Tipped Off

The NY Times today has a column by a food writer, Steven Shaw, about tipping. Thomas Keller has announced that he is abolishing tipping at his Per Se restaurant in NYC, replacing it with a European-style service charge.

Shaw discusses the several topics that from time to time are discussed here but with the odd and unusual addition of facts.

1. "Customers believe in tipping because they think it makes economic sense." However, dozens of studies by Cornell's School of Hotel Administration have concluded that there is at best a weak correlation between perceived quality of service and the amount tipped. Customers actually tip based on whether they "like" the server, something that is distinguishable from service.

2. Tipping is an invitation to "upselling," since overall tips increase as the bill does.

3. Tip pooling is becoming more and more common, which guts whatever effect tip anticipation might have had on your waiter.

4. "Indeed, there appears to be little connection between tipping and good service."

5. Keller apparently wants to break the cycle where servers view their jobs as transient and are willing to sacrifice longer term salary and benefits for the quicker reward of tips and owners prefer to avoid paying real wages to real employees. The idea is that longer term, loyal waiters will actually perform better and make customers happier.

The full column is at NYTimes dot com, op-ed page, called "Tipped Off".