Hopefully the rating system will work but I’d say you do need some kind of system.

On the other hand Chick-fil-A is able to make their employees act friendly. I wonder how they do it.

Finally I do wish you’d accept cash just for people that want to preserve their privacy.

And while you can use that person for other tasks when there is no one in line, they do need to glove up each time they may handle a food item.

Also, in LA cash is a safety issue if you plan on staying open late when traffic is low.

To facilitate anonymous payments, we will accept crypto soon.

[1]: https://www.fastcompany.com/90683033/the-post-office-is-fina...

It would be trivial for the federal government to offer each individual an electronic money account that legally cannot be closed and is forever accessible to them. And as an adjacent comment wrote, the in person services infrastructure can be tacked onto USPS.

The same infrastructure can also serve as an identity verification service, which is also sorely needed.

There is no reason it has to operate as a bank, which would involve becoming a lender.

The closest we have to that is gold buried in a hole somewhere or maybe a cold storage seed phrase in your head and the discipline not to reveal it in torture.

Tacked onto the USPS? Why would it be a good idea to have the USPS run a bank with no experience or staff in banking, for every single person in the country, especially when the USPS CEO is more or less openly trying to dismantle and then privatize it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_DeJoy

Obviously this due to one party trying to dismantle it, which ideally would not happen to our country’s infrastructure. The point is using the network and real estate and organization of an existing federal government entity that already spans the nooks and crannies of the US to get a nationwide benefit up and running.

On top of that, I guess it’s very, very far from trivial to spin up such a service even though it’s true the USPS has a nationwide physical presence. It might be fair to say it’s easier than starting from scratch, maybe, but the USPS has entrenched practices and infrastructure that might not easily extend to physical and digital security required to handle high volume finances at all.

Does having electronic accounts cover everyone? We seem to have a rapidly growing homeless population in the US, and many homeless people have real difficulties holding on to cell phones & documents long term, anything that would allow them to authenticate and/or use an electronic account.

If electronic accounts were the solution, I could also imagine the primary infrastructure being a phone app (maybe not entirely dissimilar from China’s WeChat). In-person cash transactions for deposits and withdrawals could perhaps be mostly handled by ATMs?

The USPS has handled identify verification for the federal government since many, many, many decades. If you want a US passport, you have to go to a USPS office to get your identity verified. This is the logistically difficult part, since it involves so much labor, but it’s already done!

As for electronic accounts, the hardest and most laborious part is identity verification. The electronic accounts part can be taken care of by some IT department, just like visa/Mastercard/any number of banks and financial institutions (including the federal reserve) do.

This provides a strong incentive for good service (and good cooking) as an empty restaurant (fewer return customers) means less income. Otherwise, why bother providing excellent service, if you're paid the same hourly wage if the place is packed or if it's half-full?

At scale, I continue to believe there isn't a strong relationship between tipping and service, as much as between salary and service or service culture and service.

Transition periods are always complex. If tipping was verboten there would still be a cohort complaining about it for years, about both income side, and service quality side issues.

I would assume they make them do it via management, training, treating them well, and firing for non-compliance.

One idea is to print qr codes on coffee cups: customers can scan those and leave anonymous feedback later.

We might do the QR for customers that did not order using the app on their phone. We're printing stickers anyway, using the Star Micronics SDK which makes QR code printing a breeze.

We print stickers regardless of to-stay or to-go because it helps us keep track of fulfilled items, and you can easily pass a sticker to a colleague if you need help with an order.

It’s funny, what you see is what you pay doesn’t require an astonishing level of integrity in much (most?) of the world, it’s just standard practice; instead, tacking on hidden fees not on the price tag would be unthinkable.

So like a chain store can’t include taxes in things like print ads because you could have two locations a few blocks apart that literally have different tax.

I've spent time with and looked into developing for Clover and set up other POS systems. I've also tutored people pursuing their CS degree while bartending that want to make their own system. I'm very interested in this space since it seems impenetrable. Small businesses can't take too many risks and trying to sell a tailor-made POS seems impossible. Obviously the situation is different, though.

I've started coding it only 5 days before opening, and it's paired with a kitchen app that shows & prints the orders, recipes, etc. They're both very raw and I'm working on v2 right now.

Definitely a space worth exploring. I understand the needs of bartenders, baristas, etc. a lot better now that I'm behind the counter.

I'm trying to find the core value proposition and looking for people to collaborate with.

Here are two proof of concepts I'm building:

https://botto-app.vercel.app/merchant/sattvic_vegan

https://q-link.xyz/q/cld1u6ihc0001mq08j15yhog9

If this sounds interesting, please email me at my username @ gmail.com!

Square gets this. Clover seems not to, and is forever trying to get me to install its dumpy little app to harvest my data in exchange for coupons. Its like the evil stepchild of Foursquare and Facebook. Go away Clover! I actively avoid some takeout joints that use it now, I just dontnhave the mental energy to deal with the excessive contact Clover wants.

Clover seems to have trouble with this, and their solution appears to be to lean on me to install their app and use it to check in at stores to get some discount, in exchange for knowing data like my date of birth.

Some of these engineers will open other types of businesses and employ these people. Or maybe these people will go back to trades, because you know, these are much needed skills.

Based on your logic, we should still be using horses.

But in the grand scheme of things, low-skill jobs should be automated to the greatest degree possible, freeing up people to work on more worthwhile things. And as automation gets better and better, even medium-skill and eventually high-skill jobs should also be automated.

In my version of utopia, people won't even have to work if they don't want to, but, due the to abundance afforded by all this automation, will still be able to live a very comfortable life. I suspect humanity will destroy itself before we get there, though.

(Of course, that utopia will be fragile if enough people don't know how to maintain the automation.)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Manna-Two-Visions-Humanitys-Future-...

If anyone is in the LA area and wants to check it out, it's Awakening Coffee in Inglewood. I'm there most days since we've just opened and there are many things to be sorted out. Come say hi.

Built it an afternoon—the fit and finish looks fantastic and 100% complete. It perfectly solves the problem that you described so simply and well.

I looked at the website, and I understand it is WIP. Is this a mistake that needs fixing? "Americano - Espresso with hot water. $4.50 (Medium) $4.50 (Large) "

Not that you asked ;)

It's a breath of fresh air to have such a nice clean site that loads fast and has nice photos, clear description and price.

I wish more sites were like this.

(only issue I can see is some descriptions are truncated despite space being available for the rest of the text on my desktop)

What are you talking about. It takes over a second to load everything and the content jumps once or twice as it is loading. If this was a static website, not a 'web app', it would load faster without jumping around.

Now don't get me wrong, the design is amazing for a coffee shop, but it certainly isn't fast.

It doesn't work without javascript.

I'd just remove the sticky header with the blur effect and those shadows below the cards. Maybe make the menu categories collapsible. This is going in a modern minimalist direction which I prefer in such cases. If you need any design tips, feel free to ping!

It’s the worst once someone has gone all the way through a tablet/GUI menu and made all their purchase decisions only to be awkwardly thwarted at the payment step. Negative bonus points if there is a line of customers behind the pour soul attempting to use cash

[UK here, where I feel we are slipping slowly but relentlessly towards the worst parts of the American Way in many areas including this one]

There are many less fortunate people that can't get a credit or debit card and I don't want to support practices that hurt them even more.

Why is that?

Not enough spare money to maintain a bank account.

No desire for a high-fee credit card, no access to a low-fee credit card.

No acceptable documentation.

Cash costs money too. We always talk about the cost of credit cards but always forget the cost of dealing with cash.

I'm super happy with all this modernization. I only need to carry an Apple Watch, not even my phone. I love it.

Tbh not sure if my issue with Boy and the Bear is the quality or just that I don't tend to like south/central american beans all that much. I go for Rwanda when possible.

It is kind of like how, if a company was trying to tackle health care in the United States, they might attempt to build a system which reconciles many different hospital systems across the country. In other countries, with Universal Single Payer healthcare, this might not be interesting, but in the context of the United States, a system like this could have huge implications.

The market itself is inseparable from what makes a venture like this interesting. It is interesting precisely because of where it is located.

But now, tips are given with cards, and a record is kept of how much, and where it goes, and it is recorded!

So be wary, because you can be 100% sure they are taxable, and if you get audited...

It is tax evasion, but it was commonplace.

Edit: and while per the other replies many people don't claim (all of) their cash tips, you are supposed to claim them as income.

This would earn you the reputation of being especially expensive, even if customers aren't actually paying you more.

When did coffee shops in the US start asking for tips? It most be a relatively thing. Never saw tips asked for at coffee shops when visiting until the ipad checkout thing (square?) appeared. Is it a nationwide thing now or just confined to certain regions (coastal metro areas?)?

It took the form of a tip jar. It was my main source of gas money when a barista.

Tipping at nicer coffee places (i.e. where they offer espresso-based drinks to order) has been a thing for a very, very long time. I can't recall ever not seeing a tip jar and have been going to places like that for probably 25 years, although if you told me the expectation was stronger nowadays that wouldn't surprise me.

The low end places (Tim Horton's up here, I guess Dunkin Donuts would be the comparison), don't expect tips or put out jars / enable them on their terminals, but Tim Horton's has always had a charity jar at the counter anyway so I would think most people would prefer that one.

The Pulp Fiction shake quote always comes to mind for me:

Vincent: "I gotta know what a five dollar shake tastes like"

The same simple credit card machines are used at Qdoba, but there they ask for a tip, even when coming in to get a bowl and doing takeout. Not unreasonable, but the difference in experience and expectation is pretty wild: coffee sometimes takes as long as it does to put a burrito bowl together, yet one expects a tip and one does not.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caff%C3%A8_Nero

Order, pay, pickup, done. No tip expected (though nobody stops you).

One of the first things I remember as a kid in the 1970s was reading the "no tipping" sign at Dunkin's and asking my parents about it. So it has been a policy there for a long, long time.

(Funny they put a Dunkin's in on my side of town a few years ago, I don't know how many people know the supermarket across the street makes better donuts, which is truly unusual.)

We had a Starbucks in Collegetown which went to only taking mobile orders during the pandemic which meant I pretty much quit drinking coffee there. Not long after Starbucks closed the location to bust the union that was forming there. In my mind that area is a "coffee desert", I mean you can get coffee but so far as I can tell the best coffee is at 7-11 and everything else is much worse.

Well, context is important. Right? If someone opened a "tips required" coffee shop in Japan, it could be something to watch and learn from.

I don't generally have a problem with tipping. Still, I would much rather people get paid well, with whatever that cost might be reflected in the price of what you are buying. If, on the other hand, tipping is on the ticket and it is used as an evaluation of the service being provided, the field should be blank by default.

I have tipped way over 15% lots of times. Every time a device tries to force a higher percentage on me, I reduce it because the pattern annoys me.

It is always interesting to travel to places like Japan, where tipping at a restaurant can be offensive.

Not for a long time. It would likely fold within weeks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsPHa8RG1pI

I very much appreciate being able to amble into a coffee shop, order a coffee from a human being (perhaps doing my best in a foreign language I'm not all that proficient in), and paying cash should I so desire. Like you can in most coffee shops around the world.

This dynamic has played out time and again in Seattle, where business owners tried to switch to a "no tipping" model with a 20% mandatory service charge but ultimately had to relent because employees were not keen on earning less money.

