Michael Bauer: It’s time for tips to go
On a recent visit to Bar Agricole in San Francisco, I was taken aback that cocktails were $15 and that menu prices had risen significantly since my last meal there a few months earlier.
[...] I read the small type at the bottom of the menu: “All prices include service.”
Vogler also implemented this no-tip policy at Trou Normand, Bar Agricole’s sister restaurant that opened last year in the Pacific Telephone Building.
A new tipping paradigm is forming in the Bay Area, and I’m all for it.
Two decades ago, when Chez Panisse began to include a service charge on the bill, it was big news, and the public — and much of the industry — was up in arms.
At Comal, also in Berkeley, a 20 percent service charge is added automatically “in lieu of tips.”
Since California doesn’t offer a tip credit, where owners can pay servers less than minimum wage because there’s an expectation they will receive tips, the waiters are compensated even better than they were before.
At the new Progress, which I reviewed on Sunday (http://bit.ly/1vdGKSi), it’s $2.55 a person, the same charge owners Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski implemented more than a year ago at their first restaurant, State Bird Provisions.
Most places, at least in San Francisco, will probably follow this lead in the next year, making it even more confusing for the diner.
Do they tip on the total or remove the percentage from the overall tip?
An incompetent waiter isn’t going to get better by dangling the possibility of a tip in front of her, nor is a surly server going to change his attitude because he knows a tip is coming at the end of the meal.
Professional waiters are like good artists, writers and performers — they are driven by an appreciation of what they do.
Increasingly, it’s becoming apparent that it’s time for tips to make a graceful exit.