Waiter, waiter, must I really tip you? Please tell me no

The main reason for the move is that it has historically been difficult for those in hospitality — including Romero — to get loans or mortgages when up to a third of their income is made up of gratuities. The initiative follows discussions about the abolition of tipping across the US, after increases to the minimum wage in some states, and a general feeling that working for tips is not the motivational force it is supposed to be.

Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality, which owns the Shake Shack chain among many others, has introduced “service included” bills and raised prices across his empire. Serial Seattle restaurateur Josh Henderson has introduced a 20 per cent service charge on each bill that goes straight to staff.

For the Kojawan boys this isn’t enough. “The service charge is a very grey area in terms of how it is distributed to staff,” says Van der Horst. “Why not give them [waiting staff] their full earnings in one lump sum?” says Romero. Van der Horst adds: “We’re not yelling from the rooftops that our method is better . . .”

Everyone has their own system. Many establishments that levy a service charge deduct a portion — sometimes as much as 80 per cent — to cover admin, breakages or other losses. Others leave it entirely to the whim of the customer. “We have no service charge included on our bills,” says Richard Bainbridge, the winner last year of BBC Two’s Great British Menu and the chef at Benedicts in Norwich. “Tips that are paid by card or in cash are put into a tronc [a central pool] and shared among the entire staff brigade in fair shares, including the kitchen porters, but excluding us, the owners. We do not take any share of the tips.”

All of which leaves the business of tipping as angst-ridden as ever for people like me. I’m a guilty tipper and an erratic, illogical one. In a recent week, when I ate out more often and more widely than usual, I paid the 12.5 per cent service charge included on the bills for lunches at an upmarket place in Soho and English’s of Brighton seafood restaurant. I checked with the waiting staff that the full amount went to them, which is not always the case and not always something I can be faffed to ask about.

I left a cash tip of about 15 per cent on a bill with no service charge at the Lamb at Angmering pub because my wife and I weren’t drinking and felt we’d therefore cheated the place of income. I left a 17 per cent cash tip on a similar but larger bill with no service charge for a superb three-course meal at Anthony Demetre’s new place, Osteria at the Barbican. This was because it was so much better than the previous restaurant and I believed a few extra quids’ largesse on my part might persuade Demetre to stay.

At the East Beach Cafe in Littlehampton, I left a derisory 37p tip on a £5 bill for beverages because it was all the change I had and the waitress only pressed a button on a coffee machine and dunked a teabag in water. I didn’t tip at all for the fish and chips I bought from a chip shop in East Preston or the halloumi wrap I bought in the buzzy bar of Southwark Playhouse in London, although the staff attended my needs as graciously as those at Claridge’s. Indeed, I ignored the tip jar on the Playhouse bar because I was annoyed that I’d ordered a bottle of water before noticing the jugs of tap water on the tables.

In every case, my motive for tipping was dictated by habit, whim or circumstance, never by a wish to reward good table service or augment poor wages. Indeed, the fancier the place the higher I seem to tip. Since I am English I have never ever withheld a tip, although I once pointedly tipped a waiter in New York less than 10 per cent (at a time when 20 per cent was the norm) after he wrenched a bottle of wine from my hand and reprimanded me for doing the job — pouring — that he was failing to do. He chased me down the street afterwards, demanding an explanation.

It’s not just me. Tipping remains a minefield through which we must all plot our own hazardous course, as a quick straw poll of my friends showed. “I always pay the service on the bill,” says Joseph Staton, a director at the research company GFK. “If it was rubbish I just never go back, rather than publish a rubbish online review like some saddo. Beyond that I always leave big tips: the more downmarket the venue, the larger the percentage as I kind of think they’re far more deserving.”