But I know many sit-down restaurants have tried to institute a no-tip policy, but both employees and customers hate it. I would hate it. I like giving tips. I wouldn't go to a restaurant where tipping was not allowed.

Plus, the restaurant has to raise their prices up by 20% anyways, because they now have to pay their wait staff more. The customer pays anyways. So it's a stupid thing not to have tipping. You're not going to save any money at all as the customer. It's impossible to save money.

Furthermore, I know waitstaff that make a considerable amount of money from tips. Like, $300-$400 per shift and more. That's about $80,000 to $105,000 per year. So the food prices are going to have to go up substantially to cover what that person made with tips. The reason that many wait staff make so much is that they have "regulars" who tip them well because they develop a relationship and a repore that goes beyond just simple waiting on a random customer.

People say they want the price that's on the menu, but come on - you know there's going to be a tip, if the menu says it is $20, then it is $23, you can do this in your head or on your mobile phone. You know exactly what the price will be unless you failed 2nd grade math. Why on earth would anyone care if the price said $20 or $23 on the menu, if in either case you pay $23? It's ridiculous in the extreme. Unless someone is an extreme pedantic martinet.

more realistically, unless they are capable of finding another job that will pay as much they’ll just end up earning less without tips.

Then again, I am not in favor of say Amazon workers being exploited with very poorly paid jobs and conditions for their source of income over the long term. (Thomas Sowell gives some good arguments against minimum wage - I am on the fence and it boils down to "it depends").

Massively against them if they aren't paid like any normal job. If the intern is doing actual productive work(and let's not kid ourselves - they are most of the time), then they should be paid like any other employee.

The only exception I can see is companies that have training programmes with vocational schools, where you go and work somewhere for say 2 years training to be a carpenter or a plumber or electrician or whatever - then it's no different than being at school and learning. But I'd wager than 99% of internships are not like that, they are just a very cheap way to get unpaid(or poorly paid) labour under the pretense of "giving young people work experience". It's nonsense.

I am in agreement that apprenticeships seem to be a good thing that we should reintroduce. Working in IT, real world experience seems to count at least as much as anything I learned on university. The only times I have needed to implement a sort algorithm is for interviews.

That's fine then. I specifically mean internships which either don't pay anything or which pay some token amount like $100 a week for fuel expenses. If they pay a minimum wage then well, they are basic level entry jobs, that's fine.

If you are an intern in a railroad you can move cars around the yard all day: you can move them to a loading dock, or to make up a larger set for a train, but at the end of the day you must move them back. However if any of those cars are moved to the dock are loaded/unloaded, or the larger train they just made leaves the yard, then they did useful work and must be paid for that.

I mean yes, but like you yourself acknowledged - that's a completely meaningless law. No intern is going to report this, because young people are just happy to have a job, no one wants to destroy their career right at the start. I myself was in that exact same position when I started - as an intern, my contract specifically said I can't be doing any productive work. Of course I did anyway. And I'm sure it still happens in every industry, because.....why wouldn't it. That's why I think unpaid internships just shouldn't be a thing at all, anywhere, unless linked to vocational schools that oversee them as a training programme.

All unpaid internships should have regular independent auditors because, as you say, interns are unlikely to report abuse of the law.

But what they found in restaurants that had the no-tip policy is that all of their really great staff found better paying jobs easily, and the shitty employees, or new employees, would be the ones that stayed. And the new employees would leave as soon as they were trained up, so all that was left at the no-tip restaurants were the shittiest of the shitty employees. This is what I read from a study on this exact situation of no-tip restaurants and the effect it had.

Im also assuming that a lot of waiters dont pay taxes on the tips (at least when they are paid in cash), which would probably account for some of the difference in income between salary and tips. Here in the EU (most of the countries) at least we have good healthcare and education that is payed from those taxes, so you dont need to pay a 1k private insurance on a waiters salary.

> Hi, my name is Bobby, I am gonna be your server today. Blah blah blah blah...

It always comes across as angling for tip money. Waiters here don't usually introduce themselves by name and you generally have less interaction unless of course you start conversing. I prefer the lack of expectation if the and waiter does a good job, then I am more than happy to tip a little. I am in Catalonia where tipping isn't a big thing. Not sure if it's because of the Catalan reputation for being tight with money, or having read Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia", it is related to when tipping was banned and the city was run by anarchists.

In America we like to call people by their name, not their title, especially for a service role. Otherwise it comes off as very classist and elitist. Someone calling out "Waiter!" would come off as a bit of an asshole, to be honest.

I’m terrible with names, though.

But if they are busy, then I'll do an "Excuse me" really nicely and just loud enough so they can hear - not too loudly, and they will nod and that usually is it, and I know it to mean that they will get to me as soon as they can, they acknowledged me. And if it is super busy, I'm cool if it takes a little longer than usual. It happens. If I'm in a hurry, I'd go to McDonalds. Not really, I hate it, but that's the idea.

In Argentina I revert to "chico"/"chica" but ...is that offensive? Hah.

You want to use standard and customary forms of communcation, though. You can be a little friendlier, or a little more formal, but it's never good to stray too far if meeting or talking to a person the first time.

However, if you get a bead on the person and their personality, you can adjust your style to theirs is best.

Everyone in business is "fake." Your auto repair person, the person at Best Buy, people at the clothing store. Of course people are "fake."

However, they are people, too. I am always SUPER SUPER nice to people who are "fake" to me in restaurants or clothing stores or wherever, and they so much appreciate it that 95% of them actually are NOT fake nice to me anymore. As I wrote elsewhere, many times I got a desserts "on the house" at restaurants when I go out in groups, because I make it so enjoyable for the wait staff.

Of COURSE it is angling for tip money. I have walked out without paying a tip for crappy service. I paid zero.

I know wait staff is "fake" nice because they want tips, but if I'm genuinely nice to them then they are "real" nice. And if you are a regular at a restaurant, and tip well, everyone will know you and you will be treated as royalty. And you usually get the same server, who knows your kids names, where you work, and actually they care about you, but yeah, the customer knows the waiter or waitress does not work for free, of course. Neither does the customer.

And, we are all fake to people who give us money. We are ALL fake to our bosses. Nobody will go to their boss and be all, "Hey you fucking moron, another stupid fucking idea you have." Even if that is what one truly thinks. We all have different masks for different occasions.

In Europe, and Catalonia maybe, tipping is not expected, so it is not the culture. If I was there, I would not tip.

But again, the whole argument is ridiculous. If the meal is $30 (or euros), and a 15% tip is $4.50, then you pay $35 (I round up). If no tipping was allowed, the restaurant raises the price to $35. It's the same exact thing. Except if you get a REAL bad waitstaff, you pay $30, because that is what the tip is for. And bad service is if they are jerks, not if they spill a glass of wine on you, which sucks but is an honest mistake that can happen to any of us. I know a waitress who did that and she knew the customer well and bought him a nice shirt for the next time he came back.

But again, you pay the exact same price either way. So not sure why people have so much vitriole against it. And, so many Americans LOVE the custom of tipping. A lot of people go back to the same restaurants and love supporting a waiter or waitress that treat them well. I love paying tips, I usually don't pay less than 25%.

I've never been in the US, but just thinking about having to pay more then what was written and knowing that due to not having a lot of money, I could get in trouble, gives me anxiety...

When I lived in France and spent time in Germany, I always tipped a lot just to make a statement... but I understand that the waiters there are actually paid by the restaurants, so it's not necessary.

Second, even if it DID happen, that is the fantastically rare situation, that is extremely bizzare. You can read here and everywhere that this is not how it is done, so you don't make a judgement based on one single time, especially when no one else ever has had that experience.

I've left restaurants many times without paying a tip because of exceptionally poor service, it's never happened to me. I've never heard it happening to anyone.

Yeah, totally 100% do not believe you. Sorry, man. I just don't. Again, unless that server was actually and really truly mentally ill, and not using the term colloquially.

Not a legal expert, but that looks very much illegal.

It's the same as strippers. Better, because strippers often have to pay to dance.

For me, living in Texas, I would assume the final price is 10% more than the sticker price calculation. When I was buying groceries, this generally meant I was always "under" my estimate because most food isn't taxable in Texas. But I was never surprised by the final total at the register. At restaurants I assumed 20-25% depending on what the numbers were.

Now that I live in Europe, I don't even notice. They tell me the total, I pay. End of story.

The point is that it's not included on the label as the price I pay at the register.

The thing is, you DON'T have to tip. I have walked out of restaurants before without tipping when I got super shitty service. You can pay 5% or 10% or 15% or 20% or 25%.

And the thing is that here in the USA, everyone LOVES tipping. Customers, good nice customers, love tipping. Usually it is the whiny bitchy horrible customers that don't like tipping, and if there was not tipping, they would be whiny bitchy horrible customers anyways. This much I know to be true.

If you don't have a lot of money, just go and be honest and tell the wait staff that. Be honest. I mean, don't be going and ordering $800 worth of food and say you don't have a lot of money because that would be horrible thing. But if you have a very little money, just apologize and say you'd love to but can't.

Also, these days you can go online and see exactly how much the food is, and add on the tip. Just see what you want, add 15%, and you know. This is not difficult. It won't get you in trouble if you take an extra 30 seconds to look up the menu on line, right? And ffs, if you order $30 dinner, and the tip is $4.50 and you don't have enough money to cover it, why on earth would you go out to a restaurant in the first place? Stay at home and make a nice pasta dinner that is just as good as a restaurant and pay $1 or $1.50. Or euros, I think the exchange rate is pretty close to one-to-one. If you go out to a restaurant and go broke over $4.50, your issues are a lot deeper and worse than not having $4.50 tip. Like, you should see a professional therapist about why you would blow the tiny bit of money that you do have on a $30 meal when you can spend $1 and eat at home.

However, while you don't like it, a vast majority of Americans DO like it. I like it. The staff like it. Management likes it.

I guess the solution is that if someone doesn't like tipping, they should never ever go out to restaurants here in the USA. That would take care of it instantly for you.

But again, as I said, you will pay the exact same or more if tipping is included in the price! The exact same or more.

The thing is that if you don't want to leave a tip, don't. It's so easy. Just don't. Most wait staff would rather a dinner party leave without paying the tip rather than have whining - who wouldn't?

I've never had staff get angry with me and I've been going to restaurants probably longer than you've been alive. So I don't know where you're getting this from, unless you are lying for effect, to falsely bolster your case.

I've never had entitle person ever. I've always had fantastic relationships with the wait staff. Because THEY WANT to give you a great experience so that they can get a nice juicy tip. It's not fake on their side, any more than a Disney worker or auto repair shop owner is nice to their customers.

I've had such a good time with some wait staff, that they give me free desserts. I remember once my reputation for getting free desserts got around to a group of friends I occasionally hung out with. We were at the restaurant and said that it was bullshit and to do it right at that restaurant. I did. The waiter gave me a free dessert. Which are restaurants' main money makers.

Waiters are required to pay taxes on tips, but you are right, if they are in cash, well, they can break the law, but that's the same exact thing as if someone doesn't come to a complete stop at a stop sign. Anyone can break the law.

