No Tip
 

I had to suffer through what was, to me, a pretty uncomfortable situation the other day. About a dozen of us, good friends all, went to lunch at a newish brew pub. Got served by one of the partners even. Good food, tasty in house brews, good atmosphere, nothing not to like.

Until the check arrived. One check. We asked if he could split it. He took our orders on one of those modern hand-held devices, after all. Nope. He refused.

As we all know, lots of folks don't carry cash these days (I still do). Effectively, that left one to three of us (he would allow us to split it three ways) to put it on our cards and work it out with the rest of us. So, one guy grabbed the check and paid it. That's when it got uncomfortable.

He simply said "no tip. You just blew at least a $100 tip. And, everyone of us will submit a one star review on Yelp". (yeah right - I won't). "No excuse - this is 2026, you have the means right there in your hand. To treat your customers in this day and age like this, to make us sort it out when you are standing right here with that handy little computer right there in your hand - NFW".

I felt very uncomfortable. I do think he was right, in that a tip is meant for exceptional service, and should not be a "given". But... Seemed a bit much. Could have just skipped the tip, which would have said the same thing, with no need to say it out loud in front of our whole table and the rest of the returaunt's patrons.

Whaddaya think?

I would have done the same thing.

I’m tired of tips that are expected even though service is not good.

No tip.

I’m so tired of point of sale registers, that ask for a tip, before the service is rendered. All you did was taking an order! No tip.

Did you ask for separate bills when you ordered?

So, if you don't have cash, you should have Venmo! I bet none of the geezers uses it. So they are stuck between not having cash but also not having a cashless means of giving each other money.

I refused the Venmo for a long time, as they are owned by PayPal, who are crooks, and not a bank. But with gen z friends, you give them a bill, they look at you like you are from another planet. They don't want to deal with it.

G

Something like that would make me very uncomfortable, just by association. Lots of negative energy. Big show in public over really nothing very important. It isn't good to fly off the handle over small stuff like this. It will get to you - affect your mental and even your physical health.

It has been a point of pride for me, having worked as a waiter for years, to never ask for separate checks. If I'm dining with people I am so petty toward as to want to prevent them from getting ahead of me by a few $$ I probably shouldn't be there in the first place.

So for me, wrong all the way around. your guy making a show of it, though, would have me apologizing to the waiter and handing him a cash tip if I had it on me. That is REALLY over the top behavior.

You NEVER tip the owner of an establishment.

Most servers aren't even paid minimum wage. So, tips are there to make up the difference. The owners should have already built in their profit margin on the food & drinks you are purchasing.

I'm with your friend. No tip, one star, and I'd never darken their door again.

Being a new establishment, the partner may not have had the ability or knowledge of the system to split the bill after the fact.
I think that in the future, the group should ask for separate bills when seated.

I’m with you Jeff, I don’t like confrontation for the sake of confrontation. If I get bad service I’ll leave a small/no tip and maybe leave a review, but I also wouldn’t make a big deal out of it.

I travel a lot for work, which means split checks when we go out as a group since we’re all on per diem. If the service is really good, sometimes I’ll pick it up as one check and expense it for our group. But I can’t ever recall getting an absolute no when we ask to split the check.

Sounds like an over reaction.

Obviously, I may not want to dine out in the company of this person again.

I've slipped a wait person some extra cash before - when I wasn't in control of the tip - and felt they were being shorted by the person in my party who was.

Like you Jeff - I always carry cash.

I don't know enough about the situation to comment further.

At least you had a good time with your friends and enjoyed a great meal, aside from the negative ending.

I'm on the minority side of this one. It would have been very easy for you to tell him beforehand that you wanted it billed separately. I wasn't there, so I don't know, but I assume he was busy. How long would it take to go around the table and ask 12 different people what they ordered and get it all sorted out properly, while other patrons sit and wait for their food? A long time.

Since Covid we have been pushed to become a cashless society. We have restaurants in our area that don't even accept it.

Venmo, Zelle and Square are becoming the norm. It's to the point that if you don't have a credit or debit card you have no reason to eat out. That said, a tip was in order and I'm sure your group could figure a way for the bill payer to be compensated.

What was he supposed to do, process 12 credit card transactions?

So you had a very nice afternoon, good food, good atmosphere. You never asked for separate checks. Then when they couldn't accommodate that (which makes sense, they entered it all at once, now you want him to go back line by line and break it all out individually), the decision was $0 tip for someone that had otherwise provided good service up until that point?

Most restaurants won't break out a bill more than a few ways anyway. If its a group that goes out together frequently, just take turns paying for lunch. Or realize this is how it works and tell everyone to bring cash. $0 tip is wild. Still should have left something.

I eat out with groups quite often with golf and snowmobiling.
We never ask for the bill to be split as they always ask if we want separate bills and the answer is always yes please.
Your server was being lazy and it was good that he was told so.

Very uncomfortable situation, we went through this just a few days ago, after asking for separate checks. The owner did not allow the waiter to do so, after we asked and after our previous day's meal was separate checks.

Business travel reimbursement requires receipts, therefore separate checks. With the point of sale machines capabilities, and the fact that most places include the credit card fees in the customer bill, there should be no problem with separate checks. Food service businesses know this.

Maybe a little training by management (which in this case was also your wait staff) would help.

Zero tip, maybe harsh, but maybe a 5 or 10 percent tip would help send a message.

This is a good question.

Generally in Aus we tip only when we receive good service.

- It's not expected by the staff but they always appreciate it when a customer leaves a tip.

Splitting the bill? - Most of us still carry cash. ;)

Well never fear because in DENVER food servers make $16.27 an hour plus tips and walk with a pretty solid $50-60 an hour.

I'm not saying that's good or bad but the ol thing about how food servers are poverty-level slave labor is just not true in some places.

What I do know is that burger fries and a beer is gonna run you $45 here.