Rae Richardson, a former HR manager who now “lives a life of leisure”, says: “I don’t tip on top of service charges included in the bill. I think good service should be a given. If for some reason someone did something above and beyond the remit of the job, then I would bung them a fiver. When there was the exposé on restaurants not passing on all or part of service charges to staff, I did start to ask what the restaurant’s policy was and, for a while, I didn’t go to particularly bad offenders. But of course over time I’ve forgotten about that.” Richardson would like to see tips shared between kitchen and serving staff and says she ignores tip jars in self-service cafés and restaurants.

“I never approved of the service-included thing because I felt it deprived one of the opportunity to be generous,” says the Times restaurant critic Giles Coren. “But then I know from working in the industry as a kid that English people are mean, so we brought it on ourselves. I never tip on top or give it a second thought. Unless my kids make a right f***ing mess of the table, in which case I bung the waiter a tenner and say sorry.”

Basically, however you tip, you’re damned. Cash tips are problematic, whether a popular waiter or waitress is forced to split them at the end of a shift with less diligent colleagues or is allowed — divisively — to keep the whole amount. Adding a gratuity on to a bill with a credit card can be controversial. On National Waiters Day last year the union Unite organised a protest against Pizza Express’s policy of withholding 8 per cent of tips in such transactions.

“Big-name chains such as Pizza Express, Café Rouge, Ask and Zizzi introduced fair tips after they found themselves in the spotlight for skimming off a percentage of staff tips paid on a card as a so-called admin fee,” explains Dave Turnbull, the regional officer of the Unite union, which organised the protest (waiting staff are not unionised). “But with so many restaurants still under fire for pocketing tips, it’s clear more needs to be done.”

The business secretary, Sajiv Javid, launched an investigation into the issue that closed in November but has not so far issued a report. “We are calling on him to use this opportunity to implement clear and mandatory rules on tipping,” says Turnbull, “giving staff 100 per cent ownership rights over all tips and service charges with control over how they are shared out.”

Perhaps the final word should go to a waiter. James (not his real name) has worked at high-end restaurants and those catering to cheaper budgets and is employed by a well-known chain popular with tourists. He says that almost everywhere he has worked has levied a 12.5 per cent service charge that went into a tronc at the end of service.

“It’s not transparent how this is divvied up among staff, but it’s usually a sliding scale with senior managers getting the most,” he says. The total percentage going to staff was not known and there were always rumours that the service charge subsidised breakages, comps (free meals, free drinks or items struck off bills after complaints) and staff meals.

“About 90 per cent of the places I’ve worked in allow you to keep cash tips on top of the service charge,” James says. “But it’s good practice when you are senior to pass on some of your tip to juniors in your team.” British diners tend not to add anything to the service charge, he says, unless they have been offered something like a welcome glass of champagne on the house. Brits are more likely to add a cash tip if there has been a problem that has been resolved by the removal of items from a bill. They are also the most likely to ask if service is included, even when it clearly is, as if to make a show that they are paying it.

Visiting Americans, who are used to tipping bigger, tend to leave cash on top of the service charge, while those who have lived here a while tend to become mean, like native Brits. Some nationalities — Portugal, Spain, Italy — have no tipping culture, according to James, and Chinese diners “never leave a tip ever”. Latin American customers, apparently, are the most generous. And, by and large, he adds, waiting staff are more likely to receive a cash tip on top of the service charge in the less pricy places — punters are reluctant to shell out extra if the bill (and therefore the service charge) is high.

“Overall I’d like to see the service charge scrapped as it’s not a fair system either for staff or customers,” James concludes. “I’d prefer to see service left to the customer’s discretion.” And yes, he says, in the UK he and his wife always leave a cash tip if the service has been good, “and on holiday we always leave a cash tip of 10-15 per cent, unless it’s been rubbish, and even then we’ll usually round up. We don’t vary our tipping behaviour by type of restaurant or how rich or poor we’re feeling.”

So there you go. My erratic tipping policy is almost certainly unfair and divisive and I’ll waiter — sorry — wager that yours is too. So what should we do? One answer is to go to Kojawan when it opens. The other is to wait until a fair industrywide policy is instituted. Over to you, Mr Javid.