Man taken aback after restaurant 'suggests' he pay 72 percent tips

In the U.S., it’s customary for diners to leave a tip in appreciation of service. But lately, many customers have noticed an increase in suggested tip amounts that go far beyond the standard 20 percent. Reddit user u/Wonderful_Wade was shocked when, after dining solo at a Chili’s in Virginia, he was prompted to leave a 72.6 percent tip—turning his $19 bill into a $32 charge. Sharing a photo of the screen on Reddit, he wrote, "I appreciate the work servers do, but this is a bit much for a table of one." 

The 25-year-old customer later told Newsweek that initially, he thought it was a "weird glitch." "I'm currently waiting for the restaurant to find the receipt so they can send it to me, and I can figure out what exactly happened on my bill or if it was just a glitch at the kiosk," the customer told the outlet. "Assuming all is good, I would usually tip 25 percent. But it depends on how much the meal was, and how good the service is. Only if the service was outstanding and I felt like it deserved that high percentage of a tip would I pay this much, but that's unlikely," he further shared. Since the Reddit post was shared in October, it went viral with over 28k upvotes and almost 1000 comments.

The comment section quickly filled with opinions on U.S. tipping culture. "Tipping culture is toxic and companies should just pay staff a livable wage," wrote u/facts_guy2020. u/HipnotiK1 added, "I've seen ones where they do a percentage of post-tax instead of pre-tax, but that's crazy. Also, I've seen in Uber Eats, etc., it will do the tip excluding promos. Most promos get the price to be reasonable, to begin with since everything is jacked up. Like a store offering buy 1 get 1 free wings, but then the tip is calculated as if that wasn't the case? Come on now," u/Immudzen shared, "You have to understand this is not a math error. This is on purpose. These companies are trying to take as much as they can and hope you just don't notice."

In another tipping disaster, Matt Epstein–who goes by @matt_epstein on TikTok–shared why the tipping culture is getting out of hand and how the companies who set up the iPads, which prompt the numbers, are also making money. "Ten years ago, when you were getting your morning coffee, you weren't berated at the end with the flip of a screen with the question we all know and hate. 'Would you like to leave a tip?'" he said at the beginning of the video.

He talked about how every business nowadays asks for tips even if there's no service involved. "So this machine that essentially makes you feel bad if you don't leave a tip is built and produced by this company called Toast," Epstein said. He then goes on to explain how the company who are setting up the iPads that prompt the tips are making a lot of money doing so. "Toast's business model charges three percent of every single transaction that goes through one of the machines," he said.