1. I would love to pay my employees a livable wage, but the belief that restauranteurs make enough to pay it’s employees a decent wage is seriously wrong. In some restaurants, the waiters can make more than the owners. In certain states where minimum wage is $8.50 plus tips (California, Oregon, WA), average wait staff is actually making approx. $20-$25/hour. Forced minimum wage means we are forced to keep giving our waitstaff $.50 raises each year (when they already make $20-$25/hour), while our cooks & DW’s only make between $8.5-$11/hour. Wow, the back of the house works harder, longer, and usually under harsher conditions.

2. As the owner of, I have to pay payroll taxes on the extra money the waitstaff makes from tips. I don’t just pay payroll taxes on the $8.5/hr they make from minimum wage, but full $20-25/hour. In otherwords, I pay taxes on money I don’t ever get or receive.

3. I would love it if we all went to a no tipping system! Put the tips into the cost of the food. Pay the employees a bit better. A great idea. While there are restaurants out there refusing tips (kudos), being the first business in our area to stop
accepting tips seems very risky in our current economic climate. I would love to do it. Would people pay 20% more for our food? I doubt when everyone is really worried about whether or not they’re going to be working tomorrow and whether or not they can make rent or the mortgage. I think I will definitely try and take tipping out of our restaurant when the economy finally recovers. I think guaranteeing a 18%-20% on each table sounds great. It makes so much more sense.

4. Also, make the customer pay the credit service fees when paying with a credit card. The rest of the world does it, why not Americans? Probably because of the self-entitlement Americans feel on everything in this world.

5. If I stop accepting tips and stop paying the extra payroll taxes on the tips, I bet Mr. IRS will come banging on my door…but hey, we’re not breaking the law!

I used to work in top New York City restaurants so I KNOW how the system works. I used to be like millions of other servers who would get so mad if someone didn’t tip.

But ask yourself people, is it YOUR job to hand me my check? To pay for my rent? Of course not. The employers are just too f***ing cheap to pay us a decent wage, so society is forced to tip in their hard earned cash.

And the whole Europe’s-service-sucks argument goes right to the garbage. Just look at Japan and Korea (I’ve been to both places). If an employee simply does not doing his or her job right, he or she should get fired. Period. AND some places in Europe have the audacity to automatically include the tip, no matter how bad the server did.

This whole tipping bulls*** is already spread out with taxis, haircuts, spas, etc. WTF. I’m already paying them for the services, WHY THE HELL DO I NEED TO PAY YOU MORE MONEY TO DO YOUR JOB RIGHT?

This is what I believe in. I will not give in to the unfairness of the status quo. It probably won’t change anything, but being a vegan isn’t gonna change the world either, but at least we speak out and stay true to ourselves. I’m not gonna blindly go along with society just cause everybody else is doing it.

However, I’m not gonna not tip in a few restaurants I regularly go to because I don’t want stupid people to spit in my food. The things some people do in the kitchen…
And yes, I will always tip 20% for outstanding service. Other than that, FUCK TIP!!!!!