KATHRYN KNIGHT: It's infuriating: Why ARE we all suddenly being asked to tip staff who pull us a pint or serve takeaway coffee?
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Last December, former GQ magazine editor Dylan Jones enjoyed a convivial lunch with a friend at the fashionable London restaurant, the Chiltern Firehouse. Convivial – that is – until the waitress arrived with the card machine. At this point, he discovered that – on top of the standard service charge of up to 12.5 per cent – there was a suggested ‘additional’ tip of 15 per cent.
![[The decline of cash means serving staff can now miss out on extra tips]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/16/01/93173249-14195303-The_decline_of_cash_means_serving_staff_can_now_miss_out_on_extr-a-204_1734312825363.jpg)
When he queried this, the response was derisive. While the service charge on the bill was shared by all the staff, the waitress explained, his additional payment would be ‘just for me’. Jones recalls: ‘The subtext was loud and clear: if you don’t leave me with an additional tip, then you are a mean, cruel, snivelling excuse for a human being, and the person you’re taking for lunch now thinks so, too.’.
He is not the only Briton to be taken aback by this new and unwelcome phenomenon that has become increasingly widespread on these shores in recent years. . I refer to an American-style ‘tipping’ culture, in which venues from B&Bs to hair salons are asking customers to stump up a gratuity as high as 20 per cent on top of their bill.
Two areas of this new trend are proving particularly contentious. The first is that customers are being asked to pay a double tip – initially for the standard service and then an additional gratuity for the individual actually serving you. The second infuriating development is that some pubs and cafes are demanding tips for serving drinks and coffees.
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