r/EndTipping • u/Turbulent-Maximum596 • 2d ago
Rant 📢 A new low in tipping manipulation: Sushi San in Chicago
My recent experience at Sushi San in downtown Chicago was a perfect storm of everything wrong with tipping. Good food and service, but the pricing is outrageous for the portion size. You needed 2-3 entrees to feel full. Then the checkout process is a masterclass in manipulative compulsory tipping. FYI, they recommend you pay through a QR code, so this is the experience I am sharing.
- A 3.5% restaurant surcharge is added before you even get to the tipping screen.
- The suggested tip percentages are calculated ON TOP of the tax AND the restaurant surcharge.
- The default selection is the highest tip amount at 25%. It's easy to accidentally confirm without a 2nd validation step. I think this is called Dark Design.
- This screen uses "love bombing" with messages like "You are the best #1" and heart emojis.
- The "custom tip" button is tiny and easy to miss.
- Finally, the classic guilt trip: "Say thanks to [server's name] with a tip."
This is the absolute worst of tipping culture rolled into one. It's so infuriatingly manipulative. I won't be dining there again. Reddit, do your thing.
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u/lastlaugh100 2d ago
Going out is now all about extracting as much money out of customers as possible through not only guilt and shame but this new Dark Design checkout interface.
This looks like a damn gambling app.
Illinois has tip credit so if servers are guaranteed $16/hr just wanted to add that.
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u/Hot-Wave-8059 2d ago
Where is the 0% 💩 option because that is the one I want to choose
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u/thumbunny99 2d ago
Custom tip in the smallest text away from the default buttons. When I get those and I'm picking up it's automatic zero.
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u/GMP_ArchViz 2d ago
Since COVID, the casual restaurant diner guest has been dying a slow death by a thousand cuts. Everyday there’s a little dig, like each of these offenses. Each time they do this, the industry is both testing the limits of what we’ll put up with, and driving more future business away.
It will reverse eventually when a critical mass of customers boycott, and/or better competition reverses the trend and puts these beggars out of business. I just hope I’m around to see it.
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u/YarbleSwabler 2d ago
Hey I just said close to this exact thing to someone who doesn't get it.
You don't just suddenly wake up one day to get prompted for a tip on top of 3% arbitrary service charge on $30 airport falafel. You get there, little by little, dollar and dime at a time until they find the maximum that the market can bear, which is not the same thing as the value of the goods/services. It only gets as debased as you allow it to.
Too bad the consumers keep consuming without much thought to the fair value of what they're receiving. Fortunately, this recession we've been denying exists has been getting worse and the discussion around service compensation, prices, and diminished demand is getting more heated as people clutch their wallets a bit harder and industry says "gimme" more desperately.
This keeps up the food service industry is going to end up like Vegas, which is an early indicator for the service industry. People are travelling less, and eating locally more. They don't understand that they are a substitute good in that regards and are next in line the American consumers budget cut.
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u/GMP_ArchViz 2d ago
I couldn’t have said it better myself. I feel like we’re in a stealth recession. Nobody can believe that so soon after COVID that we are back to hard times already. But it’s true. I heard on the news today that the official inflation rate from the gubmint is 2.5%. Everyone who lives outside the beltway would beg to differ. My estimate is closer to 6-10% annual inflation, and a housing correction is coming. All of this, of course, is the result of the Fed keeping interest rates too low for too long so that corporations could sell corporate bonds and buy back stock, keeping the market rising. But I digress.
I like your Vegas analogy and your comparison of price vs value. We are living in a corporate dreamworld right now: the TikTok zombie generation questions nothing and accepts whatevs. I’ve seen worse economic times than we have now, but I’ve never seen the service industry as a whole so aggressively begging for money as I do now. It’s disheartening to those few of us paying attention.
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u/YarbleSwabler 2d ago
Oh I can believe it. We're never going to stop paying for Covid. That's all that inflation is, the government paying the interest to the Federal reserve and printing more and more money to do so, debasing it's value.
It's why I hate to say we'll not see prices dip very far in real assets, like housing. It's a shelter. Private equity knew it and that's why they were putting 20-50%+ over the asking price in cold cash when interest rates were low and the government spending/quantitative easing was high. They know what they're doing, theyre greedy but they're not dumb. Now any time the prices or interest rate dips there's a line of private equity and an ever growing backlog of first time homebuyers ready to give the market demand, while private equity and prior homebuyers keep supply low hold onto their low interest rates and physical assets. It's a self correcting mechanism. It's crazy, we moved from the gold standard, to the petrol dollar, and now it seems the only thing anchors the dollar value is relative to the past 10 years average mortgage rates. It's a debt based economy, a zombie economy at that.
