Steve Cuozzo dips his toe into the automatic tipping controversy today and calls for eaters to stop whining to blogs about being charged automatic gratuities and that a 20 percent tip is always appropriate in every New York restaurant at all times. Why? Because, as the Cuozz puts it, "everything is more expensive here. Deal with it." Good one! Cuozzo also boldly calls for New York to adopt a European model of mandatory 20 percent service charges for every meal, arguing that it "democratizes the restaurant experience for both customers and staff" and would "establish a relationship between customers and waiters based on respect." A couple of holes; a waiter would still be incentivized to upsell the customer since the 20 percent is based off the amount spent, and auto gratuity could easily lead to worse service if the staff knows its getting 20% under any circumstance.
As for the most recent cases, Cienfuegos has defended their decision to auto charge, telling Eater that they do this to protect servers from being stiffed, while Eataly's reps asked Eater to inform our tipster that the server's decision to count infants as diners was made in error and that they have reminded the staff to use their best judgement going forward.
· Cork That Whine & Pay for Service [NYP]
· Burning Questions: Have Auto Gratuities Gone Too Far? [~ENY~]
· Tipped Off [~ENY~]
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