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I love how one person opened a coffee shop which basically operates like every single coffee shop in the world apart from the US, and you guys need a detailed w
by 4gotunameagain 4y ago
I love how one person opened a coffee shop which basically operates like every single coffee shop in the world apart from the US, and you guys need a detailed write up, charts, flow charts, tips for the secret sauce :)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- alextheparrot 4y agoThe path to the contrarian is more interesting, who knew
- 4ndrewl 4y agoikr - someone also posting about how crypto could be the answer too - peak HN!
- qqtt 4y agoThe point is, that isn't how coffee shops typically operate in the United States, which is what makes it interesting. Operating a coffee shop without tips has special and unique considerations in the United States - chiefly, how to retain talent and employees when conventional wisdom would say it is better paying to get a job at a traditional tip-based coffee shop, which again, are plentiful in the United States. I would say managing employees is the #1 issue when running a small business like this, so the concern is especially relevant (and unique) to the United States market. It is kind of like how, if a company was trying to tackle health care in the United States, they might attempt to build a system which reconciles many different hospital systems across the country. In other countries, with Universal Single Payer healthcare, this might not be interesting, but in the context of the United States, a system like this could have huge implications. The market itself is inseparable from what makes a venture like this interesting. It is interesting precisely because of where it is located.
- quickthrower2 4y agoAre tips tax favourable? Because if not then replace $4 coffee and $1 tip with $5 coffee and just pay the staff more.
- tempestn 4y agoBut again, it's not that simple, because everyone coming into your coffee shop is going to be expecting to have to tip, so you need to properly manage those expectations. How the owner is planning to do that, and the results of those efforts, is interesting. Edit: and while per the other replies many people don't claim (all of) their cash tips, you are supposed to claim them as income.
- ovi256 4y agoThey are untaxed in practice, so yes, the most favourable.
- b112 4y agoCash tips were, for sure, but were also something you were supposed to report. But now, tips are given with cards, and a record is kept of how much, and where it goes, and it is recorded! So be wary, because you can be 100% sure they are taxable, and if you get audited...
- michaelt 4y agoVery much so, if you take them in cash and don't report them on your tax return.
- adastra22 4y agoWhich is tax evasion, unless your tips are less than $20 per month.
- christophilus 4y agoWay back when I was in college, none of my peers reported tips. Has that situation changed? It is tax evasion, but it was commonplace.
- larrysalibra 4y agoFormer American here...grew up in Ohio but haven't lived in the country for a while (2007). When did coffee shops in the US start asking for tips? It must be a relatively new thing. Never saw tips asked for at coffee shops when visiting until the ipad checkout thing (square?) appeared. Is it a nationwide thing now or just confined to certain regions (coastal metro areas?)?
- adastra22 4y agoYes it started with the upgrade to smart payment terminals, where you insert your card and interact with the screen. It's nationwide now. It got a lot worse during COVID, at which point it became normalized to pay the usual tips even for takeout.
- rubidium 4y agoI saw it in Minnesota, Oregon, and DC in 2000-2003… so quite some time. This is barista made drinks, not your Dunkin’ Donuts brewed coffee. It took the form of a tip jar. It was my main source of gas money when a barista.
- ryanbrunner 4y agoI'm from Ontario, Canada, which has a similar but maybe not exact tipping culture. Tipping at nicer coffee places (i.e. where they offer espresso-based drinks to order) has been a thing for a very, very long time. I can't recall ever not seeing a tip jar and have been going to places like that for probably 25 years, although if you told me the expectation was stronger nowadays that wouldn't surprise me. The low end places (Tim Horton's up here, I guess Dunkin Donuts would be the comparison), don't expect tips or put out jars / enable them on their terminals, but Tim Horton's has always had a charity jar at the counter anyway so I would think most people would prefer that one.
- Shocka1 4y agoI'm living in Ohio and visit two coffee shops on the regular with electronic iPad checkout. One has a tip in the checkout process while the other does not. In the tip included location I've seen people in front of me tip 20 to 30% on a regular basis for everything from drip coffee to the coffee milkshakes that everyone seems to be overindulging on these days. So people are willingly paying $8 to $10 of Ohio money for a coffee milkshake, or $5 for drip! The Pulp Fiction shake quote always comes to mind for me: Vincent: "I gotta know what a five dollar shake tastes like"
- karmelapple 4y agoCaffe Nero is a chain in the Boston area (and elsewhere) which has no tipping when using a credit card. Most locations have a tip jar for cash, bud no option to tip. It certainly helps me think that they’re getting paid a decent wage since they’re not prompting me to tip automatically. And the employees generally seem happy, and payment goes faster since there’s no stuttering and thinking over the tip step. The same simple credit card machines are used at Qdoba, but there they ask for a tip, even when coming in to get a bowl and doing takeout. Not unreasonable, but the difference in experience and expectation is pretty wild: coffee sometimes takes as long as it does to put a burrito bowl together, yet one expects a tip and one does not.
