A young Aussie has called out hospitality venues asking for a tip even when the order is fairly basic. Historically, Aussies might have chucked a 10 per cent tip for a big lunch or dinner and called it a day.
But with the rise of cashless payment methods, some cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars and other venues have snuck tip requests in at every turn. Tony Green, CEO of the Australian Food Service Advocacy Body, told Yahoo Finance tips can go a long way in keeping your local open.
“The tipping often will go directly to the employees, rather than the business itself,” he said.
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“But it does help with retention and that is really important.
“If employees are getting a little bit extra on the side when they deliver great service, then hopefully they stay with that business longer. And that does help businesses, indirectly, when they’ve got great, reliable employees in their business.”
Huge revolt over being asked to tip
Queenslander Phoebe Parsons was recently in Sydney and was shocked by the number of places where she was asked to tip.
“When did tipping become a thing that you all of a sudden decided that you do everywhere?” she asked.
“Absolutely not. I’m not tipping you for doing the bare minimum that your job requires you to do in getting a takeaway coffee, like we’re not in the States, you are earning a good amount of money per hour. They’re on less than minimum wage.”
Aussies piled in and said it’s not just a Sydney thing as they’ve seen it everywhere in the last few years.
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“I can’t believe they carry my food or coffee a couple of metres and expect a tip and I work all year and get nothing but my wages which they earn as well,” said one person.
“In Melbourne a lot of restaurants/cafes have this with mobile ordering because it’s just the hosted platform. It’s not expected to say yes, it just can’t be disabled,” added another.
“Omg Cairns is the same. And they are also charging 10 per cent ‘surcharge’ on weekends! It’s crazy,” wrote a third.
‘Survival mode’: Dire landscape for hospitality venues across Australia
In a cost-of-living crisis, it’s understandable to be annoyed at being asked to chuck in an extra 10 per cent for a basic service at a cafe or restaurant.
But these venues are also deeply suffering and some need every last cent to keep their doors open.
Adam Thomson runs Dovetail on Overend in Brisbane and said the last year has been the most difficult out of the decade he’s been in business. He’s cut staff shifts and is working in the breakfast restaurant for 60 hours a week to lower his outgoings.
“So we’re actually having fewer people work here than we would like, and we’re having to do more work ourselves to make up the numbers physically doing a lot more work than we would ideally like to be.
“We pay ourselves less than the award wage to be here because, at the end of the day, it’s just been a matter of matter of survival. The last year has been just survival mode.”
CreditorWatch recently declared that the failure rate for the Australian hospitality industry is set to jump from 7.5 per cent to 9.1 per cent in the next year, with predictions that one in every 11 Aussies hospitality venues will go under.
The average failure forecast across all industries is 5.1 per cent.
“The combination of declining order values and increasing payment defaults is a major concern as it indicates more businesses are experiencing both cost and demand pressures,” CreditorWatch CEO Patrick Coghlan said in a statement.
“With another rate increase becoming increasingly likely, we expect both metrics to deteriorate even further.”
Thomson told Yahoo Finance that one in 11 forecast was “optimistic”.
“I think it’s going to be worse than that, because being here, experiencing it myself, it’s just really disheartening, because you’re working harder than ever, and you don’t make enough to pay the bills, and inevitably, small business owners just say, ‘I just can’t do it anymore’,” he said.
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