Tipping in Australia: what are the rules for rewarding waiters?
Tourists are generous, young families less so. In a country where wages are robust and egalitarianism is prized, how comfortable are we with tipping?
Australia is a nation divided over tipping. In the US the rule is to add 15% to 20% to the bill. In the UK many restaurants add a 12.5% service charge – and if not, people normally tip about 10% unless the service was bad. Here in Australia the rules are there are no rules.
My sources in Australia’s upper-tier restaurants anecdotally report that more than half of customers tip. But what about in cafes or less high-end restaurants? Or for takeaway food? The most operators at the lower end of the spectrum can expect is pocket change or the bill rounded up a couple of dollars.
The introduction of PayWave last year, where any transaction under $100 can be paid at an electronic remove, has accounted for a drop in tips across the board.
“I’d say the industry has definitely been affected,” says a restaurant veteran, John Kanis from the Lucas Group (Chin Chin, Kong and Baby, all in Melbourne). “Our staff had a big hit when it was first introduced, then as people got used to it the situation stablilised. I’d say tips are running at between 5% and 10% lower than before.
“But I go to places all the time that don’t even prompt you for a tip. They haven’t gotten over that hump, and I have to ask how to leave a tip. They’d be taking a much bigger hit.”
So why tip? Is it the proper way to say thanks for a great time, polite acknowledgment of a difficult job, or simply because it’s a noble tradition?
Jess Ho, the branding expert on Channel Seven’s Restaurant Revolution and owner of the South Melbourne wine bar Smalls, sees tipping as a weekly bonus rather than the raison d’être of the job.
“I don’t do it for tips. I do it for hospitality,” she says. “But instead of a bonus a lot of people see it as a supplement to their wage. Either way you look at it, it encourages professionalism.”
And what of tipping etiquette? Example: do you tip for takeaway? Answer: only if the waiter performed a magnificent feat, such as bagging the food in an aerodynamically-designed aluminium foil swan.
Or: should you tip bad service? Answer: no. Definitely not. That would make a mockery of the whole system. Tipping is for good service, although inveterate tippers would argue it’s for “good enough” service. While in the US tipping in the order of 15% to 20% is standard, the rough rule of thumb in Australia is 10%, although 5% will probably do in a cafe.
Can you tip individual waiters? Well, yes, you can choose to slip your server $20 at the end of the night and he or she can choose to pocket it, but restaurant etiquette generally demands it goes into the communal tip pool.
Can you be sure it’s going to the waitstaff? Unfortunately you can’t, even though owners pocketing tips is illegal. It’s a game of trust, ruined in the breach by a minority. Do note, though, that the odds of your tip making it to the right people increase by leaving cash rather than a credit card gratuity.
Furthermore, if you ever find a gratuity is included on the bill, you can refuse to pay it. You really needn’t tip on top of it unless service was so good it would have made angels weep.
So who tips in Australia? Ho says students “tend to either tip massively or not at all”. Tourists: “Yes, definitely.” Young families: no. The affluent – or at least those spending big – tend to be hit and miss. “If they go out of their way to say it was a really great night you know they won’t tip. I think it’s a way of overcompensating.”
According to Kanis: “The bottom line is, you never can tell who’s going to tip and who isn’t.” He reckons it’s a good thing, too: “Restaurants are meant to be democratic places. If you could profile people it really wouldn’t be good for the industry.”
• Larissa Dubecki is a freelance food writer and restaurant critic. Prick with a Fork, a memoir of her decade as a waitress, is out through Allen & Unwin on 26 August
Source: The Guardian, Larissa Dubecki, 26th August 2015
Originally published as: Tipping in Australia: what are the rules for rewarding waiters?
