Small amounts of cash turn into larger and larger amounts. That’s why people work. I don’t think you’ll get the Amish to use any card, any time soon. I always hear this argument that cash is criminality. I doubt if the Amish are making meth, nor my carpenter is dealing fentanyl. If you live in a city, cards are great. I don’t see the need for cash disappearing here any time soon. People don’t always trust E money. I only use a card to gain air miles, otherwise I’d be all cash.
I don’t always tip in cash, but I like to.
Here’ my sub topic. If you tip at a register, say at Starbucks or Papa Murphy’s, do you throw the money in while the server’s back is turned, or do you wait so they can see that you tipped them?
Let me get this straight: You’ve decided to use a prominent example of tip-stealing - from 10+ years ago - as an argument against paying a restaurant bill with a credit card?
And you’ve made your disapproval of expensive meals pretty clear, but they exist, whether you like it or not. Should those diners be forced to carry large amounts of cash on the off-chance a restaurant owner will engage in criminal behavior toward servers?
Pay however the hell you want. Just know how your payment affects both small business owners and individual servers. If you haven’t heard of local, recent cases of servers having their tips garnered to pay the credit card service fee then you’re either living in Eden or under a rock.
Of course I do. Would you perhaps prefer that no one patronize restaurants at all? Owners or servers won’t be harmed by our horrible credit cards then. Do you actually think that cash is the only “virtuous” method of payment?
The alternate plan of action is to take cash, whether for the meal or just for the tip. If you choose another form of payment, that’s up to you. Just be aware that a business, including employees, have to pay a fee for you to use a credit card. It is really that simple. #igiveup
I see you haven’t been reading especially carefully. And I started this conversation by saying I didn’t mind paying the business a little extra to offset the credit card fees. So neither of these actions is good enough for you?
The restaurants that are cash only often aren’t paying taxes, and paying staff under the table. No payments into working comp, employment insurance, etc.
Some restaurants that are cash only are more likely to have issues with food inspectors. Maybe because they aren’t following tax regs or health codes, maybe because they have a narrower margin.
When one tips in cash, the server might not put the tip into the pool. In many restaurants, tips are pooled, and a busser, dishwasher, hostess, might get 1 or 2 percent of each server’s tips. With cash, who knows what ends up in the pool?
I remember some waiters at a small local restaurant asking us to tip in cash because they claimed the owner was taking their tips. I don’t know if it was true. Also could be that the waiters didn’t want to tip out to the dishwasher.
Tax authorities in Canada (can’t speak for the US) know servers and bartenders get cash tips and don’t declare all of it, so the minimum wage for servers and bartenders is a couple dollars less than minimum wage for other jobs.
I tip with cash when I can. I also like collecting points on my credit card. My points pay for my holidays.
I’m also a little more careful about which cash-only businesses I support.
I follow a restaurant inspector on Twitter for tips on which restaurants have been caught with violations lately. The health violation info also gets posted on a City of TO website.
Of course, some cash only restaurant also pay protection money to the Mob or other gangs, which can protect them from some theft.
My friend’s family ran a banquet hall, with mostly Italian clientele in a mostly Italian part of the Greater Toronto Area. Sometimes wedding banquets were paid for in cash, so they had (prob still have) a safe for these payments. They had a few break-ins, one I remember where the entire safe was stolen.
Good luck proving how much cash had been in a safe after a payment was was received for a big Italian wedding with 400 guests. I remember some big Greek and Italian weddings in Toronto costing around $120, 000 10 years ago.
I used to work high end events in Manhattan (video crew, not catering). The staff (not the video crew, mind you, but everyone else) were all tipped out in cash by the hosts, which meant there were envelopes of $10K or so just floating around. Crazy.