- beanjuice 4y agoCafe Nero is a European chain, centered in London [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caff%C3%A8_Nero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caff%C3%A8_Nero
- subpixel 4y agoThis is exactly how Dunkin, McDonalds, and Starbucks operates now that they all have apps. So, the vast majority of coffee places in the US. Order, pay, pickup, done. No tip expected (though nobody stops you).
- PaulHoule 4y agoI grew up in New England where Dunkin Donuts is almost a religion, right up there with the New England Patriots. I wasn't excited about Krispy Kreme at all because I grew up with good donuts. One of the first things I remember as a kid in the 1970s was reading the "no tipping" sign at Dunkin's and asking my parents about it. So it has been a policy there for a long, long time. (Funny they put a Dunkin's in on my side of town a few years ago, I don't know how many people know the supermarket across the street makes better donuts, which is truly unusual.) We had a Starbucks in Collegetown which went to only taking mobile orders during the pandemic which meant I pretty much quit drinking coffee there. Not long after Starbucks closed the location to bust the union that was forming there. In my mind that area is a "coffee desert", I mean you can get coffee but so far as I can tell the best coffee is at 7-11 and everything else is much worse.
- robomartin 4y ago> like every single coffee shop in the world apart from the US Well, context is important. Right? If someone opened a "tips required" coffee shop in Japan, it could be something to watch and learn from. I don't generally have a problem with tipping. Still, I would much rather people get paid well, with whatever that cost might be reflected in the price of what you are buying. If, on the other hand, tipping is on the ticket and it is used as an evaluation of the service being provided, the field should be blank by default. I have tipped way over 15% lots of times. Every time a device tries to force a higher percentage on me, I reduce it because the pattern annoys me. It is always interesting to travel to places like Japan, where tipping at a restaurant can be offensive.
- CaptainZapp 4y ago> If someone opened a "tips required" coffee shop in Japan, it could be something to watch and learn from. Not for a long time. It would likely fold within weeks.
- philliphaydon 4y agoIt made me think of the south park episode with the donation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsPHa8RG1pI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsPHa8RG1pI
- nicolas_t 4y agoIt could work if it's a novelty bar with only foreign staff that advertises itself as American and insist on replicating the US culture.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoHow many of those cafe owners are HNers willing to do a write up to give us insight into the experience though?
- tshaddox 4y agoI’d check out a detailed write up of any of those other coffee shops in the world too. The detailed write up is the thing that’s rare and interesting.
- tomcam 4y agoMaybe if you don’t understand curiosity, this isn’t the kind of place you’ll enjoy too much. 4chan, maybe? Pornhub?
- Freak_NL 4y ago> like every single coffee shop in the world apart from the US I very much appreciate being able to amble into a coffee shop, order a coffee from a human being (perhaps doing my best in a foreign language I'm not all that proficient in), and paying cash should I so desire. Like you can in most coffee shops around the world.
- mcv 4y agoOrder coffee in a coffee shop? That's not what ours are for. (Dutch here.)
- gooooooore 4y agoI mean... a blunt and coffee in the morning hits the spot
- jandrewrogers 4y agoContext matters. The dynamics of the business are fundamentally different because many employees prefer tips to the alternative, and they have have many options where to work. Employees have a lot of leverage due to a chronic labor shortage. This dynamic has played out time and again in Seattle, where business owners tried to switch to a "no tipping" model with a 20% mandatory service charge but ultimately had to relent because employees were not keen on earning less money.
- FrontierPsych 4y agoI don't like the proliferation of tipping everywhere. But I know many sit-down restaurants have tried to institute a no-tip policy, but both employees and customers hate it. I would hate it. I like giving tips. I wouldn't go to a restaurant where tipping was not allowed. Plus, the restaurant has to raise their prices up by 20% anyways, because they now have to pay their wait staff more. The customer pays anyways. So it's a stupid thing not to have tipping. You're not going to save any money at all as the customer. It's impossible to save money. Furthermore, I know waitstaff that make a considerable amount of money from tips. Like, $300-$400 per shift and more. That's about $80,000 to $105,000 per year. So the food prices are going to have to go up substantially to cover what that person made with tips. The reason that many wait staff make so much is that they have "regulars" who tip them well because they develop a relationship and a repore that goes beyond just simple waiting on a random customer. People say they want the price that's on the menu, but come on - you know there's going to be a tip, if the menu says it is $20, then it is $23, you can do this in your head or on your mobile phone. You know exactly what the price will be unless you failed 2nd grade math. Why on earth would anyone care if the price said $20 or $23 on the menu, if in either case you pay $23? It's ridiculous in the extreme. Unless someone is an extreme pedantic martinet.
- ztrww 4y ago> to go up substantially to cover what that person made with tips more realistically, unless they are capable of finding another job that will pay as much they’ll just end up earning less without tips.
- tsimionescu 4y agoThere are other tipping cultures outside the USA, you know? Tipping is very common in the Balkans and other countries that were influenced by Ottoman culture, for example. While it is not expected, many coffee shops all around Europe also have tipping jars. It's really not common in much of Europe at least for people to actually discourage tipping (though they may seek to refuse what they perceive as exorbitant tips).
- martopix 4y ago> While it is not expected, That's the key point.