And as I also said, a LOT of restaurants, even high-end restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco have tried no tips. But it was a disaster in almost all cases. Their wait staff would quit all the time, because a good wait staff person can make fantastically more money in tips. If a restaurant pays $25/hour (good luck on that) the wait staff would be paid $50K/year, but a good waiter can make $100K+ on tips. So the wait staff quit the no-tipping restaurants and move to a better, for them, restaurant.

But really, you are paying the exact same, or more, if it is all included in one bill with no break out. And by breaking out healthcare costs, you will actually pay less money for the meal than all included.

As far as healthcare and education being free in EU, that is irrelevant.

As a tourist to the US, it just seemed silly. The random sales tax percentage, the tip or no tip (calculated pre or post sales tax?) situation.

And due to the tipping thing, I had to carry cash, which I hadn’t done in 20+ years.

It felt like going back in time a very long way.

Ask for what you want, I’ll decide if I’ll pay it and I’ll come back if I liked the service.

Maybe they aren’t supposed to be tipped, as we never got the hang of it and blundered about trying to avoid causing offended.

I think people also know non Americans aren't going to get it right. If they're the type of person to get offended over that, I wouldn't spend my time worrying about their opinion of me

> It felt like going back in time a very long way.

I live in North America and tip for alot of things. Never paid cash. Not sure why you felt like you had to but can always tip on visa the rest of us do.

Random sales tax on stuff for example is separate. This is not the fault of the business. The way USA government works is that sales tax is set by the county. There are 3,142 counties and county equivalents. Each charging their own tax amount.

Let's say you are a big store like Target with stores across the USA. They want to charge $25 for a pair of shoes. How do they advertise? They take out advertising all across the USA, and charge $25 for the shoes. Well, how do you put in the correct amount on the newspaper or website advertisement? You put it in the newspaper for $27.50 because one county charges 10% sales tax. But the next county over has a 7% sales tax. The correct price is $26.75. But that newspaper is delivered into multiple counties, in the same exact newspaper, so there is no possible way for target to put the correct price. It's literally impossible. So what they do is say the shoes are $25, and you pay the difference to the county as an extra. Because the business can do fuck all about it. In European countries, they probably have the same exact sales tax everywhere, so it is ok to do it that way. But Target isn't going to get the entire USA to change the tax code of 3,142 different tax jurisdictions. Good luck on that one.

For tipping, you don't have to carry cash at all. I never do. They have an extra line on the receipt to add the tip. I just round it and don't do it exactly, because it is easier and faster that way.

You want me to ask for what I want? Ok. I want to tell you the price of the meal and you pay a 15% tip. That is what I want. And I don't want anyone whining about it. If one wants to whine, just stay at home and cook a home-cooked meal. Everyone wins.

And, as I stated elsewhere, it is usually the people that are most vocal against tips that are the most pain in the butt customers anyways; even if there were not tips, they would still be the worst customers. Maybe not you, but most like that always have something more to complain about.

Dear Europe: You do lots of stupid shit as well.

Next, why do _some_ waitstaff make a lot of tips, and not others. You don't acknowledge how in almost every biased way possible tipping promotes some people, and punishes others.

Lastly, I personally find tipping and therefore your slightly aggressive defense of it, kinda gross? It's a power-trip at the end of the day to control someone else's actions with your money. Sure, that's life, but with tipping it's so blunt.

You are making a fair point that most people can't math.

On the other hand, people who can't do very simple math have bigger problems to worry about than tips.

>Next, why do _some_ waitstaff make a lot of tips, and not others. You don't acknowledge how in almost every biased way possible tipping promotes some people, and punishes others.

At least in theory, the point of tipping is to reward good staff and punish bad staff. The whole point of tipping is to create an income gap, with the hope that staff will be incentivized to be "good" staff so they make more money and be on the better side of the gap.

It's not unlike good employees getting paid better than bad employees, the only difference is that the incentives come from your customers rather than your employer.

>Lastly, I personally find tipping and therefore your slightly aggressive defense of it, kinda gross? It's a power-trip at the end of the day to control someone else's actions with your money. Sure, that's life, but with tipping it's so blunt.

Even without tips we are all going to engage in "controlling someone else's actions with money". That fancy restaurant that just billed you 3 or maybe even 4-digits? That money is so the staff are incentivized to treat you like nobility, among other luxuries you just enjoyed.

It's actually exactly like that. In the feral world of New York City wait staff, where people only live on tips and there is no base income, the income gap is extraordinary in the same shift in the same restaurant. And it's only slightly based on looks, or how "cute" someone is. It's almost entirely based on their skill and ability to serve the customer well. I could walk out with $250 a night and another waiter would walk with $350. He was simply faster, more clever and better at serving and charming the customers. I was a bad waiter. Of course, the prettiest women among us might walk out with $450, so I guess if someone really wants to complain about life being unfair, they could. But those girls needed to stockpile cash then while they were young. As an old man, a waiter can still make the same.

And yes, I can back this up: https://dol.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2023/01/p717_12-22...

$15/hr ain't exactly a living wage either, nor does it justify losing a table for an hour on four people who don't leave a tip. The difference between $15/hr in New York City now and $0/hr in 2002 is basically nil.

Waiters make their money from tips. If you ever work in the service industry in America, and serve them their breakfast, you'll understand why.

I have trouble finding the information on my phone but I'm pretty sure this was illegal federally since at least the '90s.

I'm not saying you're wrong.

There is skill and talent involved. We have all had shitty waitstaff wait on us, and great people, too. The great people get a better tip, even if they are uglier, or walk with a limp and have a hunch back like Quisimoto. In another post, I listed dozens of ways that one staff person can make more than another by using different techniques.

So if a meal is $48.75, then 10% is $4.88. Round it up to $5. Half of $5 is $2.50. $5 plus $2.50 is $7.50 tip. then add that onto the total of the $48.75 but I round the $7.50 up to $8 and so $48.75 and $8 is $56.75. Super easy to do in one's head in less than 30 seconds.

If lunch is $38.64, then 10% is $3.86. Round it up to $4. Half of $4 is $2, so $4 + $2 is $6 tip. Total is $38.64 + $6 or $44.64. Thirty seconds to calculate it.

You do rounding to make it easy - you don't do all the decimal points exactly, that sucks to do it that way. Rounding is close enough, and you round up.

.

Some waitstaff are better than others. They are more social. They develop regulars. That's where the real money is made. You get regulars. There are other tricks, too. Not all of them work every time for every person, but it is a statistics game.

Like if a waitress wears a flower in her hair, can make up to 17% more tips. Some people know how to upsell for a higher total bill and make more tips because of the percentage. If you draw a smily face on the bill, you will get a bigger tip. Studies have shown if you can entertain people when appropriate (unobrusively - you have to guage the situation), that can increase tips by 7%. If you have regulars, give them freebies - fucking EVERYONE loves a freebie. A study showed that if you give a weather forecast on the bill, the tip is an average of 22.2% vs 18% if they didn't - so when giving the bill you write "The weather is supposed to be great tomorrow, have a great day!" If you use your customer's name, you will get a bigger tip. Giving a gift increases tips - even giving a candy cane during christmas or candy corn during halloween, etc. Other ways: Squat down to talk to customers, smile a lot, write "thank you" on the bill. Read your customers. Learn what your boss wants so you get the better shifts more often. Get better customers and get them to come back to you and ask for you. Basically create an environment that predisposes customers to be generous.

Did this answer your question about why some make better tips?

>Lastly, I personally find tipping and therefore your slightly aggressive defense of it, kinda gross?

That's ok. None of us can please everyone. I'm positive someone finds things that you think or want as gross, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I very much am strongly supporting tipping, I think it is great.

>It's a power-trip at the end of the day to control someone else's actions with your money. Sure, that's life, but with tipping it's so blunt.

Eh. It's blunt everywhere. We all knuckle under to our stupid bosses we've all had in life because of money. And the thing is, that multiple studies have been made for waitstaff and they all WANT to be controlled if they make more money. Wait staff in the USA love tips, and they love the thought that if they give great service, that their tips can be larger - it gives them motivation. This is not me saying this, it's what the wait staff wants. They love it. Not every single waiter/waitress. People who suck at interpersonal communication probably hate it, of course. That would be logical. But it is a personal job, so they should find another job, quite frankly. And in general, customers don't look at it as a power trip, at all. Some do, but the vast majority do not. I don't. I'm not imperious, snapping my fingers for service, and ordering people around. That is just bad manners and an ill-mannered person who would do this even if there was no tipping. Because that is how people are.

Sounds like a false dichotomy. Why is the only other option still an imposed cost on the customer? Wouldn't it be nice if the bad servers just got fired like any other profession and the good servers got a bonus or something from the business owner?

Maybe people shouldn't "aspire" to be cafe baristas and chain restaurant wait staff. There are plenty of students and elderly that could handle the job and also handle the minimum wage. There's no reason those jobs should be lucrative, unless the business owners (rightly) realize those staff are the face of their operations, but in that case, again, the business owner should "invest" in their higher salaries to hopefully bring in business. None of this should be imposed on customers. Just my opinion.

It is my understanding that in the US, you're not paid minimum wage. Waiters are paid mostly by tips.

Some may have no wage! Tips only.

Where I live, this is illegal, and I suspect in Europe too, and this is where the lack of understanding comes from.

Now, coffee shops? People behind counters are not waiters, so I am unsure of wage issues, in the US.

By trying to eliminate tipping, you are working against the interest of waiters since they naturally want to maximize their income. You may not like tipping but it is economically optimal in many contexts. Businesses need to compete for employees and tipping maximizes employee income relative to revenue.

Where I live, most of the bartenders and waiters I know personally earn on the order of $80k/year if they do it full-time, and not at high-end establishments. Not an ostentatious lifestyle but definitely middle class.

It's a grey pattern to offer your product at 1 rate but implicitly you impose an additional 12-20% . Just pay them more, and charge more for the product, the end result is the same from the consumer. If the workers are no longer satisfied, there are other sales and marketing jobs that offer real salaries plus bonuses/commissions as mentioned above.

There is not an infinite supply of students who have the time to do that job. Our son worked at a coffee shop. Until the manager started pressuring him to work more hours than he had time for.

Some people think other people's jobs are bullshit. And then you end up with a shortage of competent workers. Every job should be lucrative.

It's really not common in much of Europe at least for people to actually discourage tipping (though they may seek to refuse what they perceive as exorbitant tips).

That's the key point.

Like just the other month I was in this resort with my family and first night we checked in we went for diner - waiter was very polite, entertained my one year old and gave us tips about the area. We didn't have cash on us so we put it on the room and signed the receipt. Next day he was still professional but not as much effort - then I left a tip for both dinners and suddenly it's back to chat mode, parting drink on the house, please do come back, etc.

As a personal anecdote - when I visited America on a business trip we went to a restaurant where the staff was literally rude to us, the food order was not what we ordered and massively late, and yet our hosts insisted on leaving a 10% tip because

1) low tip will show them they have done a poor job(?!?!?!?!?!)

2) we would look like jerks for not tipping(their explanation).

So basically my takeaway is - if you have to tip even when your experience is poor, or you risk "looking like a jerk", then it's not really optional.

the irony!

