But I can attest that if I’m forced to tip, I’ll not return to that establishment.
Just add 15% to the price. If you pay with credit card, you just write it on the field on the receipt. No words need to be said.
Also, tipping is a monument to human stupidity. Apparently, people would rather pay €10 + 20% tip than €12 with no tip, because the former feels cheaper, even though it's a stupid way to organize pricing.
The only situation where there is an unwritten expectation for a tip is at a sit-down restaurant with waitstaff and for food/grocery delivery. These are luxuries 99% of the time.
In all other cases that I know of, they will ask you outright if you want to tip. For example, when I get a haircut or a massage, they ask me explicitly if I want to tip, and, because it was a personalized, intimate, luxury service, I oblige. For simple walk-up services like coffee or take out, I wouldn't tip.
The only other times I tip are for exceptional service (e.g. in a fastfood drive through) or if it's a local business that I'm fond of.
It's standard to tip 15% for decent service in a restaurant(sans win). You are of course free to tip more for good service or less for crappy service, but unless your experience is truly exceptional (in either a good or bad way) you can never go wrong with 15%. This is standard any US restaurant where you sit down and are served by a waiter or waitress. You are never "forced to tip", but you will be universally looked down upon in any sit-down establishment that you fail to tip in, so you might be best off not returning.
This is not true, and hasn't been for some time [1]
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Average-reported-tip-rat...
The 15% standard supplanted the previous 10% standard somewhere in the 1970s and lasted to the early/mid-aughts depending on where in the US one lived. I don't agree that ~30 years is "many decades-long". Further, that 15% itself was an uptick from the prior standard demonstrates that we're dealing with a moving target, for better or worse.
On the other hand, I find delivery services quite reasonable. They tell me the total price (including the expected tip) before I order. You rarely see that kind of honesty in an actual restaurant. And I don't have to see the person I tip, which makes the experience much less awkward.
The mental block can be helped a little by adding 1/3rd to all the menu prices as you read them.
To be clear, I am promoting eliminating tips, and paying everybody in the lower 90% of wage earners more for their work. I have no interest in shortchanging waiters.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but the bigger tax that's avoided here is corporate taxes, I think. The tip goes directly to the employee, and it's thus not taxed as corporate income, is my understanding.
EDIT: Ah, I missed that corporate taxes were on net earnings rather than gross, so this wouldn't make any difference. Thank you!
This isnt true in Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, or Washington.
And in the states where it is true, the employee is still required to be paid at least the full minimum wage inclusive of tips.