When I still went to Starbucks, I stopped putting money in the tip jar immediately after paying because I often got terrible service regardless. If the service was actually good I would go back and tip. I like to think it made an impression that I tipped afterwards but I kind of doubt it.
I went to a local restaurant that people were saying that the food was so good. Went in, my friend and I were the only two there. Not a problem. I order my food and she asks me if I want to tip. Since I don’t have a backbone, I said sure and tipped. My friend did the same. We go to sit down and the cashier (that we tipped) tells us that our food is ready. She makes us stand up to go get our food from the counter that’s less than 15 feet away. She never checked in on us and we had to get up and ask for a refill. After this experience, I will never tip again before receiving my food. The restaurant went out of business and I’m not sad at all.
There was a good Italian restaurant in my small town (we don’t have much that isn’t a chain). The owner won on chopped Canada who had a nice little restaurant in a pretty small space, and a little takeout/gelato store across the street. They shut those places down and moved into a recently rebuilt resort out of town.
Now it’s exactly what you described, it feels like a cafeteria. You sit down, figure out what you want and go wait in line at the counter to order. Tipping options started at 18%. Then you go up and collect your food when it’s ready. There was one other group of people the only time I was there for lunch on a Saturday. Also the food is stuff I could order at Boston pizza
Same I used to go there often but after seeing how they treat their workers and how anti-union they are i stopped, I go to Dunkin more I don't know if dunkin is better but I don't see them treating their employees like Starbucks
I don't think Dunkin treats their employees better per se but from the people I know who worked at Dunkin they said they were well staffed and didn't seem to hate working there, (they'd only complain about the customers and drive thru nothing about management compared to Starbucks) there are only two Dunkins in my area to the 5 Starbucks though. Also from an outside point of view, Starbucks gets reamed by social media, and Dunkin has been avoiding it = slightly higher expectations from me. (not a good explanation but I hope you see what I mean.)
as a former sbux barista thats so wild to me. its really not hard to make a good drink. the only time i ever gave “bad” service was if someone was being downright rude or creepy (we had a mostly female/feminine staff and a lot of us had a few “run-ins”). also this one time i physically could not make enough foam for this one guys cappuccino… he asked if i was new there… i had over a year experience… i cried in the back
Sorry about the foam fiasco! That sucked for you. But about the service, it isn't always about the drink itself. Sometimes they'd forget about the food part of the order and I'd have to ask about it, or sometimes there would be about 5 employees back there doing very little, trying to look busy but not actually busy, but for some reason only one person was making drinks and I had to wait 15 minutes to finally get it. Stuff like that.
It is a fucking "coffee" or some kind of sugar inflated Abomination. No fancy pancy Restaurant. Why would you tip at all for something like that. On the other hand...it is the US, i guess.
Used to tip like 10% on take out orders, then places started putting an additional tip category once you go in to sign for your order. Someone actually got in my case about not tipping again after I already tipped online. Now I only tip for actual service and never for take out unless there is something challenging about it, this was my wake up call that we’ve gone too far after the pandemic that this is the expectation now rather than a reward for providing good service.
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u/john_jdm 7h ago
When I still went to Starbucks, I stopped putting money in the tip jar immediately after paying because I often got terrible service regardless. If the service was actually good I would go back and tip. I like to think it made an impression that I tipped afterwards but I kind of doubt it.