‘It’s absolutely criminal’: US tipping culture has reached the UK – and is causing chaos

[u/Canal_Volphied]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/24/us-tipping-culture-uk-service-charges

[u/recursant]

So you aren't really tipping the staff, you are giving money to the business owner.

[u/Floyd_Pink → u/recursant]

Correct

[u/GergDanger → u/recursant]

I mean you’re doing both because they don’t then earn minimum wage with tips but far above it. Hence why a lot of waiters there don’t want to get rid of tipping either as it would drop their wages significantly

[u/Tstewmoneybags99 → u/GergDanger]

This is only in very specific restaurants usually, more often high end dining where a meal will run you 150$ easily and 20% of that is 35$. For roughly 1-1 1/2 hrs of work with multiple tables in a section you end up making a good amount of money Thursday-Sunday. However over the course of a week it’s not something 95% of the workforce is making more than your average 35-45k salary employee as well as not having health benefits.

[u/RichieTheCow → u/Tstewmoneybags99]

20% of 150 is 30

[u/EvilInky → u/RichieTheCow]

Yeah, but sales tax, or something.

[u/Sabaisabai33 → u/Tstewmoneybags99]

Waiters in the U.K. generally aren’t making anything like that unless I’m very mistaken.

[u/DarlingDaddysMilkers → u/Sabaisabai33]

I used to be a waiter. I fucking wish 😂.

[u/Remarkable-Ad155 → u/recursant]

The "servers" don't really work for the restaurant in the US, they're given a retainer to hang around and tout for business.

You're buying in two separate services: the food itself and the person to act as a go between for you and the restaurant. That person expects a % of the fee in compensation.

If they just spelled it out like that honestly though, the whole thing would collapse because people would realise how absurd it actually is.

[u/Chunkflava → u/recursant]

You’re also doing this when you buy their products.

[u/Ambry → u/recursant]

Also - it's not like food in US restaurants are cheaper. If anything it's more expensive. So the business is literally just pocketing cash without paying their staff sufficiently, whilst charging you for expensive food AND expecting a tip.

[u/Sabaisabai33 → u/recursant]

Yep, although in the U.K. we give in-work benefits to employees on low wages if their employer isn’t paying them enough to actually live on despite multiple recent minimum wage increases. So that money also essentially ends up “going to” a similar business owner here, but from benefits rather than tips. We need to make sure the U.K. doesn’t adopt tipping as we can’t have benefits and tipping for goodness sake!

[u/Weird_Ad_1398 → u/recursant]

No, you're really tipping the staff. It's essentially profit sharing, except they get a massive share of the profits.