Tipping is mostly expected when there is a lot of service involved in the meal. This means either fine-dining, or Meyhanes where you spend 3-5 hours drinking heavily (Raki/Ouzo) and eating mezes & fish.

I think the tipping culture you're talking about is "Bakshish" which is really more of a bribe than a tip. It doesn't exist much in Turkiye anymore (unless you're an Arab or Syrian refugee, their experience is far different than others). Bakshish is still very prevalent throughout the lower Balkans, Serbia and most Islamic nations I've visited and worked in, except for KSA and UAE (they'll kill you for that shit.)

Definitely more of a bribe, and common in a lot of the world, in the countries mentioned but plenty of others, esp. the African ones I worked in; different names but same idea.

A "cost of doing business, and we appreciate the opportunity" gesture. Prove that you're serious, and that you want an actual result.

An Egyptian friend, once warned his friends about me: "Now he's American. When he says 2pm he means 2pm, and when he says we have to leave at 8, that means we have to leave at 8. This is why Americans are rich. They respect schedules, and care more abut business than friends or family."

Tip jars are perhaps a more recent phenomenon, but they are now almost ubiquitous in all places that serve anything, event at a counter or to go - including club bars, coffee shops, even many fast food places.

I take this as local employees stating their entitlement to nickel and dime tourists as much as possible.

:(

I do understand the specific of the US situation, I’ve leave there since the last decade. In a very touristy city to boot, so a large part of my social network rely on tips.

But the lack of awareness from our US friends to understand that they are the exception, not the norm in that particular regard is a bit disconcerting.

. You are the first person served, every time you walk in, no matter how crowded the bar is.

. You are poured the extra liquor that a bartender is allowed to "spill"

. When you bring your date to the restaurant next time, you are treated very well.

It is true that in America, these things are lost because everyone is expected to tip. But this is the true point of tipping a good waiter or bartender, to show your appreciation and also to be remembered.

I had the chance to move around a lot and my social alcoholism made my spend lot of time in seedy places where someone pour out booze.

In all those places, paying more money is just bad taste.

A way to get what you describe is ( in my personal experience )

- smile

- be young and / or attractive

- being visibly in distress

- being polite and patient in the face of another rude customer

- make some jokes, not in English but in the language people speak where you are

- have a dog / a kid

- show that you have some humors and are not an asshole.

With all due respect, paying more and displaying extra wealth is a good way to be classified in the easy to dupe category. In some language due to post WW2 wealth, some folks say “an American” like “do you think I’m American or what ?”

But if you have established communication with your waiter / bartender / blackjack dealer, and you leave them some extra, it is much more appreciated outside the US. Especially if they see you more than a couple times. Whether you are young and attractive or not, although of course that helps.

Does losing $5,000 alone on a blackjack table in Prague because you're depressed, and then smiling and tipping your dealer constitute visible distress? I can't say it's always a financially wise strategy.

I just spend a few minute refining my thoughts on tipping outside the US : I would say it has to do with a relationship with money and the power emanating from it.

Tipping is not expected in most places; and doing it anyway clearly signal that you have some disposable wealth. You can afford to pay even more than the agreed upon price.

There is some “bling” and nouveau-riche aspect to it that will leave people a weird feeling.

For instance : Are you trying to bribe them? Do you think they are too poor to function without your patronage? Are the price/money here just a joke to you?

And then, it become your edge. You are the guy or gal that pay extra. As opposed to be the funny/sexy/mysterious/resourceful person. AKA : El gringo, l’américain, l’americano. ( I’m one of you now, so I can say it :p )

Being seen that way might be a way to attract the wrong kind of company.

I don’t know about casino and hazard games, my passion always has been the dives and the likes.

But you do say something important about establishing contact first.

That’s a great difference in my book.

I still maintain that waving money around FIRST won’t help on the long run. Establishing rapport and discretely paying extra might, sometime, with some people. But being nice and aware of your environment might do just the same.

I'm 42. I've lived in a lot of countries. I freaked out and fled America for twelve years after I wrote a novel about a rock band assassinating Dick Cheney during the start of the second Iraq war, and had my server attacked by military sites and my apartment broken into and police going through my trash can. In other countries, I probably, once in awhile, was mistaken for someone who tried to be nouveau-riche because I tipped too much...but I'm basically a working-class guy and I don't think most people thought of me that way if they got to know me. Maybe I am guilty of carrying over the American service industry mentality -- usually people who work/worked as waiters, bartenders or taxi drivers in America tip much more than other people, because we understand how difficult the job is. But of course, you are not trying to buy love with money ... you only show respect. If it is a situation where I feel that someone won't understand it (for example, in some place I've never been before in Vietnam), just the amount of tip that shows the right respect is better than some crazy American-size tip. Hopefully this makes sense. I should stop drinking and go eat. It's been a pleasure to talk ;)

[edit] PS: I really enjoyed this term "social alcoholism". Did you ever go to Granada?

I live in New Orleans those days, social alcoholism is a lifestyle there! I haven't been in Spain in a solid decade. I miss traveling and living in europe. It's so pleasant.

To get back to the subject at hand, I think you gave enough context so I can understand your point. Thanks! It looks that the key is being ex-service industry, and now that you stated it... I do see that behavior of "service-industry hardcore solidarity thought tips" in friends here.

> usually people who work/worked as waiters, bartenders or taxi drivers in America tip much more than other people, because we understand how difficult the job is. But of course, you are not trying to buy love with money.

And I can sense the likability oozing out your messages.

I quit my waiting job in New York around 2004-5, took a train to New Orleans, started playing piano with a band, got a job as a busboy at Brennan's for a solid 2 weeks before losing all my money on poker and drinking myself almost to death... I found myself on Canal Street one morning at 5am, broke, and called my sister from a payphone to buy me a bus ticket to LA. Six months later the house I'd been staying in was destroyed by Katrina...

Is it time to try again? I've always loved that city. I don't think I have the self-control.

I can assure you that an American tip here will give you a weird look and get you to be treated like a tourist which is not something you wish.

How is this detected by the state?

I think the issue in your approach is the transactional aspect of it.

“I payed more, now be more nice to me”

At their core, people don’t want to be owned this way.

[edit] also, although I'm not service industry anymore, many of my friends are; so it's pretty understood that no one likes an asshole who just thinks they can "buy" someone with tips. That wasn't the point. Tips are necessary because I really do appreciate what servers are doing.

dang being super chill by letting it be.

Instead of asking $5 for a coffee they ask for $4. Then you have to pay tax, which for absolutely ZERO reason is not included in the price. You're at about $4.40. Then you tip and end up at anywhere between $5 and $5.50 in actual money you spent on your "$4" coffee.

Besides the accessibility issue, not nearly all activities or situations making somebody want to transact anonymously are illegal (just consider e.g. people in unsafe domestic situations trying to get help/away but not having their own card).

I believe we could strike a pretty good balance with some research, engineering, and product development, avoiding both possibilities for tax evasion and financial crimes on one extreme, and creating a complete financial panopticon on the other.

You're part of the problem, not the solution.

If the whole point of eliminating tips is to treat the workers fairly, why not institute some sort of profit share, or monthly bonus based on YoY revenue growth?

Either way, you should accept cash.

Of course a short-term employee (summer, tourist season, etc.) would probably not be interested in that arrangement, and would prefer a good steady wage.

Such a card, if it exist, would quickly be the most popular card on all churning and credit card reward forums.

Also if it exist but requires a bank account or Amex credit card to purchase, it goes back again to being pointless for the people who can't get banking services and rely on cash.

In fact, if they weren’t, that would be unprofessional from the FBI.

There may be extra steps in between, but if you're tracking a transaction / relationship type which happens twice or more, you can expect that the person on the record is the person you're after or can point you at them.

But I don't know why they expect FBI to actually have it implemented. The system would have to be so widespread/common that we'd know if it existed. I mean, there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_bill_tracking but that's for hobbyists. Otherwise banks may check for duplicate numbers... but I can't find any mention of more widespread tracking.

If say

* person A gets 100 banknotes from the bank, gives 50 to person B,

* person B pays 25 to person C and 5 back to bank (say, taxes)

* person C pays 5 of them to the bank

You can infer with some probability who traded what to who.

Certainly, though, those same businesses keep a lot of cash in order to give change to other customers. But that cash will still likely end up back at a bank before too long.

> banknotes are only in circulation for one or two exchanges before coming back to a bank

No, you don't get the 100% whole picture, but you can mine a ton out of data points like "note 38573204 was given to John Doe via ATM on 2023-01-10, and returned to bank by Jane Smith (owner of ABC Widgets) on 2023-01-14".

"Quite a bit" is not the same as "to my satisfaction when traveling"

"It's gone forever without any recourse" certainly isn't exclusive to cash. And it can be expensive to even try.

Taking cash? It's illegal in NYC not to... Not sure how fringe that is.

Am I really tracked when I pay in cash?

Should this really be far down the list of privacy concerns? My debit cards record every single transaction I make with them. Anybody motivated enough could find out exactly where, when, and what I buy. Seems like a pretty major privacy concern.

It means somebody has to go to the bank each day to drop off the cash and collect change.

So it's inconvenient, and an unnecessary security risk to whichever staff member is required to do that.

Compared to not accepting cash and not having to deal with any of that, then yes it's a major burden.

So... just like the past few hundreds years then.

> So it's inconvenient

So is taking out the trash. But are you going to complain about the janitor who gets paid to do it?

> and an unnecessary security risk to whichever staff member is required to do that.

Is it really so unnecessary? Moreover, is dealing with money ever not considered a security risk?

> Compared to not accepting cash and not having to deal with any of that, then yes it's a major burden.

Even not accepting cash is a security risk. Do you deal with your computer infrastructure? Card skimmers? What about cameras that take pictures of card information while being slid across the scanner? How do you deal with the security audits of the backend software? What about the background checks of the people who wrote the backend software?

You're falsely painting a rose garden. It's just a different garden, that's all.

If you have the option not to, wouldn't you opt out?

> Even not accepting cash is a security risk. Do you deal with your computer infrastructure? Card skimmers?

Those are risks of accepting cards, not risks of "not accepting cash"

I have the "option" to opt-out of things that I never opted into in the first place. It's ludicrous that I have to do "opt out" of something I didn't have a choice of being opted-into in the first place.

> Those are risks of accepting cards, not risks of "not accepting cash"

Yes absolutely. And those risks (of accepting cards) mean that I disagree with the implied statement that not accepting cash removes burdens. It simply shifted the burden elsewhere (onto the customer).

What are you even talking about? The context is that cash is inconvenient and costly to deal with. You said "So is taking out the trash. But are you going to complain about the janitor who gets paid to do it?"

To which I basically responded yes - wouldn't you opt out of paying the janitor if you didn't have to? i.e. reduce the cost of doing business - if we're not making trash we don't need to pay someone to take it out. Hey, let's not make trash!

Your response doesn't make any sense in that context.

> those risks (of accepting cards) mean that I disagree with the implied statement that not accepting cash removes burdens

It's not implied, it's flat-out stated. Taking cash involves a variety of extra costs, risks and infrastructure. If you don't take cash you don't need a cash till, you probably don't need a safe, you don't need to pay staff to count and reconcile it, you don't need to get it to the bank safely, or pay banking fees.

