Tip talk
When it's time to settle the bill, tipping is wrapped in more than service approval alone. Tip etiquette eludes consensus, revealing more about a culture than any tourist trap would ever hope. For some cultures it’s obligatory and others an insult. Praised for supporting 4.3 million Americans, tipped jobs fuel our country’s debt prone students. The culture surrounding the practice is understood to be as synonymous with America as burgers and fries. Could Colorado’s love affair with locavorism push tipping boundaries?
Chef Jonny Meyer’s reputation for fearless innovation gained notoriety when he banned smoking at his Manhattan eateries a decade before it became the industry norm. In 2014 headlines donned his name once again, but this time for challenging America’s sacred tip tradition. He removed the tip by including it in the bill as Hospitality Included, dissuading patrons from tipping unless they find it absolutely necessary and in that case would be forced to do so in cash as the receipt has no place to write it. Other restaurants have slowly followed suite, but the trend stays isolated to upscale and farm-to-table style eateries. It is meant to improve both the employees and customer’s experiences. Japan is touted as having some of the best customer service on the planet and tipping to them is considered an insult. Scandinavia has a long tradition of salaried servers.
Skeptics commonly argue that tipping is an American tradition, but a quick glance through culinary history proves this to be utterly false. Tipping for meals came to our shores just after the Civil War and was adopted from, like many of our traditions, the British. Initially Americans were staunchly opposed to the idea because it was seen as a glorification of the class system, an aristocratic discomfort that was attributed to our breaking from the mother country. Sentiments have drastically changed. According to the New York Post (2014) more than half of those surveyed were against losing the power to control gratuity. Supporters of the tipping ban aren’t all greedy patrons as one might expect. The myriad of supporting arguments shows rifts in America’s conscious, perhaps even rivaling the chaos of our electoral process. Whether its Denver, San Francisco, or NYC, no matter the city, patrons and restaurateurs are split. Time will tell us if the trend sticks but perhaps more importantly the debate exposes a national rhetoric that is present on and off of America’s dining tables. We lead the industrialized world in preventable deaths, which is closely tied to our love affair with obesity. Yes, I say love affair because our obsessions with getting fat and trying to sell ideas as to how to lose it, is one of the biggest booms since housing sales of the 1950’s. The ostensible need to rethink our food has inspired a renaissance of farmer’s markets, diets, and farm-to-table restaurants. For far too long the world’s wealthiest country valued price and convenience over what is most important, quality.
