At the airport restaurant, you have to order and pay online. And the check still lists a minimum 18% tip.
The idea of tips has been completely perverted. Tips have become completely disconnected not only from the quality of service but even from its existence. They should be renamed into a restaurant surcharge.
Clarissa's Blog 
I’ve never seen a mandatory tip unless for a group of 5 or more. They can suggest an 18% tip which I agree is a bit crazy when there hasn’t been any service, but you can usually opt out
Amanda
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The answer lies in how they’re taxed. The restaurant doesn’t have to pay taxes on tips. It does have to pay on surcharges. The tips also have to go to staff, not management. So it is a surcharge, but it’s going to staff only and the restaurant will not be taxed. Hopefully going to staff, anyway. Otherwise it’s really just a fancy name for fraud.
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“Hopefully going to staff, anyway. Otherwise it’s really just a fancy name for fraud”
If you can’t trust airport restaurants…. then what is left?
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What’s with the tipping culture in America? We don’t tip here in Europe, generally speaking, and, when we do, it’s not compulsory and there is no fixed percentage.
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” We don’t tip here in Europe”
Doesn’t it depend on the country? Poland doesn’t have a tipping culture (you round up the bill a bit if you feel like it but almost never more than 10 %) but Hungary absolutely does have a tipping culture (even in communist times).
I would have thought that Italy had a tipping culture….
In the US workers who routinely get tips are (used to be) exempt from minimum wage laws and receive(d) only token salaries and so most of their income is/was tips and most of them prefer it that way since they can safely not declare part of their income….
(imprecise with tense because I’m not sure the exact situation now).
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It is one of the few jobs left where you can legally get paid more than your coworkers for charm and good looks, without taking your clothes off. And that is not denigrating it at all– I know ladies who worked their way through college as waitresses, and it was a pretty good gig because they could do evenings and weekends and still have a full class schedule. Would not have been worth it for a regular paycheck– partly because of the ability to hide it from taxes, and partly because if you look nice, flirt a little, or have one of those totally adorable Dothan-area accents, you can make way above minimum wage.
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