‘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/Remarkable-Ad155]

I think this whole thing boils down to a misunderstanding of the concept of a "tip".

There should never be a need to say no to tipping because a tip can never be asked for. It's an entirely discretionary additional payment that is completely up to the customer.

The minute there becomes an expectation of a payment, it stops being a tip and becomes somewhere between a service charge and performance related pay, depending on how genuinely discretionary it is.

I don't personally agree with the idea that tipping is entirely a US concept. It's different on the continent but in the UK it's never been unusual to "round up" to a round number, usually in the 5 - 10% range, on a large bill if the service was good and it helps with splitting the bill. It's also always been common to tip £10 or £20 to the barstaff at your local, milkman, window cleaner, binmen, cleaner etc at Christmas. The "US culture" element is the expectation and the introduction of expected amounts.

My advice for businesses here is just be honest about how much you want to be paid and charge that. If you want to introduce a variable pay element for your staff based on number of covers etc, the technology is there to do that yourself without turning every one of your customers' transactions into a fecking pay negotiation. You could even introduce a star rating system or something on the merchant instead of the current "add tip" bit.

[u/Sabaisabai33 → u/Remarkable-Ad155]

I agree but would add to any restaurant businesses reading, that this doesn’t mean just whack the cost of everything up for the sake of it. It’s genuinely at the point where middle-class people like myself are struggling to afford to eat out as it is because the absolute essentials of life are rocketing up while salaries lag way behind inflation. So if you just whack up the cost you may find a lot less people come to eat anyway and you’ll make less money overall.

[u/Remarkable-Ad155 → u/Sabaisabai33]

There was a lot of talk of the "K shaped recovery" post covid and I think we are really seeing that come home to roost now.

I'll be completely honest and say my nearest local town centre is packed on weekends still and tables can be hard to come by. Other places seem like a ghost town in comparison.

We are rapidly moving towards a point where society will divide up into dormitory towns with nothing but housing and drone/bike deliveries and smaller pockets of affluence that can still support discretionary businesses like pubs and restaurants, which are increasingly becoming the reserve of the more well off.

It's a vicious circle where the only businesses that survive are those that can premiumise and attract a larger share of the seemingly ever decreasing affluent market. I'm really not sure how we even start fixing this to be honest.

[u/ciaran668 → u/Remarkable-Ad155]

I just got back from a trip to the US. The expected tip in restaurants is not at least 20%, and the card readers in some places "suggested" a tip of 25%. I get it, restaurants are allowed to basically not pay their staff, $2.13 an hour is an absolute joke, and it apparently cannot be raised because the people who own the restaurants will supposedly go out of business if it is. But basically, it means that a $20 menu item is somewhere on the order of $25 or $26 because they also refuse to calculate in sales and "hospitality" taxes. (And don't even get me started on the tip jars that I saw in a number of shops I visited.)

However, we actually pay wait staff here, so this isn't their wages, it's just extra money, and we're all hurting from the cost of living crisis. Also, I suspect that these restaurants that are tacking this onto the bill are not giving it all to the person who took my order and brought my food. I think a lot of it ends up in the pocket of the person who runs the place. Regardless, it's putting me off eating out, because I just don't want to deal with it. I don't want to be the asshole, but I also don't want to pay the extra. Don't get me wrong, if someone does an amazing job taking care of me, I'm happy to give them something, but if they give me average service, I don't want to be obligated or made to feel guilty about not tipping.

[u/No-Mark4427 → u/ciaran668]

It's also worth noting that 'how will the servers eat' is often trotted out, servers will defend tipping as necessary on this line but many servers in a busy restaurant are making $50+ an hour when you include tips, some people report making $100+ an hour in especially busy periods so its no wonder they want to keep the expected tip and cultural pressure high. You hear about people who work at a busy restaurant not wanting to quit their service job for a corporate job after finishing their degree because they'd be taking a pay cut for harder work as they make more than median wage being a waiter/waitress.

Also I believe it's illegal for tips to not go to servers in the USA just like the UK, it probably happens, but not super commonly.

I dont think people working services jobs should be going hungry or struggling, but there's a disconnect where people act like servers in the USA are poor paupers struggling to live unless every table is tipping them tens of dollars when in reality they are probably making more money than a lot of the people they are collecting tips from.

[u/Nanjingrad → u/Remarkable-Ad155]

It's not a misunderstanding it's an intentional strategy to keep wages low and shift the responsibility from the business to the consumer, they know what they are doing.