>Europe and the UK, where tipping is an optional gesture and not a form of the customer subsidising the restaurant's wage bill Unfortunately, a lot of unscrupu

>Europe and the UK, where tipping is an optional gesture and not a form of the customer subsidising the restaurant's wage bill Unfortunately, a lot of unscrupulous restaurant owners [in UK anyway] used it as exactly that. I worked in a restaurant kitchen, back when I was a student where the waiting staff's wages were risibly low and they were expected to supplement them with whatever they received as tips. It actually changed my opinion on tipping a bit. Before getting this 'behind the scenes' insight, I'd never bothered leaving tips as I thought 'what's so special about waiters & waitresses that they're expected to get extra gratuities for doing their jobs, when the rest of us don't?' I don't know if the situation has changed since then, as this was before the introduction of the minimum wage. But, back then, tipping was definitely used as a way of covering some of the wage bill.