A Canadian restaurant is causing a stir by allegedly pushing customers to tip. They do this by covering the “no tip” option on their card machines.
A Reddit user named reddit_Lemur posted about it. The restaurant is Chicken Plus x Sulbing Cafe in Burnaby, B.C. The post was in the r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit, which has over seven million members.
The post, now removed, showed a card machine with a sticker over the “no tip” button. “This restaurant covered up the ‘No Tip’ option with a sticker to force tipping,” the user wrote.
Redditors quickly expressed their frustration. One suggested selecting number two on the keypad and entering zero for the tip. “I’d tip 0.01 just to make a point lol,” someone replied.
“I consider myself a generous tipper but I wouldn’t tip at all if this is how they’re going to play this game,” another said. “If I saw this, I’d take the sticker off and leave no tip,” one user added.
Now Toronto reached out to the restaurant but got no response. Meanwhile, some restaurants are removing tipping altogether. One Toronto restaurant is switching to profit sharing.
WoodHouse BBQ in North York stopped taking tips in February. Its staff still earn as much or more than before. Profit is shared among all employees based on their hours.
“So far, staff have gotten a little more than they would have with tips,” owner Hong Dai told CTV News. More Toronto restaurants are adopting no-tipping policies or registering as living wage employers.
Beast Pizza doesn’t accept tips and shares gratuities evenly among staff. Richmond Station includes service charges in food prices. Emma’s Country Kitchen is a living wage employer, paying staff the regional living wage.