In a London pub, Greg Double was brutally confronted with the reality of Britain’s evolving tipping culture. In the past, you might have told the bar staff to keep the change or have a “drink” on you, but since when did we routinely tip in pubs? Or, worst of all, at self-service machines?
Tipping was awkward enough in the UK when the general rule was 10% at a restaurant, plus anxiety about whether you should tip the hairdresser, babysitter or food-delivery driver. Now, with tipping suggested ever more frequently, US-style, it has become a minefield to Britons. The amounts edge higher – in fancier London restaurants, a 15% service charge is relatively commonplace.
And it’s often asked for – in coffee shops for example, when you pay – before any service is delivered. Tipping may be a social behaviour, but politics and economics also inform it. Since October 2024, all service charges and tips in Great Britain must go to staff, which boosts low salaries.
Hospitality businesses, struggling with the rises in minimum wage and national insurance, are surely happy that it’s tipping customers who are supplementing wages, rather than themselves. As the news site London Centric pointed out recently in an article headlined “How American tipping culture came to London”, adding an “optional” service charge avoids tax, puts more money in the pockets of staff and means businesses don’t have to raise prices, which puts off customers. But how “optional” is a service charge when the person serving us is looking expectantly as they hand over the card machine?
Now, the variables around tipping seem endless and changeable, with each of us having to create our own rules. Double, a creative director for a PR company, says that in a coffee shop without table service, he wouldn’t tip – but he might if he were sitting there, working, “to take into account that I’m going to make this coffee last”. He wouldn’t tip if he’d walked up to a bar and bought a drink for himself, but he might acquiesce if he bought a round.
Since drinking Guinness became fashionable, it almost calls out for a tip. Sometimes a bar worker will press zero on the tip screen before handing you the payment machine, “if they don’t think they’re worthy. There’s even that Britishness of the bar staff.” But what if they don’t?
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