San Francisco Waiters Push for 25% Tips

Are you tipping enough when you go out to eat? The San Francisco restaurant industry apparently doesn’t think so. A column from Ed Arnow of the Contra Costa Times reports that “there’s a move on” among local restaurant workers to “make 25% the standard tip in San Francisco.” Arnow says that several “high-class restaurants” have signed on to the idea, though he doesn’t list which ones—or, for that matter, how the restaurants would impose this new standard.

Of course, they could just look to New York, where a small but growing number of nightspots are now slapping 20% gratuities onto the check, often without warning, the Wall Street Journal reports. Auto-tips are “kind of seeping through the industry,” one bar owner explains. “It started with restaurants for groups of six or more. And now it kind of goes on at all the big clubs.” He adds that his bar quickly scrapped the practice when customers complained. (More tips stories.)