Quote:
Originally Posted by Lathum
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That's something I've noticed. I hope I've always been a good tipper when it comes to dining in, definitely aware that hourly pay is low because tips make up for it and that it encourages people who are good at their job to remain in service.
I've never tipped on take-out, though. Perhaps if I could open the bag and examine everything? But then I'm holding everyone up and making my food colder. So I take it home. There's no practical way to evaluate or reward good service until then.
Otherwise, at the restaurant, I can only be annoyed. And that's if the food isn't ready or I have to wait a long time to pay, maybe? And this has nothing to do with servers or maybe even the people who prepared the food. It's all a function of the restaurant. Tipping take-out is effectively tipping management when they're the ones setting the price of the food in the first place.
I don't want to be cheap with servers, but I just don't like the default tip screens. It feels like shaming when I have to click four extra buttons to decline to tip. I have stopped getting take-out at restaurants that use it.
I also worry when ordering online, because if the people preparing my meal see that I'm not tipping in advance, do they give me poor service? Seems like a minefield there, so I choose to pay at the restaurant.
I guess the restaurants do this because it works, but all it has done in our case is make take-out night Asian take-out night, because Asian restaurants in our area have not adopted the format.