- moonchrome 4y agoYou're not legally obliged to give it - but it's very much expected and you can see the awkwardness when you skip it. Like just the other month I was in this resort with my family and first night we checked in we went for diner - waiter was very polite, entertained my one year old and gave us tips about the area. We didn't have cash on us so we put it on the room and signed the receipt. Next day he was still professional but not as much effort - then I left a tip for both dinners and suddenly it's back to chat mode, how was your stay, parting drink on the house, please do come back, etc. In coffee shops you can see the looks you get when you wait for small change.
- gambiting 4y agoThe problem with US is that it's so culturaly ingrained that it's really not optional anymore, even if it technically is and no one will call the police on you for not doing it. As a personal anecdote - when I visited America on a business trip we went to a restaurant where the staff was literally rude to us, the food order was not what we ordered and massively late, and yet our hosts insisted on leaving a 10% tip because 1) low tip will show them they have done a poor job(?!?!?!?!?!) 2) we would look like jerks for not tipping(their explanation). So basically my takeaway is - if you have to tip even when your experience is poor, or you risk "looking like a jerk", then it's not really optional.
- ryzvonusef 4y agoBut it has iPads! ;p
- blitzar 4y agoCould be the next YC funded coffee shop reimagined.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- gggggg5 4y agoI think it would be extremely unusual for someone to chase me down over a tip I've left in Europe.
- Laaas 4y agoIt happens in other regions where tips never happen, e.g. Japan.
- jonathanstrange 4y agoSorry, I've lived my whole life in Europe in three different countries and have never been to a café where you can't pay in cash and don't tip. Tipping works differently, e.g. in my current country of residence you leave cash on the table, but unless your bill is very low (say, below 5 EUR) not tipping is still a bit rude. There used to be no tipping at all but with the increase in tourism that's no longer the norm.
- itwontbelik 4y ago> There used to be no tipping at all but with the increase in tourism that's no longer the norm. I take this as local employees stating their entitlement to nickel and dime tourists as much as possible. :(
- jonathanstrange 4y agoWhat? No, not at all! The tourists insist on tipping, not the employees.
- courgette 4y agoThanks for sanity. I do understand the specific of the US situation, I’ve leave there since the last decade. In a very touristy city to boot, so a large part of my social network rely on tips. But the lack of awareness from our US friends to understand that they are the exception, not the norm in that particular regard is a bit disconcerting.
- noduerme 4y agoTipping is an evolved system. If you go to most countries outside the US, you are not expected to leave a tip. But if you do leave a tip, here is what you get: . You are the first person served, every time you walk in, no matter how crowded the bar is. . You are poured the extra liquor that a bartender is allowed to "spill" . When you bring your date to the restaurant next time, you are treated very well. It is true that in America, these things are lost because everyone is expected to tip. But this is the true point of tipping a good waiter or bartender, to show your appreciation and also to be remembered.
- courgette 4y agoWhere did you travel ? I had the chance to move around a lot and my social alcoholism made my spend lot of time in seedy places where someone pour out booze. In all those places, paying more money is just bad taste. A way to get what you describe is ( in my personal experience ) - smile - be young and / or attractive - being visibly in distress - being polite and patient in the face of another rude customer - make some jokes, not in English but in the language people speak where you are - have a dog / a kid - show that you have some humors and are not an asshole. With all due respect, paying more and displaying extra wealth is a good way to be classified in the easy to dupe category. In some language due to post WW2 wealth, some folks say “an American” like “do you think I’m American or what ?”
- noduerme 4y agommmm... it depends on the country, and the style, so all of the things you say are true. Simply leaving a big tip means nothing. And being an asshole overrides everything - never a good idea. I am also a social alcoholic! Hi! But if you have established communication with your waiter / bartender / blackjack dealer, and you leave them some extra, it is much more appreciated outside the US. Especially if they see you more than a couple times. Whether you are young and attractive or not, although of course that helps. Does losing $5,000 alone on a blackjack table in Prague because you're depressed, and then smiling and tipping your dealer constitute visible distress? I can't say it's always a financially wise strategy.
- infinitedata 4y agoI think this is a great example of “Don’t you know who I am?”. dang being super chill by letting it be.
- ulfw 4y agoTipping in a coffee shop is just yet another way to obfuscate real pricing. Instead of asking $5 for a coffee they ask for $4. Then you have to pay tax, which for absolutely ZERO reason is not included in the price. You're at about $4.40. Then you tip and end up at anywhere between $5 and $5.50 in actual money you spent on your "$4" coffee.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y agoThat's how we roll in the states. It doesn't matter that every other country on earth has been doing it a certain way for over a hundred years without issue, because we don't do it that way it is clearly a dangerously unproven method.
- jaclaz 4y agoWell, put aside the tips aspect, a coffee shop that provides self-ordering iPads and doesn't accept cash is not so common.
- bryanrasmussen 4y agoit's almost like that coffee shop will need to compete against other coffee shops in the US that operate differently and might be seen as having an advantage, comply with US laws, and - as they discussed here - communicate to customers their salient differences - and that HN is the kind of place that might be interested in such things.
- bluedino 4y agoYou don't tip at Tim Horton's.