Restaurants asking for tips to be left in cash

[QuarterMillionMan]

QMM is that at a place in the casino? If so, I guess they get stiffed a lot. People want to save their money for gambling so probably tip poorly or not at all.

Yes disneysteve it is a new restaurant recently opened in Valley View casino in San Diego. No mention of the automatic gratuity was made by the waitress nor could I find any signage on the menu, table or anyplace else for that matter. They did remove the automatic gratuity though when I politely requested that it be removed since I had intended to leave a cash tip on the table and they printed me a new receipt with the tip removed.

[~bs]

There is also a new thing where they're asking for 3% or so gratuity for non tipped employees.... all of this stuff is pretty out of line in my opinion. But I do understand the reasoning because the restaurant business is really tough

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I'm getting a bit digusted to be honest about this whole tipping thing. I find myself preferring higher costs and less tipping like in many other countries. What is the problem i'm not sure.

[disneysteve]

I'm getting a bit digusted to be honest about this whole tipping thing.

I do wish they'd get rid of it entirely. Just charge what you need to charge to pay the staff a fair wage.

I'm also old enough to remember when the standard tip was 15%. Then it became 18%. Now it's 20%. Just build that cost into the prices and be done with it. And that way you won't have any issues with servers getting stiffed by customers and working their butts off for nothing.

[Smallsteps]

I'm getting a bit digusted to be honest about this whole tipping thing. I find myself preferring higher costs and less tipping like in many other countries. What is the problem i'm not sure.

As I look around at many businesses not just those with tipped staff, price transparency seldom exists.
Businesses just want to put out the lowest price with an ( *) to look at fine print..... regardless that there will be add ons that increase the price.
If TRUE price was advertised people will decide right there if they want buy or not.

What is wrong with transparency ? If all prices increase.... people will make their choice and perhaps not eat anymore. A person had a couple of restaurants decided to increase the prices and state NO TIPPING and guess what ???? Yep, he is gone.
Once held up as the model business of breaking the tipping cycle. He did a radio interview and clearly stated the rise in cost and the price transparency killed his business, people seemed to want to be playing the game and tip instead of being told the price up front.
That is why so many restaurants keep using loss leaders or special pricing with restrictions to lure people in then find out ad only applies from 3pm to 3:18pm on Tuesdays.

Tipping as it used to be was an item that was optional and for those who excelled at job, they often made out well.
I always tip well for good service an tip minimum for those who do nothing and only because I am often made to feel guilty into tipping for crappy service.

I also resent that BAD servers seem to push drinks or add ons to increase the bill because the tip is based on a % . Padding the bill is ALL they are focused on.
Getting order correct NOPE but to up sell. I do not drink alcohol but was recently offered not Once but 4 times ...........each time more pushy about "it is soooooo good are you sure?"
I finally snapped and said " YES, I am sure and if you ask again just save time and bring your manager"

[Smallsteps]

In our neighborhood, cars that are unlocked are targeted. We have a lot of neighbors that leave items worth stealing in plain view & don't lock their cars. It's an easy grab-n-go for a criminal.

Criminals of course are going to try to see if unlocked first. Path of least resistance but if they know something of value is in there it won't matter.

It is a false sense of security thinking it is about the car.
I remember working at a store and if i had to ask for ID so many men said "oh it is in my wallet in the car".... I never understood leaving important stuff in a car locked or not.
Some who only leave non essentials in car know replacing a smashed window may be more costly then the small stuff in the car.

At a local hiking trail a group sits in parking lot with a dog looking like other hikers and they watch who leaves stuff in the car they also stake out gyms etc.
Purses, wallets, laptops etc people get out of cars maybe lock "out of sight" in trunk but if they saw you do it..... you just showed them it might be worth it. once your hiking or in gym they can smash and go before you make it back to your car.
A smash and grab is NOT stopped by alarms. Heck, half of people never even look in parking lots anymore as so many are owners setting it off. it seems like more of an annoyance then a security device

[disneysteve]

I remember working at a store and if i had to ask for ID so many men said "oh it is in my wallet in the car".... I never understood leaving important stuff in a car locked or not.

I used to work in a very poor, drug-infested, crime-ridden area. One day the woman who owned the nail salon next door came in all upset. Someone had broken into her car. Turns out she was driving a brand new Escalade, so a 60-70K car, and her big old handbag was on the front seat. No wonder somebody broke in. You're taking your chances even bringing a car like that into that neighborhood and then leaving your big designer purse wide open in plain sight is just plain stupid.