If you're going to take cards all you really need these days is a smartphone and a reader.

> It simply shifted the burden elsewhere (onto the customer).

So? We're talking about burdens on the business. If you feel that having to use a card in an unacceptable burden, then perhaps you don't use that business.

By the sounds of it, not many people feel this way. And it's quite funny in itself - given that it's far easier not to bother with cash as an individual too.

You replied with a non-sequitur so I replied in kind.

Asking about opting-out of paying someone? No, that's immoral. Only scumbags would consider asking that let alone actually do it.

Asking about opting-out of using cash? No, that doesn't make sense given that I've clearly stated that I won't be a customer of businesses who have.

Asking about opting-out of taking out the trash? Nobody likes trash to pile up and I have a lot of respect to people who deal with it.

Asking about opting-out of being a janitor? I was a janitor for a long time. How does that make sense in the conversation though?

> To which I basically responded...

Your new reply doesn't include what you originally replied with. There's new context here and it changes what your first message meant to me. Here, have a new reply:

No, I am not a scumbag. People deserve to be paid fairly.

Further: janitors do real work that robots simply cannot do. I cannot ask a robot how their day was, how long they've worked there, what their hobbies are, or where to find the competing store. I can ask a janitor that though and perhaps even build a friendship.

> Taking cash involves a variety of extra costs, risks and infrastructure. If you don't take cash you don't need a cash till, you probably don't need a safe, you don't need to pay staff to count and reconcile it, you don't need to get it to the bank safely, or pay banking fees.

Taking cards involves a variety of extra costs, risks and infrastructure. If you don't take cards you don't need a card reader, you probably don't need internet, or have IT staff to manage all of that, you don't need to pay staff to count and reconcile sales, or pay processing fees...

Do you want me to go on? The risks aren't gone. They're just moved.

> If you feel that having to use a card in an unacceptable burden, then perhaps you don't use that business.

Indeed, I have stated exactly that in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34499522

> it's far easier not to bother with cash as an individual too

It's easier until you have a problem. When you have a problem it takes a hell of a lot more time to resolve.

If you have a problem with cash... well usually there _isn't_ a resolution so why bother trying? Time saved and that's far easier to deal with.

No, I didn't, saying "wouldn't you opt out of paying a janitor to take out the trash" in reponse to your comment "are you going to complain about the janitor who gets paid to do it?" is absolutely not a non-sequitur.

> Asking about ...

You missed an option there - not generating the trash in the first place, so you don't need to pay a janitor. That's the analogy with not taking cash - deciding not to create the issue in the first place that requires the cost.

> Taking cards involves a variety of extra costs, risks and infrastructure. If you don't take cards you don't need a card reader, you probably don't need internet, or have IT staff to manage all of that, you don't need to pay staff to count and reconcile sales, or pay processing fees..

We're not talking about "Taking cash or taking cards, we're talking about the difference between taking both, or taking cards only.

As a small business you also don't need all of that, just a tablet and a reader. Everything else is already done.

Also this is not the same argument you were making before, which was that the burden was transferred to you the potential customer.

> The risks aren't gone. They're just moved.

The risks of taking cash are gone if you don't take cash. If you're taking cards anyway, deciding not to take cash is an absolute reduction in risk and hassle from the other state.

> If you have a problem with cash... well usually there _isn't_ a resolution so why bother trying?

By this logic it's better to die than break a limb. More bullcrap I'm afraid!

Sure it is.

> If there is a business cost you don't have to pay, if you have that option, why would you not take it?

You are implying that a business could opt-out of paying janitors. No, that is not an acceptable business practice. Janitors cannot work for free, they are not slaves. And we cannot allow trash to pile up and things to go uncleaned.

> You missed an option there - not generating the trash in the first place, so you don't need to pay a janitor.

There is no situation wherein trash will not be generated. Likewise there is no situation where cash shouldn't be accepted.

> As a small business you also don't need all of that, just a tablet and a reader. Everything else is already done.

Sure, everything else is already done if your shitty small business offloads all of the work to the customer instead.

> The risks of taking cash are gone if you don't take cash. If you're taking cards anyway, deciding not to take cash is an absolute reduction in risk and hassle.

No, it's not a reduction in risk at all. It's offloading the risk to someone else.

> By this logic it's better to die than break a limb.

In the United States with the current state of healthcare, this logic is practically true.

Look, our discussion clearly shows that you might do well at increasing business profits. But your arguments are unable to reconcile basic compassion to your fellow humans. That's unfortunately common in modern businesses.

How?

Lol the simple mention, and not even favourably, of crypto in an extremely relevant context gets a DVote. It's like mentioning Joe Rogan.

Blockchain sleuthing had become much more commonplace since then.

If you have a public ledger, you don't need names to identify people's wallets.

All a CC company would know is you like expensive lattes; your cellphone would know how long you stayed there, where you say in the joint, and how many memes you looked at before you left. And might overhear everything you say, including your order.

If you're using any sort of digital payment or points app on your phone it'll probably know your order, too.

Listen, most places should take cash, but this is silly.

Haha, I think that's totally reasonable of them. As a consumer I would appreciate a notification informing me that I couldn't tip, no matter how much I thought they deserved it.

Ballard Coffee Works, corner of Leary & Market.

Has anyone ever walked out of your coffee shop because they only had cash on them? I can’t remember the last time I paid or even saw someone pay cash for anything.

They mostly do it for safety reasons. Being a target for being robbed for drug money just gets annoying after awhile. Getting rid of cash gets rid of that risk. They might lose some customers, but losing workers to stress about being robbed is a bigger problem these days.

While I worry about people without access to banking (mostly people without documentation, but also the poor), I think they're on a course to resolve that too, and I for one would be very happy to not have to pay that much in taxes while seeing others cheat the system and reap the benefits...

I'm not sure where you live. I work in a fast-food place on a college campus. While the students generally use their meal-plans to buy food, the moment we have a "parents' weekend" or similar event, we do a lot of cash.

It is generally poorer people (who don't have access to banks) who have to use cash (or resort to alternative banking systems that charge exorbitant fees).

[0] https://www.cashmatters.org/blog/right-pay-cash-now-protecte...

Tangential: I'm surprised that no one complains about these things. Google Search has become unbearable and Amazon is obviously bad these days. There's no way people aren't getting annoyed by the tech they use every day, yet you're right, no complaints.

It's almost always a silicon valley bubble

In Australia I haven't bothered to take any cash out in about a year, many businesses don't accept cash, and everything still seems to function just fine.

https://www.nssh.com/2020/04/philadelphias-ban-on-cashless-s...

I personally never use anything but cards since I have many of the high reward credit cards. But I've also had family members with tax liens or other problems that didn't allow them to get a bank account, that relied on family to pay bills, order things online for them, etc.

This sounds like the real problem to solve. It's unacceptable for people to be unable to get a bank account and whatever cards to pay cashless

It's totally a fake problem that untrustworthy people can't be trusted in modern times with bank accounts. The risk is check bouncing. People don't "need" checks anymore though to function in the cashless world.

We already have prepaid card accounts that don't allow you to spend money you don't have. The only catch is that they're run as profiteering machines which extract fees at every turn.

I guess what I'm saying is, let USPS run an operation (like Green Dot, Vanilla, etc.) but with a fee structure based on the true cost of the service only. And the government should give Visa and Mastercard the choice of:

1. antitrust suit to break them up.

2. the USPS cards will be a V/MC, and V/MC will give them very deeply discounted interchange rates

3. a new independent USPS card network with low fees will be built AND commercialized for any issuer to use, and a regulation that anyone who accepts V/MC must also accept that network.

Checks aren't a thing in most of the world. Opening a bank account is hard because of know-your-customer laws.

The civilised solution to this is very simple: cash! Until you get you bearings and have a bank account opened, just use cash.

Tourist in a country where your debit or credit cards don't reliably work or come with extra fees? Cash!

Buying a second-hand piece of furniture from someone else, and don't feel the need to expose more information than necessary? Cash!

Electronic payment system goes down while you are in the queue at the supermarket? No problem, because you always carry a little cash for backup. (I've had this happen to me several times.)

Cash is the ultimate fallback in civilized society, and worth protecting.

A recent immigrant from countries that don't issue biometric passports (like India) might struggle to open a bank account. I had to devote a lot of time to finding loopholes for my readers.

The status of such migrants is (AIUI) a fraught issue politically, and I'm not sure you can resolve the issues of the unbanked without resolving it.

The gist was that if everybody is paying with credit cards, $50 will eventually whittle down to $0 because AmEx, et. Al. got $50 worth of fees after so many transactions (accountant pays grocer who pays dentist who pays hygienist who pays daycare, etc.). On one hand, what a huge waste of money. On the other hand, I as the consumer typically don’t get a discount for paying with cash, so why shouldn’t I take advantage of the “free” and secure payment option available to me?

Processing fees are not unique to cash. Banks charge cash processing fees to businesses too, and have for ever. Most shops will deposit all the cash received at the end of the day - perhaps every few days - with a bank.

Taxes will do the same, though. Employers have to payroll taxes, employees have to pay income taxes. The $50 will eventually all bleed back to the government.

Savings accounts in particular are egregiously terrible at brick and mortar banks. I made more in interest payments in my first month at Ally than I did in the ten years I had my child hood savings account at Bank of America.

Where I live a Starbucks was opened across the street from a local coffee shop and the Starbucks closed because it couldn’t compete. This is in a walkable neighborhood. Once you get to the ‘burbs and highways it’s all Starbucks.

At least it's a serious issue in Germany, especially for Indians whose passport is not accepted by many authentication services.

I agree with you that businesses should accept cash for the reason that you’ve noted. The underlying problem is fuelled by the almost unique dysfunction of American bureaucracies. This is in cases where the systems aren’t maliciously designed to lock people out.

There are plenty of much poorer countries where cash has pretty much died out.

Imagine driving along in some mountainous, rural area in China. You stop at a little roadside shop in the middle of nowhere. You pull out your paper Renminbi bills to pay, and the shopkeeper looks at you like you're crazy. Everyone uses their smartphone to pay for everything, and yes, everyone has a smartphone.

If it's possible to transition entirely to digital payment in a country that was part of the Third World just one generation ago, it should be possible in the US.

For as long as not everyone has access to a bank account or credit card I'll be concerned about fueling divisions in society.

I'm not from the US, unlike the origins of this discussion, but also hear this statement and have no reason to doubt it is true. But if you step out of the wealthy areas or even just look a little closer then the users of cash are visible.

From the ones that left, most said they didn't have a card on them at the time and they'd return another time, but we did get a couple of people that did leave because they didn't agree to the policy.

This makes going cash free a pretty smart choice.

To play devil's advocate, credit cards are another way to get tracked, a great way for a duopoly of companies to skim 1-3% off the economy, a way to be analyzed by the merchant, a way to get more explicitly prompted to pay a 20% tip, and more hassle than handing a $5 for a $4.73 coffee and walking off.

"Imagine these magical tokens with monetary value that I could instantly transfer to a merchant without waiting for my bill to come back!"

Going cashless only benefits the owner for not having to deal with counting cash, with potential worker theft, and (slim concern) robbery - things that, depending on the area and the market, are theoretical.

At the same time, I think it's neat that street performers and buskers have QR codes to Venmo. I think everyone should accept everything.

