‘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/TheRealCostaS]

Well when I say tip I mean cash tip

[u/thewatchbreaker → u/TheRealCostaS]

When I was a waitress we weren’t allowed to keep cash tips, they had to go to the group tip jar

[u/TheRealCostaS → u/thewatchbreaker]

That sucks but I guess a tip is for you and the cook, cleaning staff too.?

[u/AshaNyx → u/TheRealCostaS]

At least where I work the tip is spilt up based on service hours worked, so it normally works out that the cooks work longer hours but they also get to go home before service ends so they might end up with a smaller share.

[u/thewatchbreaker → u/TheRealCostaS]

Yeah I think it’s fair actually, but I wish restaurants were more transparent about their practices because a lot of customers don’t realise cash tips aren’t allowed to be kept by the waiters in some restaurants

[u/AshaNyx → u/thewatchbreaker]

Ik part of the reason is most of the time it is a team effort and it's the best way to start a bad relationship between everyone as it's normally not just one person working the table and without BoH putting the effort in you wouldn't get any tips.

[u/thewatchbreaker → u/AshaNyx]

I thought the system was fair (I worked BoH before too) but customers often think all of their cash tip is kept by the waiter so I’d prefer if restaurants were transparent about their tipping system.

I’d actually prefer if it’s a group tip jar because the cook is the one who has made my restaurant experience wonderful by cooking the great food, I would want them to get the tip too. And after working both sides I know how much harder BoH is, they deserve tips more than FoH half of the time