How I Marched In The War On Tipping...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | Often, when out for breakfast, I like to stop by Starbucks and pick up my Pike Blend coffee before heading over to a breakfast joint. Local restaurants are mostly okay with you bringing your own cup of Joe. A "tall" cup costs $2.59 at Starbucks, plus sales tax, or about $2.81. Not bad when you know the going rate at our local restaurants is $2.98 for coffee, although you do get refills.

Taste is the trade-off for me. I happen to like my Pike.

Anyway, this is about tipping, so we'll get into it. Up until earlier this year, Starbucks here did not have the added "tip" screen to its credit card gadget. Pay now and it asks if you want to tip $1, $2, $3 or nothing at all. I go there often, so I do tip, but always no more than $1.

Most of the time, the young barista simply grabs a cup, turns around and walks two steps to the coffee pot to fill my drink, turns back around, takes the same two steps toward the counter and then hands me my coffee. I've been wondering if that minimal work warrants a monetary reward.

More and more, customers are of the same mind, especially as tips seem to be on the rise for most customer services. Hey, a dollar tip on a $2.59 cup of coffee sis about 30%! The going rate is supposed to be at least 20%, but Starbucks does not give you the option of giving 50 cents.

Restaurants are the worst these days. Not only do they charge for chips & salsa (about $3.50), when it wasn't that long ago that chips & salsa were free. At my favorite breakfast restaurant, everything went up $2 or $3 per plate after the pandemic. The reason given: Businesses needed to make up revenue they had lost during Covid-19 fears and restrictions.

The entire, gosh-darn tipping practice is a mess. By the way, there is tipping (propinas) in neighboring Mexico, but not in today's Japan.

Interestingly, the city government of Washington, D.C. recently passed an ordinance requiring restaurants to pay a minimum wage. Here, in Texas and McAllen, restaurants pay waiters and waitresses something like $2-an-hour and expect them to earn a living from tips. That shifts the burden to the customer.

I think it stinks.

During Covid, I would leave a larger tip (sometimes as much as $10), but not anymore. I've not felt the killing economic hit, but sometimes you have to make a stand. My sympathies do go out to the waiters and waitresses, but, hey, I'm not their employer. My current high tip is about $3 on a $10 plate of Huevos a la Mexicana, although I'll leave $5 if also paying for a friend's breakfast or lunch. I don't really know what others are paying, but I suspect that most are with me. Enough stories in the national press about tipping excesses lead me to say that. I mean, we all read and watch the news.

And who knows, maybe it'll backtrack sooner or later.

I hear it never will. Like grocery store prices, once costs go up, they never come back down.

Lord knows I do feel sorry for the waiter corps. It's really not their fault. Perhaps a collective bitching would help, but odds are that employers would simply dismiss you. That, too, is life and commerce in the Rio Grande Valley, isn't it?

I did notice a sparkling clean glass tip jar at the dry cleaners where I go.

No, I told myself. I'm not ready for that...

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[Editor's Note:...Reporting for this story included contributions by staff writers Rey Guy-Vasquez in McAllen and Juan Montoya in Matamoros, Mexico...]