I wouldn't patronize such a place because I'm not comfortable surrendering my credit card for an indeterminate amount of time, nor having any idea of how much money I've spent until I'm about to leave.

The pros may still outweigh the cons, but it’s not all roses with cards.

In my experience it can be rare even with an ATV in the thousands of dollars, but it’s still (unfortunately) a non-zero risk.

If your bar is being hit every week for robbery, the chance is no longer theoretical or a slim concern. Not sure about that bar, but marijuana dispensaries here get hit weekly because they are a cash only business. If the feds allowed it, they would go card-only very quickly.

I mean by all means use your card everywhere but I think we should make a concerted effort to keep our options open.

And I see the same issue when I go to places that only take cash: people have to leave because they only have a credit card. Or they pony up some ridiculous fee to take cash from the ATM in the bar.

> credit cards are another way to get tracked

I personally don't care too much about this, but I can understand why some might.

> a great way for a duopoly of companies to skim 1-3% off the economy

Put another way: a way for a duopoly of companies to get paid for providing a useful service to both businesses and customers. Now, you can argue that if there was more competition, fees would be lower, and I wouldn't disagree with that. But it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that the card networks are just taking and not providing any value.

> a way to be analyzed by the merchant

Basically the same as your tracking argument. Some care, some don't.

> a way to get more explicitly prompted to pay a 20% tip

Shrug? That's life? I feel pressured to tip regardless of how I pay. At least with the POS terminal I don't have to do math.

> and more hassle than handing a $5 for a $4.73 coffee and walking off.

It's pretty rare that I see a bill for an even amount of money. It's way more hassle to have to dig through my pockets for exact change, which I never have, so in reality I'm passing over a larger amount and waiting for the cashier to make change for me. And then I have to decide how much of that I want to leave as a tip. That's certainly more hassle than just tapping a card and a tip amount, and walking off.

I also don't jog, but you get the point. At my gym I had a keychain bar code that worked great. Now I need my phone, phone charged, brightness up, their stupid app, signed in, open it up, click check-in. It turned a 2 second 1 gram device in to this whole thing. Why?? What a waste of technology and time.

No, I don't. Carrying a card is way easier than carrying cash while jogging. Thin, smaller, more lightweight.

I see one benefit of cash: the privacy.

I will have maids coming over tomorrow for the first time in a millennia and I will pay them however they prefer and I'm assuming that's cash. Card is amazing, but cash has its place it bothers me to see it sidelined.

I think you're ascribing malice to something that is largely a function of cost, safety, and hassle.

Yes, credit card fees are not free, but:

1. Managing cash is not free either. At the end of the shift / end of the day, you need employees to count cash and reconcile the amounts with receipts. Cash in excess of what the business wants to keep on hand needs to be transported to the bank and deposited, which costs employee (or manager/owner) time.

2. Businesses that accept cash are bigger targets for (possibly violent) theft. Your minimum wage barista might appreciate not having to worry about someone coming in with a gun and ordering them to empty the register into a bag, if there is nothing to empty into said bag. Transporting cash to the bank is another point where you can get robbed.

3. Related, there's also the risk of being paid with counterfeit bills. Granted, there's also the risk of stolen credit cards being used, and the business is usually forced to eat the cost of that. So this might turn out to be a wash (or perhaps, I suspect, this is actually worse with credit cards).

Certainly, from the customer's perspective, credit cards are a privacy leak, and require a good credit score or at least a bank with debit cards, and some people don't have access to either. But I think the solution to the latter is to make banking more accessible to people (I think allowing the post office to be a bank to anyone who needs it is a great way to make that happen). Not sure how to solve the privacy leak, though. Even with (unlikely) strong legislation against data collection and sharing/selling, there's always going to be a purchase trail.

And your point about jogging (or not-jogging) just doesn't make sense; it's far more convenient to carry a credit card when jogging than to carry cash.

I'm curious if credit cards actually are worse. I haven't had anyone ask for my ID to use a credit card in a long while. My hypothesis is that stolen credit cards are used online frequently, but rarely in person. Likely because it's easier to steal 10,000 credit card numbers online than in person, and because people are more likely to notice and report a card stolen if it's physically missing.

Please no. That's how it usually starts. It was with small change but now McDonalds harasses you every time you make an order to round up for some charity I never heard about. I'd donate to charities on my own.

Needless to say I avoid these places like the plague.

But lots of people won't think to do so, and it can raise awareness too. And in terms of payment processing fees it is probably much more efficient to include a small amount extra in a larger preexisting transaction and pool it up across customers than if everyone were to go out and donate $0.50 or whatever on their own.

And "awareness" is a big part of some cultures [0] as it allows for the distribution of the idea of caring without devoting some of one's life to the cause.

[0] https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/23/18-awareness/

People believe all sorts of weird thing about tax deductions (almost always _income_ deductions).

Interested to hear specifics if anyone knows!

There's a beer here in the SF Bay Area that words its charitable claim like "up to 8% to local causes", which can mean anything from doing nothing at all to earmarking 8% of the revenue for their new yacht which is parked locally.

This should be illegal.

Also the plague responds well to antibiotics.

But if the POS asks you, it doesn't feel as personal to turn down the option to donate, don't you think?

Anyway, not married to the idea, but I think there are some people that enjoy the endorphins that result from contributing to a charitable cause (especially when discretionary spending, like on a latte).

My point is, we are surrounded by useless requests for more of our time and money. I go to the coffee shop almost exclusively as a place to relax. There should be less intrusion into my headspace there, not more.

Whereas having the option to select a charitable donation, or passively ignore it, as a part of the normal checking out is fine.

The problem is when you put the donation at checkout to "improve" conversion.

To be fair, the McDonalds charity is actually totally legit and really awesome and you should donate to it. It's one of the few exceptions to the general rule that these charity promotions are usually suspect tax laundering schemes.

What you don't understand is that tipping became a thing in order to reward good service and provide a decent income to service workers. It's not perfect, but it's there for a reason.

What you don't understand is that tipping became a thing because racist Americans didn't want to pay newly-freed black people properly.

It makes us uncomfortable to be pampered or if the serving staff are overly friendly or chirpy - it feels insincere to a Brit and puts us into a defensive mode.

If serving staff are polite (or at least not surly) and we get served in a reasonable amount of time then that's all we ask for and we'll tip 10% if there was nothing wrong with the meal, or put some change in a tip jar if we only ordered drinks.

Traveling to the US as a Brit is an affront when you first experience "service culture". You become desensitised to it after a while (and can even have some fun with it) but initially it's a genuinely uncomfortable experience and it blows my mind how different "normal" can be across English-speaking cultures who share a hell of a lot of history and culture.

Is that really true, though? The US is such a mix of cultures at this point (and even the more dominant cultures have diverged so much), that I'm not sure it's accurate to say that Brits and Americans generally share all that much culture. History is there, yes, but it's been over 200 years, and history fades.

most people working in the service industry are not teenagers and college kids. For restaurants and fast food joints adult workers are more common.

https://datausa.io/profile/soc/fast-food-and-counter-workers

https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-workers-older-88-percen...

The average retail worker is over 40.

These aren't "summer jobs" for pocket money or children's first steps into the workforce, they're the jobs adults depend on to keep their rent/utilities paid and their families fed.

Someone 25 years of age and older can deliver exceptional service, they just aren't paid enough to care to.

The correlation between service quality and tipping is an interesting one, why does anyone do a good job in any role without some kind of incremental reward for effort. Do office workers always revert to 'just enough to not get fired' or are they playing a longer game for promotions and bonuses?

Then I have been to a few restaurants lately that the card machine (often a US-based one like Square) asks for a tip as a mandatory thing (i.e. you have to say no or type 0 to get past it). And the waiter/waitress will stand behind you watching/waiting with the machine. This never happened before - and I do admit that I have started leaving $10-$20 or something if I was happy with the service when this has been forced on me (depending on the size of the bill and the mood I've been in).

I did this with a work drinks with a customer the other day and my Aussie boss called me out on it "what is this tip on here - we don't do this in Australia". And I was like "I was in front of a customer the machine asked me - did you want me to say zero and possibly look cheap/unkind?".

So it is somewhat creeping into things here. Curious the views of other Aussies on how they are dealing with it? Am I just slipping back into this because I am an American and was used to it being a thing?

It's not Square doing this, it's the restaurant owner.

There are pretty much weekly hate threads on r/australia and similar places on Reddit about this as you'd expect.

One other thing I did notice - when travelling the US and reading reviews, a lot of people talk about the service. It's rarely mentioned in reviews over here in comparison unless it's an outlier. I personally found the fawning attention quite cloying in the US, but it's a different culture I guess. Wondering if that'll change if tips gain a foothold.

In most cases there is a tip button that I just don't press or I answer 'No' to the question on it. Sometimes the staff do it when handing it over. That doesn't annoy me as much and I don't usually feel much pressure since I've got a whole life behind me not tipping I guess. I do feel a bit awkward sometimes so I'd rather they not put me in the situation but I get over it.

I love not tipping, and for me personally, the service in Australia is perfectly fine. I took my (Canadian) partner to Australia (her first time there). For her, the service was nowhere even remotely close to that of Canada.

In Australia, someone might take your order (or you order yourself at the bar), then your food is brought (or you get it yourself, get your own cutlery), and that is all. Plenty enough for me, but that's utterly bare minimum of what you'd get in Canada. Almost below bare minimum.

In Australia nobody comes to ask how your meal is, nobody comes to top up your water, and nobody will pontificate with you for 10 minutes about the difference in hops between two beers on tap. When my partner asked for that kind of information, most people just shrugged and gave her a sample of both, then said "what do you want?". I found it hilarious.

So while I think the service in Australia is perfectly adequate and I personally like it, my Canadian partner found it lacking immensely from Canadian standards, but she did like the no-tipping.

I've lived here all of my life, but traveled very extensively. I would give the typical Canadian service interaction a neutral pass; they aren't openly rude, nor are they offering to wash my car.

Where are you going to eat that someone taking your order, bringing it to you and checking in to make sure that it doesn't taste like burnt plastic could be described as "bare minimum"? That sounds an awful lot like "pretty standard" to me.

Even in fancier places, there is a real art to achieving the perfect balance between attentive and annoying in service. Having someone notice that I need more water leaves me feeling cared for; having someone stop by on a 7 minute schedule to ask if we're "still okay" leaves me feeling violent.

I was saying that service in Canada is noticeably "better" than service in Australia.

So what I'm actually implying, is that service in Australia is quite "lacking". By lacking I mean nobody "waits" on you. You often order at the bar, pickup your own food and cutlery, re-fil your own water and walk to the bar to buy yourself a drink.

Even a "sit down" restaurant will really only take your order and bring your food, nothing more. Fancier is different, but then you're paying more for the food.

As I said, I'm perfectly happy with that level of "service" because it means no tipping.

Of course, minimum wage in Australia is $21.38 with benefits, leave, healthcare, etc. etc. For everyone.

I find that service is highly regional even in the U.S., but as a whole, better than service in Canada.

