Brazil has an interesting variation on tipping: Restaurants add a 10% service fee, but which is still optional. Therefore, servers don't have to engage in the "

Brazil has an interesting variation on tipping: Restaurants add a 10% service fee, but which is still optional. Therefore, servers don't have to engage in the "parasitic side-business" of generating tips since the service fee of 10% is almost guaranteed, but the customer still retains a mechanism to punish really bad service. Quoting from the article here: http://brazilsense.com/index.php?title=Tipping,_fraud,_and_shop_etiquette#Tipping http://brazilsense.com/index.php?title=Tipping,_fraud,_and_s... it says, "The service fee when added is still considered optional. However, Brazilians do always pay it — except when the service was poor. If the service was poor, all you have to say is Eu não vou pagar esse (I will not pay that) pointing at the service fee, and then pay just the base amount. I've seen Brazilians do exactly that when the service was bad and it didn't cause a scene."