Years ago when I was a resident one of the students came in all upset because someone broke into her car and stole her medical equipment. We all went out with her to see the car. She was driving a Jeep. "Breaking in" consisted of unsnapping the canvas cover and reaching in and grabbing stuff. There was no "breaking" involved. So not only did she leave a few hundred dollars worth of equipment out in the open, she did it in a car that can't even be locked.

People are stupid.

[disneysteve]

Businesses just want to put out the lowest price with an ( *) to look at fine print..... regardless that there will be add ons that increase the price.

So true. Hotels are a great example. $99/night turns into $150 or $175 by the time you add taxes, fees, resort fees, etc. Just tell me how much my stay is going to cost TOTAL.

[disneysteve]

I always tip well for good service an tip minimum for those who do nothing and only because I am often made to feel guilty into tipping for crappy service.

If service is bad enough that I question leaving a normal tip, I'm probably asking to speak to a manager. I have found that very often "bad service" isn't the server's fault so I don't punish them by giving a bad tip. It's usually due to an issue in the kitchen or the management assigning too many tables to one server or some other issue.

[TexasHusker]

I am way late to the party on this one but I can explain what is going on here, as I have several service franchises myself.

What is happening is this: The vast majority of people are now paying by CC or debit card. Nothing wrong with that. The problem is, tipped employees want to "cash out" their tips at the end of each shift. That is, they take from the business's cash drawer to reimburse themselves. Again, not a big deal, except as businesses are taking in less and less cash, they are now essentially operating as a bank each night for servers.

Example:

The starting drawer amount for each of my locations is $200 cash. The purpose of that drawer is to make change for customers paying in cash. Well, at one of my locations on Saturday, they took in less than $100 in actual cash, but at the end of the business day, all of the employees wanted cash out of the drawer for their tips, which was over $400. Since we only took in $100 that day in cash transactions, and we only have a $200 drawer to begin with, we didn't have adequate cash to pay out the employees. So a manager from another location had to bring cash over.

This doesn't seem like a big deal, but when this happens daily, and you own multiple locations, you end up operating your own Brinks truck, going from location to location.

We looked at increasing our drawers to $400, but that would be akin to airing up a leaky tire to 50 pounds - it still leaks. In other words, regardless of the starting drawer amount, you have to keep it replenished.

We DO NOT ask our customers to give cash. That isn't any of our business. But what are ARE going to have to start doing is holding all of the charge tips and issuing these with the employee's regular pay every two weeks. We don't want to do this, but we really don't have much choice - no one is paying in cash any more.

[disneysteve]

TH, thank you for weighing in. That totally makes sense and it's something that none of us who aren't in a related business would have thought of.

I can certainly see this being the case in the restaurant industry, especially higher end places. As I said, our tip the other night was $64 for the 4 of us. This was a fairly large restaurant so the total tips for the day could be well into thousands of dollars. There's no way they could or should keep that kind of cash on hand.

[moneybags]

We DO NOT ask our customers to give cash. That isn't any of our business. But what are ARE going to have to start doing is holding all of the charge tips and issuing these with the employee's regular pay every two weeks. We don't want to do this, but we really don't have much choice - no one is paying in cash any more.

I've been an accountant for several restaurants. Instead of paying charged tips out daily, many will put the credit card tips on the employees pay checks. Sure the person has to wait until payday to get a lot of their earnings, but so do the rest of us.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Yes I noticed that took bookkeeping. I think TH because it's a restaurant maybe the expectation is higher for cash payout daily. At restaurants it can easily be $100+ of tips in CC that it does usually come with paycheck. Of course paychecks also tend to happen sooner.

[rob62521]

We always tip in cash for a couple of reasons -- the server gets the money immediately. Most are living paycheck to paycheck. Second, most of the places we frequent I would hope wouldn't take their share, but one never knows.

As for the tax angle...well, I'm sure we make up for the folks who don't leave squat. It probably averages out. We have a friend we used to eat out with, and he was notorious for leaving small tips, even on fantastic service. He said he had to save money. He was the one who made big bucks with big benefits, but was cheap.

[PRICEPLUS]

I used to work as a bartender and cash in my view is still king. I don’t feel comfortable carrying a large amount of cash on my person so the meal goes on the card and the tip is always in cash. You’d be surprised how often people stiff wait staff and bartenders. I guess how the tip issue is handled is up to the business. What a waiter declares is between him/her and the government.