I also think that Canadians making at least minimum wage with tips on top plays into that. In the U.S. you'd have to provide great service or you risked not making any money (technically I know your employers are supposed to top you up to minimum wage, but they do it for the pay period rather than an individual shift)

:)

Yes, after the total confirmation (including tax if you can), where you'd normally be asked to tip, you should see if it's possible to display the no tip policy and higher wage explanation.

You could also tell customers that your business is donating to certain cause at this point. Just don't pass on the burden of deciding whether or not to donate to your customers. Another option is to dedicate certain profits from a specific product to a cause and note that on your menu.

New York City has a law preventing businesses from refusing cash because only accepting cards is discriminatory.

Not accepting tips is one thing. But not accepting cash means you will never have me as a customer.

Edit: I've already walked away from a dozen different food places in airports because of this kind of trash: please install this app, can't pay in cash, can't see a menu without scanning a QR code, use an iPad with shitty touchscreen that I can barely see or use...

I just wanted to order some food and pay with legal tender.

"The principal purpose of [the Coinage Act of 1965] is to ensure the nationwide acceptance of U.S. currency, consistent with constitutional language that reserves to Congress the power to create a uniform currency that holds the same value throughout the United States. While the statute provides that U.S. money is legal tender that may be accepted for the payment of debts, it does not require acceptance of cash payments, nor does it provide that restrictions cannot be imposed upon the acceptance of cash."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender#United_States

I would not patronize your business.

This seems to go out of the way to fight tipping culture and seems to cause more confusion than necessary.

Except it's worse since if you ever give an honest answer it's not you they'll berate, the bosses will just flagellate their underlings who might not even be truly responsible for the "low" rating.

> I do believe that the incentive tips provide for employees to "act" friendly to customers can be transferred over into a review/feedback program, which is what we will be testing out. If customers rate their order and interaction with the barista to be satisfactory, a bonus payment will be made to the baristas on shift. Once we introduce this, I'll share the results.

Might as well go full hog and add rating to food/drinks they ordered. Not to judge the person doing the service, just get a feel for what your customers enjoyed and what they didn't.

For instance the Stripe Terminal reader is immediately to the right of the iPad POS, but a good number of people don't know where to tap the card. I need to design an arrow on the checkout screen for that because I've seen many people tapping the card to the iPad screen. I think Square got them used to that.

On the other hand, I recognize that there are plenty of businesses that still don't offer a way to tip at all (Starbucks until very recently), and more importantly, that none of these employees make anywhere near a living wage. Having worked service industry jobs and found my way out, I can't help but thinking that most of these jobs are merely dark patterns that take advantage of people who can't or won't demand what they actually should be paid.

The unfortunate conclusion I've arrived at is that US consumers simply aren't willing to pay the true price for many of the things they enjoy on a day to day basis. Just one example is that their daily coffee is subsidized through the misery of minimum wage coffee shop employees.

You say you pay a "higher wage" - what does that actually equate to for someone working 40 hours a week?

Your everything is "subsidized" by low wages of people living in third world countries. US coffee shop employees aren't quite near the bottom of that hierarchy.

> the misery of minimum wage coffee shop employees.

i don't know, TONS of people make way less than baristas and other counter-service workers. Lots of the customers of those baristas make similar wages as they do. Why does the barista deserve that money more? The maids at a hotel make less than a Starbucks barista, and there's no way they get significant tips especially at the cheaper places.

Tipping baristas and other counter-service workers who are NOT paid below minimum wage might make some progressives feel generous and virtuous, but it isn't solving any problems in a fair and equitable way. It's raising people's expectations -- in CERTAIN occupations only -- that they deserve $2 per customer for setting a cup on a counter and hollering your number.

isn't the whole problem with tipping is that every role with tipping will lower the base pay in consideration of that? I would find it very hard to believe anyone receiving tips prefering that to just a stable matching income (except for some exceptional cases...)

And yeah, it turns out that people want to be paid more than minimum wage to be on their feet and dealing with customer orders all day long. I don't see why service people shouldn't be paid more than minimum wage!

That’s a problem.

Another problem is that it is demonstrated to be a loophole through which unequal compensation on bases that would otherwise be unlawful for an employer are achieved.

I’m certain that is not the case for many/most (depending on the area and establishment) tipped workers. Most waiters, baristas & bartenders certainly wouldn’t want to earn only slightly more than fast food workers even if the average wage goes up.

> will lower the base pay

Not in California and some other places (applies to at least 10-15% of the US population)

I don’t understand this argument. What I’m saying is to just take what the earnings were with wage + tips, and make it just wage. Literally not changing the total take home pay (I guess people don’t report tips though?)

There is absolutely no reward for sticking with an employer in this industry, if another employer has a better offer it's goodbye.

I think you're conflating deserving that money more with deserving more money. Obviously the ideal solution would be to pay everyone better, but individuals are limited in their capacity to effect change. Eliminating tipping, absent a replacement, isn't fair either (except in the sense that all service workers would become equally poor).

What evidence you have to back up this claim?

Do you tip everyone you interact with? How do you know who to tip? That sounds exhausting.

Basically most of the world except Noth America pay their waiters wages that don't depend on tips. Sure some places allow additional tipping, but it's not a mandatory fee and the workers don't have to get it to make a living.

Replacing tipping with a 20% mandatory service charge -- tried many times here -- results in the employees earning less money, empirically. Eliminating tipping is unpopular with employees since it is effectively a pay cut.

Proponents of "no tipping" policies in the US are not going to be successful until they address the elephant in the room of reduced pay for employees. Unlike in Europe, US employees know how much money they earn with tipping.

[0]: https://www.seattle.gov/laborstandards/ordinances/minimum-wa...

The tipping issue in Seattle isn't about a living wage, they already have that, it is about maximizing their income. After all, who doesn't want to maximize their income? The economic structure and dynamics of it are fascinating. What proponents of "no tipping" schemes fail to recognize is that it is against the interest of employees in many cases, even if it is often positioned otherwise.

It's about the social safety net, not just about raw cash.

The same waiter in most European countries would have health insurance even after being fired, for example.

That may true in raw numbers but is it still true when you consider that a European worker will have coverage for health, retirement, paid annual leave, paid medical leave, will have access to unemployment benefits, will get subsidised lunches (in some countries) and will be protected by laws that enforce overtime pay and their rights to not be fired without justifiable cause.

Raw numbers are not the full picture.

You a hater.

But credit cards in the US are also like 3% and come with additional risks.

Just to dump an idea: Maybe instead of using a scale based rating, you could experiment with something that has not a clear maximum value to prevent the all 5-star rating effect described by others. The only thing that directly comes to my mind would be a button, that the user has to hold until the time matches the perceived rating.

If all you care about is rewarding employees who are good, Why not just do profit sharing for employees who been around longer then x months?

If you occasionally ask the customer in-app "how was your service today?" with a simple thumbs up/down option, and you associate the order's rating with the barista behind the counter, you can get a good metric on their interaction with customers. You'd probably want to use the median and not the mean in order to remove any outliers.

In the service industry, and especially amongst young people, it's common to pick up a job like this for a few months and make some money, then move on to something else. And that's okay, not everyone wants to make a career out of making coffee. It's still a good formative experience to have, while earning some money, and there's no reason why you shouldn't do it right and get rewarded for it.

But profit sharing won't work for someone that is around for a summer. For instance that person could benefit from any upswing caused by previous employees, but if they don't add a positive contribution to the customer experience themselves, they won't be around for the long-term impact. And if you don't give them an incentive at all for the first few months, then you're back to square one. Or even worse: they could negatively impact the profit sharing of employees that have been around for the long run.

Ultimately, money is a motivator and pretending like it's not does not make tipping go away. The problem with tipping as I see it, is that it masquerades the real cost of doing business.

By making that assertion you're absolving yourself of responsibility and shifting the retention issue entirely to the employee. You're completely dismissing the possibility that your retention issue is due to a customer culture you fostered or created, a poor work environment due to a manager or toxic employee, the demands of the job vs compensation, or any other factor.

> Ultimately, money is a motivator and pretending like it's not does not make tipping go away.

Money is a motivator but not necessarily for the right reasons and it has diminishing returns. Tipping culture has evolved from a mechanism for customers to thank staff into a means for staff to make up for insufficient wages. They're effectively panhandlers.

If an employee relies upon a tip to makeup for wages, they aren't paid enough and are being exploited and abused.

Today, not tipping is a punitive measure that allows customers to diminish an employee or staff's wage at the customer's discretion and without any insight or feedback provided to the employer. People feel compelled to tip because they thing employees aren't paid enough, not because service was above expectations.

You had me until this point. No, this is some people’s belief, but not all. I certainly don’t think people are underpaid when I tip, it’s entirely based off service.

There will always be people who disagree, but if you're in the United States and believe that service workers are not underpaid then you either only patronize high end restaurants or are completely out of touch with the average American.

If you believe that a majority of food workers are underpaid, then I, as well as market research, disagree with you.

> ...then I, as well as market research...

Any what market research is that?

Here you go: https://www.eater.com/21398973/restaurant-no-tipping-movemen...

One of my general problems with tipping is that I have to tip before someone makes the drink. Then end up with burned coffee I tipped for. This feels the same.

If the customer ordered via the POS, it will be shown on the next visit, if they sign in with their phone number (which is used to save your order history for easy reordering).

I had a shop too once (print, Germany, sold it after a few years) and know people owning restaurants. As far as I'm concerned, you are supposed to get your feedback from the "meta data" of your business, not involve the individual customers my making them work. Which is very unlikely to give you true and/or good data anyway. It's like asking people for what they want as "market research", which just shows a lack of understanding of how brains work and way too much believe in the rational mind theory.

You seem to have created the anti-human coffee shop.

You don't need my number to sell me coffee. Asking for it is an invasion of my privacy. If you insist on an awards program of some kind, it already exists in it's ultimate form, the stamp card.

Customers should not be tasked with evaluating employees. They have no expertise in the matter.

Employees should not have wages effectively stolen from them under the auspices that "good work is rewarded". You know how you reward good work? Raises, profit sharing, more responsibility, benefits programs, you know typical things employers do for employees in a worker centered environment.

All this also assumes anyone uses these systems as intended. I doubt customers will select ratings in any meaningful way and you will have no way to ground truth if they do or not. Nobody will ever care enough to sit through customer interviews to evaluate whether your one question survey is valid or not. Certainly not for a cup of coffee.

Instead of customers having the option to pay extra in the form of tips, you're charging more. By having a review/bonus system, you're still absolving yourself of the responsibility for fairly compensating your staff. You're shifting the burden of evaluating employee performance onto your customer. And you're incentivizing yourself to limit bonuses because that money goes into your pocket.

Give your employees the same stress free and untransactional experience you are trying to provide to the customers.

It's especially bad if it's based on some variant of having scores "above average" or whatever, because that ends up being a lottery. At that point it's better to just establish a lottery among the employees. If you really have to do individual bonuses, I think it's better to take a leaf from Deming and only grant it for truly (statistically verified) outperformance.

Someone else suggested collective bonuses (e.g. profit sharing). That aligns incentives nicely: it is slightly lagged, meaning you can afford to experiment and learn. It's also not individual, so it fosters collaboration. It's still something of a lottery, of course, but one decided by the customers, not by a manager.

