By Jane Han
DALLAS ― Planning a trip to the U.S. this summer? Not a fan of tipping?
You might get lucky and stumble across one of a growing number of restaurants here in America where tipping is going off the menu.
This means that after a $50 (60,000 won) dinner at a restaurant, the obligatory 15 to 20 percent extra ― in this case, anywhere between $7.50 to $10 (9,000 to 12,000 won) ― won't be expected.
It may not sound like a big deal for some. But it is, especially if you're not all too comfortable with America's generous tipping tradition.
"I've lived in the U.S. for two years so far, but one thing I'm still trying to get used to is tipping,'' says Eun-kyung Lee, 32, who lives in Dallas. "In Korea, you get five-star service even without a tip, so here in the U.S., I'm wondering why I have to pay extra to get service at the table."
Likewise, first-time travelers to the U.S. often get baffled by its gratuity system.
"I was aware that tipping is customary in America, but I didn't know the percentage was that high,'' wrote one blogger who recently returned to Korea after a month-long backpacking trip in the U.S. "I ended up paying only about 10 percent through the first half of the trip until someone was kind enough to tell me I was being stingy."
Even to those who aren't stingy, tacking on those few extra dollars to the bill may not always be so appetizing.
But don't take it wrong: restaurants aren't eliminating tips for the sake of their diners.
The whole no-tip movement began when influential restaurateur Danny Meyer, who owns and runs a high-profile New York City restaurant empire, announced last year that he was banning gratuities in all 13 of his restaurants to help establish a more equitable wage structure for workers.
Under the conventional gratuity system, not everyone gets a fair share, he says.
Waiters at an average full-service New York City restaurant typically make roughly $40,000 annually with the help of tips, according to industry data. Some working at expensive restaurants, though, can make as much as $100,000 annually thanks to the higher tips that come with the higher menu prices.
But cooks working in the kitchen, who typically don't take part in the tip pool, usually make less than $40,000.
Meyer's theory is that eliminating tips and raising overall prices on the menu would help everyone at the restaurant get more equitable compensation.
The move quickly made headlines. Dozens of other well-known restaurants, including New York City's Per Se and San Francisco's The French Laundry, soon followed.
Even a large national chain, Joe's Crab Shack, jumped on the bandwagon to test no tipping, but less than a year after experimenting with it, it announced last week that it will return to tipping.
The company said its own research showed that more than 60 percent of its diners disliked the no-tipping policy as they believed it took away the incentive for good service. Some even said they don't trust that management would pass along the extra money from higher prices to its workers.
A separate survey of 3,000 people conducted by Horizon Media found that more than 80 percent preferred to pay tips over built-in surcharges.
Industry experts say that many restaurants are still in the experimental stage of no tipping so it will take at least another year for them to evaluate their experiences.
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You might get lucky and stumble across one of a growing number of restaurants here in America where tipping is going off the menu.
This means that after a $50 (60,000 won) dinner at a restaurant, the obligatory 15 to 20 percent extra ― in this case, anywhere between $7.50 to $10 (9,000 to 12,000 won) ― won't be expected.
It may not sound like a big deal for some. But it is, especially if you're not all too comfortable with America's generous tipping tradition.
"I've lived in the U.S. for two years so far, but one thing I'm still trying to get used to is tipping,'' says Eun-kyung Lee, 32, who lives in Dallas. "In Korea, you get five-star service even without a tip, so here in the U.S., I'm wondering why I have to pay extra to get service at the table."
Likewise, first-time travelers to the U.S. often get baffled by its gratuity system.
"I was aware that tipping is customary in America, but I didn't know the percentage was that high,'' wrote one blogger who recently returned to Korea after a month-long backpacking trip in the U.S. "I ended up paying only about 10 percent through the first half of the trip until someone was kind enough to tell me I was being stingy."
Even to those who aren't stingy, tacking on those few extra dollars to the bill may not always be so appetizing.
But don't take it wrong: restaurants aren't eliminating tips for the sake of their diners.
The whole no-tip movement began when influential restaurateur Danny Meyer, who owns and runs a high-profile New York City restaurant empire, announced last year that he was banning gratuities in all 13 of his restaurants to help establish a more equitable wage structure for workers.
Under the conventional gratuity system, not everyone gets a fair share, he says.
Waiters at an average full-service New York City restaurant typically make roughly $40,000 annually with the help of tips, according to industry data. Some working at expensive restaurants, though, can make as much as $100,000 annually thanks to the higher tips that come with the higher menu prices.
But cooks working in the kitchen, who typically don't take part in the tip pool, usually make less than $40,000.
Meyer's theory is that eliminating tips and raising overall prices on the menu would help everyone at the restaurant get more equitable compensation.
The move quickly made headlines. Dozens of other well-known restaurants, including New York City's Per Se and San Francisco's The French Laundry, soon followed.
Even a large national chain, Joe's Crab Shack, jumped on the bandwagon to test no tipping, but less than a year after experimenting with it, it announced last week that it will return to tipping.
The company said its own research showed that more than 60 percent of its diners disliked the no-tipping policy as they believed it took away the incentive for good service. Some even said they don't trust that management would pass along the extra money from higher prices to its workers.
A separate survey of 3,000 people conducted by Horizon Media found that more than 80 percent preferred to pay tips over built-in surcharges.
Industry experts say that many restaurants are still in the experimental stage of no tipping so it will take at least another year for them to evaluate their experiences.
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