Tipping the South Beach Way

Today there was an oped in the NY Times about a restaurant ending tipping and replacing it with a service charge. For those of you that have never been to South Beach, this has been the practice for a number of years.

The story I hear about how it can to be was a a waiter at the now closed Thai Toni's added the service charge to a table of a Black couple. When the couple asked if this was standard practice the waiter replied "Well I added it because Black people don't tip." While it is known in the serving world that Black people can be at time less than giving when it comes to tipping, everyone knows it should be never articulated. Europeans and other foreign nationals are also known not to tip, but the article points out that in most cases that is because they assume a service charge has been included. Well lets just say that waiter's response set off a chain of events that ended with the Rev. Jesse Jackson riding down on his high horse and the NAACP declaring a boycott for Black tourists and conventions in Miami Beach. When the chamber of commerce convened to confront the issue they decided lets just add the service charge to everyone.

I have found that servers in South Beach are no different than the secretaries, not the most motivated bunch of people. And they have even less incentive to do there job if they know the tip is already included. I once went to a place where the service was so bad that we actually lined out the charge. Of course the waiter gave us a dirty look and it was still charged to our credit cards when we got home.

Sometimes people double tip because the restaurants are sneaky enough to include an 'additional tip' line about the total. A word to newcomers. If you live here add a little extra something it will always come back to you in the form of faster service and smile.

UPDATE: I knew that Waiter Rant would have something to say about the op-ed


Tipped Off [NYT via Downtown Lad]