That sounds like the end of transaction screen can be improved

Adding a message like "All Done" then "We're a tip free restaurant" go a long way

You are brave. A friend opened a coffee shop elsewhere in LA County a few years ago. The LA County permit and inspection process was nothing less than a utopian nightmare. I have done lots of construction projects myself and have learned to absolutely detest that part of the experience (going to the DMV is actually better). The usual outcome is that projects end-up costing a ton more and take much longer to complete. The issues, in my experience, rarely have to do with actual safety concerns, etc. It's mostly about process and check-boxes. I hope your experience was better.

I’m thinking of charging a small ~$x per table fee for bussing tables. Refundable if they self bus. Probably would always refund it unless they wreck the table. Not sure I want to administer it, or if it would be perceived as a punitive thing and get bad reviews. Just an idea I had while coding the self checkout app.

Also, pancakes are made by a robot

There’s a lot more to something BEING clean than LOOKING clean.

One is punitive, other one is rewarding.

Most HN thing I've read all day. Sounds awesome.

Good luck!

Vision impaired people require the same help reading the menu at any other coffee shop, so it’s not any different. In fact it might make it easier on them because they don’t feel like they’re holding up the line. If one of us guides them through the menu on one iPad, other customers can still use the other iPads to order.

On a related note, I did notice that our visually impaired customers have a phone app that I believe scans and reads the text from the screen out to them. Perhaps we should have our own text to speech option in some future version.

Depending how your views are laid out the app might need some polish to improve navigation, but overall it should work from the get go.

Concerns I see are that (1) only Apple users will know how to trigger it and (2) the vision impaired customer might leave VoiceOver on, which will confuse the next customer who uses the kiosk.

Like, starting the conversation with an accusatory comment of "hey, btw, did you think of this very super rare situation, or are you the evil exclusionary guy?" is kind of an asshole thing to do. Most people with sight don't encounter blindness often, so making someone feel attacked for not thinking about is just a way to generate hostility.

Having said that, I actually appreciate the content (if not the form) of this comment – it's pretty easy to accidentally block people from using your software, and accessibility reminders are an important thing. Though in this case human solution (have the waiter come and help) is probably better than software one.

I mean, if you walked into a Chevy dealership, you wouldn’t say “Hey, why aren’t there any blind driver models for the Silverado?”

If I’m running a robo-cafe, it’s a failing of Apple that there’s no way for someone blind to interact with the kiosk. I’m selling coffee, I’m not designing and manufacturing customer interface devices.

I understand the feeling that everything should cater for you, but perhaps that’s an opportunity for a different coffee place to compete for your business.

That being said, you are not entitled to anything more than anybody else just because of your disability. Nobody is entitled to free coffee, just like nobody is entitled to free cars.

It doesn’t mandate that a business must prioritize disabled customers or even that every person with a disability be able to use the service. Again, car companies are the canonical excepted business, but the ADA cannot force you to serve a customer that your business is not right for.

I’m not necessarily advocating for either side, I just don’t like the idea of an automated process being disrupted when there’s other places someone with a disability can go for the same service. Doing business is mutual.

How you think a car dealership is equivalent to a coffee shop is beyond me. That said, I can assure you that a blind person would be able to buy a car, if they wanted to. That they can't legally operate the vehicle isn't the business of the car manufacturer or dealership.

You are clearly advocating for one specific side. You've only argued for one specific side.

I have two disabled family members, and another on my wife’s side, so I think it’s uncharitable to accuse me of supporting one side when I’m not saying anything abjectly ableist. I want everybody, in the entire world, to have a comfortable life. Trouble is, that includes people whom find themselves operating a business.

I think there’s an attitude in the disabled community that they are less capable in some ways and so are not responsible for the stewardship of their lifestyle, and that does two things:

First, it galvanizes those who seek to interrupt or diminish the issues that disabled people face.

Second, it legitimizes non-issues like coffee shop kiosks and distracts people from real issues like safe housing, asset caps, and bizarre and disparate enrollment policies.

I’m just in favor of businesses doing business. I’m not the enemy, by any means.

I'm not being uncharitable, and I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm stating a fact. There is no other way to read the comments you've made so far. You've gone as far as framing it as if they just wanted a free coffee. Just because you're labeling it as a non-issue doesn't mean you're right. You've replied to an actual blind person asking for how they deal with it, it's hard to find a better example of how tone-deaf you come off.

You're describing a dystopian version of capitalism. Luckily, reality is much better and most entrepreneurs welcome advice from people with disability on how to make things more accessible.

Continuing the geek vibe, I believe the best starting point to make sense of inner workings of incentive systems and rewards is SDT - Self-Determination Theory. It's 70+ yr old theory of motivation in psychology that originated in studies of how external rewards (i.e. tips or bonuses) crowd out intrinsic motivation.

In other words, if we want employees to act friendly to customers - should we design a system of external motivation (rewards and punishements) or design a system that boost intrinsic motivation for this behaviour. For example, SDT has many studies on how different rewards giving patterns affect motivation. As far as I remember, the least detrimental is task-noncontingent rewards (giving "reward" for just "showing up", basically). The most detrimental to motivation is competitive-contingent (give reward to those who outperform others).

I'd suggest a different tack, analyse what in the system has led to one person to be unfriendly to another, and solve it without assuming the buck stops with the individual as some type of perfectly free agent in a skinner box.

Proper pay, proper healthcare, leaders that lead by demonstration and treat colleagues with respect and a business that does not lead to angry customers by being scummy... are just table stakes for example.

Can I ask why not? I see the rise of CBDCs as a threat to democracy (governments able to monitor and control what you spend your money on) and cash as a vital tool in a fight against that.

Though as a European I always find American tipping culture quite insane. Nothing wrong with tipping for good service, but they way it seems expected in the US is very off putting

It is almost never the case that the restaurant provides any of this to their employees and there is no transparency involved.

I honestly see it as a scam to charge higher prices without itemizing properly on the menu.

Even if you highlight the wage disparity in signage, I would have no way of knowing whether the information is accurate or just another piece of propaganda.

By all means, keep an eye on what's being said about you and look for red flags, but don't be that neurotic boss that rides your employees every time a review under 5 stars comes in. The best restaurants around that have stayed for more than a few years often are the ones with 3 stars -- 5 usually just means they're new, not particularly good, and people coming in are adventurous, rather than following what someone advised.

Even in Europe I tip servers and bartenders. It just seems nice. I've never had one turn it down.

Having worked in the service industry, I usually tip 25-30%, per drink or per meal. But here's the relevant point: When I encounter a place that doesn't allow tipping, I still want to tip, and make sure to tip, because it's for the worker. I absolutely loathe the new system that's come into trendy restaurants in Seattle where gratuity is supposedly included. That's a skinflint way for a restaurant to raise their prices and assure you that their workers are being paid, without you as the customer having any say (or direct contact) with the workers. You may put up QR code menus and try to isolate the service staff from the customers, and eliminate tipping, but does that make happier employees? Does it make happier customers?

Tipping serves several purposes. One of them is to get the employees to give customers who tip well better service. Sometimes at the expense of an extra ounce from a whisky bottle, sometimes just with more personal care. The insertion of the management into the situation - trying to say it's good for customers and employees - strikes me as a very false, self-serving line of bullshit. And from everyone I know in the service industry, it seems like it quickly turns into a racket against them as well.

My prediction is that by 2025, places that eliminated tipping will be seen as just as infamous as any of the scammy disruptors of the tech industry in the 2010s; the practice of banning tips will be seen as disreputable, and life will return to its natural equilibrium where customers pay extra for good service.

> My prediction is that by 2025 [...]

You do know that for the rest of the world, the CURRENT system of needing tips to make up the pay that the employer does not pay is seen as disreputable, part of the infamous scammy lawless American low-pay healthcare-less work landscape, right? Employers are supposed to pay livable wages, not let random customers make up for it.

I disagree. I've never been to a strip club (another very foreign concept for me lol) but if I ever went to a establishment, I expect to pay the prices the store asks me to pay, or the waiter asking to pay. Do you also "tip" the police? It sounds as ridiculous as that for a foreigner.

> You wouldn't go into a Buddhist temple in Thailand and not leave some change at the door.

I have been to Buddhist temples in Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, etc. and not left change at the door, what are you talking about? That's definitely not normal. I HAVE paid for tickets to enter temples, and bought some of the trinkets they sell, but unless explicitly told so (like in the USA) I wouldn't expect to be making significant donations for the conservation and practice of the temple. I expect religious entities to be funded by either money from their religious constituents, from the gvmt, or sell things, and that's how it seems to work in most of the world without issue.

You cannot simply say that because you are ignorant of the customs in some place, or you would never go to such a place, that people should not have to learn and abide by the customs if they do go to them.

As with prosties, so with New York restaurants.

As far as leaving coins outside temples... perhaps it was a local contribution thing, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

I haven't, but if you asked me if I think service workers should be paid more like regular salaried workers or more like prostitutes, I'd pick the former over the latter.

Is the sales tax included in the listed price?

One of my pet peeves is how "tax and tip" are not included in the displayed prices in Ontario, Canada. I hate having to do arithmetic on every purchase I make.

I grew up in Sydney, Australia where what you see is what you pay - tax incl. Tipping is generally not part of the culture because the minimum wage is a livable wage (in most areas).

I won’t go into explaining and outlining exactly why that is for the time being, but suffice it to say that I have personal knowledge of the extremely manipulative industry that “non-profits” are. But I get it, some will not want to believe me, I mean they’re called “non-profits” and profits are bad, right?

The point of my caution is essentially this, what you are trying to avoid by stopping tipping, you will only far undo by essentially making “non-profit” executives and their friends and family rich instead of that money going to your employees.

You're looking for Lines 15-17 in Part I of Form 990.

The information's trivially available, if you're concerned.

As a customer, please just leave well enough alone. I'd really prefer to just leave a tip if I'm going to be gently shamed into leaving reviews to make sure your employees somehow get the wages they were led to believe they would earn.

I would go a bit out of my way to frequent any non-tipping coffee shop/restaurant. And I'm quite happy to pay a higher price in the menu items to reflect the fact that the business isn't shifting some of their payroll burden to me in lieu of realistic pricing.

I hope you'll be able to continue not taking tips because I really wish we'd abolish this practice. Good luck with your cafe and I would love to try it out next time I'm in LA!

My customers complained that my prices were too high. So, I lowered my prices, added tax, then asked for a tip. About 50% of people tip, so my profits have actually gone up on average after this adjustment. People seem to be buying more, too.

I hate it, but this model seems to work better from a business perspective, despite it being a worse customer experience (subjective, I know).

How do you train your customers not to have sticker shock? Do I need to hang a banner that says “TAX AND TIP INCLUDED IN ALL PRICES” in comic sans?

Your system is better. But it's special. Special is bad because I don't like having to do things X different ways for X different restaraunts. I would rather pay a little more and not have to remember the quarks of your restaurant. I am also just trained to tip so I will feel icky leaving your restaurant no matter if you are paying them a fair amount already.

When I go overseas I still tip. I know it's weird. I don't do it for them, I do it for me. Because I feel bad if I don't do it, it's purely selfish reasons.

[0] https://www.instagram.com/p/CnozdBwu0pM/

https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm

By doing this, they appease the customer who wants to leave one and don't get in a back and forth with them over tips.