CINCINNATI — When you buy pretty much anything nowadays — food, clothes, even toiletries — you'll likely come across a screen asking you if you want to tip.
The recent change in tip culture is causing confusion for many customers, leading one local coffee shop to change the way it addresses gratuity.
Red Tree Art Gallery and Coffee raised its prices to include an 18-20% tip and put a sign at its register saying, "Let's be honest: tipping is awkward. So we're throwing away our tip jars."
"There's not that awkward, 'And here if you don't mind just filling out this thing for us,'" Red Tree owner Kyle Sweetland said.
Customers won't have to deal with an iPad flip and an employee asking for a tip, which Pete Blackshaw said he appreciates.
"Tips are important. I think that good service should always be rewarded,” Blackshaw said.
However, Blackshaw said in recent years, it felt like tip culture had gotten out of control.
"A lot of consumers like myself are getting angry when it starts at 25-30% and if anything, it almost like destroys the relationship when you should be trying to build the relationship," he said.
Sweetland said they first made the move to go gratuity-free back in April in hopes it would eliminate confusion.
"People don't know what to tip,” Sweetland said. “And so there's a wide range. There's people that don't tip at all, and they expect that that person's getting a fair wage."
He said for many employees in the service industry, that's not the case. Most are getting a tipped wage.
"And the minimum wage for a tipped employee is ridiculously wrongly low, so we kind of wanted to take that into our hands and be able to give them a more livable wage," Sweetland said.
To address that, Red Tree raised its prices.
"I think (a cup of coffee) went from $3 to $3.50, for example,” he said. “And so, you don't feel that at all."
Customers we spoke with said they don't mind. They support the change.
"When you walk in here, you can just see it. Everyone's happy. They're not trying to hustle for a tip," Judy Zitnik said. “They're just here to provide really great customer service. So I think it really reflects their commitment to their employees."
And Sweetland said the new model is working.
"We think the industry does need to change, and I think the only way to do that is to get the word out there," said Sweetland.
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