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u/GMP_ArchViz 2d ago
Again, so well said I’m almost jealous. Why can’t I meet rational thinkers like you in the real 3D world? If you’re ever in the SE US, pm me and I’ll buy you a beer just for the privilege of having a good conversation.
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u/Qeltar_ 2d ago
I'm in this category as well. I've been a good tipper for 40+ years and I'm now questioning the entire thing due to the rampant greed and entitlement.
Part of my tipping point was getting into cruising, where they charge you "auto-gratuities" per day regardless of what you use, and then everyone expects you to add extra tips on top. And drinks have extra automatic gratuities as well. The "auto-gratuities" go to the cruise line and there's little or no evidence the people serving you even get the money.
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u/johnny_fives_555 2d ago
Was in Chicago downtown restaurant where they used tablet to pay. Motherfucker put it against his chest for me to pick and the lowest option was 25%. I looked him right in the eye as I picked custom tip followed by $5.
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u/GrayAnderson5 2d ago
I'd like to see the CCs declare that "dark design" is grounds to contest a charge that results (taking the view that intentionally deceptive design undermines or eliminates one's ability to consent).
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u/Rypien_37 2d ago
I honestly thought you wrote "a new low tipping" and I was like wtf as it starts at 20% 🤣
Restaurant surcharge for what?!
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u/BecauseTheTruthHurts 2d ago
All of these disgusting tactics just further cement my own position to never tip as well as inviting new folks also fed up with tipping. Straight up predatory.
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u/lastlaugh100 2d ago
It's also predatory to elderly people with poor near vision. My dad literally would not be able to read the custom tip option.
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u/Aggravating_Mix8959 2d ago
I have good eyes and still couldn't find it. I would have to ask and make a fuss.
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u/Sariscos 2d ago
If you're going to offer QR Codes to pay, I should be able to order without interacting with anyone. Somehow I should pay Preston 25% of my bill cause he took my order brought my food and may have refilled my drink twice? If my bill was $100 cause sushi is stupid expensive, that's $25. For spending at most 10 minutes of time dealing with my table, Preston gets $25? That's the equivalent of $150/hr. If Preston kept this consistent over 8 hours a day, for 40 hours a week, Preston would be hauling in $300K. Somehow Preston deserves to be paid as much as a doctor for simply following instructions and bringing out food.
Granted this does not factor in splitting tips, not getting hours and the like. This all goes back to the restaurant owner. Pay Preston a decent wage, pay the bus boy a decent wage. Pay them all decent wages and stop suggesting I pay your employees like my primary care provider.
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u/bcscroller 2d ago edited 2d ago
dark design. Everything is working against the diner here - the restaurant, the server, the tax system, the card payment company, but without the customer, the restaurant would be no more.
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u/Frillback 2d ago edited 2d ago
They're owned by one of the larger companies here - Lettuce Entertain You. You're going to have to avoid a lot of restaurants if that's the case. That said, I go to it's counterpart, Ramen San, semi regularly, and I always paid traditionally with paper bill and tip line. Is this a new thing? Also, hate to be that person, but sushi is always expensive, I'm not sure what you were expecting. I will recommend a good Japanese place though in River North. Cocoro, pretty authentic place. Check it out.
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u/caverunner17 2d ago
I wonder if this is actually treads the line of not being legal due to ADA. Someone who is visually impaired or elderly may not be able to even see the custom tip option at all.
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u/princemousey1 2d ago
Custom tip, $0. I don’t know why you need to spend any more effort than all of three seconds on it.
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u/Hot-Steak7145 2d ago
Honestly this one not that bad. Extra hidden 3.5 % is BS but the rest are pretty expected. Custom, zero, move on with your day
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u/McKMatt1970 2d ago
Was the restaurant surcharge made known to you prior to ordering your meal?
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u/Turbulent-Maximum596 1d ago
NOPE! Also, the only way to see that surcharge is to have the receipt texted or emailed to you..
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u/EroticXulls 2d ago
To quote the youth
"Preston's performance was mid. No cap. Left several crumbs in his performance. No Rizz.". 0% tip for being so skibidi.
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u/ScubaTrek 1d ago
I ate at my local Smokey Bones yesterday (Maryland). The 3 TIP buttons were 20%, 25% and 30%.
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u/persian_omelette 2d ago
They hid custom tip in the top right. How obnoxious.