In Peter Breen’s blog post “Reaching a Tipping Point,” he explores how the concept of tipping restaurant servers is a bad idea.  He refers to tipping as “another way to get money out of people,” which is an inaccurate interpretation of what the tipping process means to the food service industry.  Tipping is an essential part of eating in a restaurant to the servers, as many of them are living off the income they receive.

In my experience working as a delivery driver for Boston Pizza, tips provided a huge incentive for myself as well as my co-workers.  The belief behind giving better service to get a higher reward is the reason many employees choose serving as a job.  Large restaurant chains usually pay minimum wage to their workers, and the current minimum wage is below the cost of living in most countries.  Tipping gives the servers money to put food on the table; therefore it is not just “another way to get money out of people.”  These large corporations that own restaurant chains are never seeing the money tips provide for servers, the tip money is getting put into the local economy.  Furthermore, many restaurants also have a “tip pool” system that relies on the assumption every customer tips.  If a server has a table that doesn’t leave a tip, the server must pay out of their own pocket to the tip pool that is redistributed throughout the kitchen workers and hosts.  Restaurant workers are often not in the most financially stable position, and tipping makes their situation a little bit better.

Peter’s Blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/peterbreen/2015/10/04/reaching-a-tipping-point/