity to America, then got rid of it themselves across the Atlantic shows that it is possible to phase out the tradition. But this transition doesn’t mean we need to tack on hospitality charges and up menu prices either – sorry, Danny. Instead, let’s fight for livable wages and see the disappearance of bad puns on tip jars and the end of tedious calculations after a meal.
Pirzad: Here’s a tip, stop tipping in restaurants.
Negina Pirzad
October 28, 2015
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