Hawaii’s tipping culture is leaving both visitors and residents questioning whether it’s becoming too much. With tipping now expected in nearly every situation, from restaurants to pre-packaged items at cafes, is the practice becoming exploitative? How tipping impacts Hawaii’s service industry is unique, and the balance between fairness and expectation is complicated.
Good article But I don’t find the tipping culture in Hawaii to be any more exploitive than any other place in the U.S. It is out of hand.
Aloha,
As regular visitors we always tip well for services, tours, valets etc…But on our last trip there was even a “tip jar” at a grocery check stand. Thats a hard no for us. I actually laughed at first and then thanked them nicely for taking my money for the groceries I had put in cart, I had put on counter and then I put in my canvas bag. Tip fatigue is a real.
I no longer use a credit card
I pay in cash
I tip in cash
LaRa
Take-outs; I order, get my food/drink 1st, check it out(not if got plenty, if consistent), & if got time taste it, then tip. I used to tip upfront; I got cold hamburger, over cook fries, sour orange juice, smaller then normal fish pattie, hard brownie, little cheese on extra cheese pizza. Why am I tipping upfront? Only to have paid more for mediocre food & sometimes service. I’ve notice, many times when I do leave tip, there’s no Thank You. Saying Thank you is not expected, its just common courtesy-gratefulness reciprocated. I work hard for my $ to. My mom waitressed, she smiled, was friendly & on it. She liked her job, and that’s another thing, many don’t like their job, it shows in service & just because of an industry standard, they still get tipped. Employers: pay your employees a decent wage/salary. Employees: work in a job you like, serve customers good product & provide service to commensurate the wage/salary & tip! Aloha!
LaRa my sister who was a single mother worked low paying waitress jobs all her life. She was simply the best at her job. People always requested her tables. She struggled for years to make ends meet. One of her customers left her his million+ house when he died. You just never know about life and what could happen to you. She is enjoying life now with no worries. Aloha
Debra, that’s wonderful what happened to your Sister, hopefully she’s enjoying her life that’s provided such an amazing gesture. I have known several waitresses over the course of my lifetime that are similar to your Sister, they do their jobs exquisitely. Today, for some reason, some don’t understand, or care to, the customer service portion of the job. Slamming a plate 🍽 on a table doesn’t cut it. You never know who that person, or people, may be. Think of your job as more than a position, and more as a Profession! Be the Best that you can be.
Hi Ernie. I totally agree with your post. People should not even consider a job in hospitality, if they can’t be of the mind set that it takes to deal with all types of people. I was worked retail grocery for 35 yrs and believe me, that was a challenging job. The customer is always right. Even when they’re wrong. I am working harder now being retired. So much for the Golden Years that I looked forward to while I was dutifully grinding away putting in my 40 hr week. One more yr to go to collect Soc. security. Hope I make it and that it is still available to collect. Aloha. Thanks Rob+ Jeff for all of your fine updates.
Hi Debra.
Thank you for more than 200 comments. Much appreciated.
Aloha.
It does feel that tipping is becoming overly pervasive. And 20% of a total bill can be a Lot, depending on the bill. My rule of thumb is to always tip 20% If the service warrants. If the wait staff never returns after delivering my meal to ask if everything is alright, or never refills my drink (iced tea), then the amount of the tip will be reduced a bit. If they are rude or dismissive, that tip may go away entirely; but it has been a long time since I encountered rudeness.
Marina, I don’t eat out often, never really did, and I do appreciate that the Server’s job can be stressful at times. I, as you do, expect certain things, and without attitude. I rarely have encountered rudeness or unprofessional conduct, that’s not to say never. In those few times I have left a especially reserved tip, one cent! Tipping has gotten out of hand, expecting one is arrogance. Give good service with a smile and some cheerfulness and the tips will reflect it. Businesses aren’t taking care of their employees well yet except them to bend over backwards to please the customers. Living off of a paltry paycheck and supplementing it with their tips in order to barely make it isn’t right. It used to be where the tips were put away to pay for special things, Christmas Gifts, a Vacation, and even an Emergency. Today, Businesses are doing quite well, the Employees are scrounging behind seat cushions for anything that they can find. Tipping for everything is an Abuse!
It’s not unique to Hawaii. I’m a local boy now living in the Northeast, and it’s just as pervasive here. Unless it’s a self-checkout asking for a tip, I usually give Something, depending on how much “service” actually occurred.
My problem with tipping culture is that it’s just a cover for substandard wages that is pervasive in all service industry jobs – yet people aren’t willing to pay the corresponding higher costs if people were actually paid enough. So what is society to do?
I refuse to tip on taxes. I will tip for service, but when the machine wants an 18% tip that includes the taxes to the state – I say no. I do a custom tip on food/service only. I do not tip on merchandise purchased at, as an example, Cracker Barrel or similar. My mother depended on tips back in the 1950’s, so I realize how hard people work for their tips. I always tip servers.
Your article is fine. The anecdotes are fine. All sounds accurate.
But as for the general topic of tipping, I am beyond done with it. Sick of it. Tipping in the United States is exploitive, mind-numbingly stupid, and a greedy rippff. It’s designed to shame, guilt, and coerce United States’ consumers into coughing up currency. Worse, out-of-control tipping provides a path to pad bills with other duplicitous fees, as someone else noted.
More people are avoiding this stupidity. It’s why more restaurants are struggling and going bankrupt. It’s why some of us, when we can, avoid any product or service with ridiculous expected tips. Coffee? I’ll make it at home. Food delivery? I’ll get it myself.
The United States stands alone with this idiocy. None of this goes on in many modern economies, including Japan, Asia, most countries in Europe, big South American countries like Brazil, China, and on and on. Tipping in the United States? A massive ripoff. And we know it.
We were in Kauai recently at a timeshare for 3 weeks. Timeshares don’t get daily room service, but a mis-week tidy and a full clean after a week. That’s all we need. If I’m in the room when the housekeeping people come, I tip them them. If not, I leave an envelope for them and hope they share. I think their salaries are low, they are always gracious and hard-working, and it gives me pleasure to do it.
We always tip for meals, usually 20%, more if something was exceptional. But if I bought a coffee at a shop, I would likely tip less.
Tipping in the United States has always been an anomaly. Virtually nowhere else in the world do employers ask consumers to subsidize their employees’ wages. It’s now out of control and needs to change. Call it late-stage capitalism, call it exploitative, call it abuse, call it pathetically poor management, but it needs to change.
Drew, a waiter or waitress typically only makes the minimum wage, not the one that applies to everyone but somewhere around $2.85 an hour. I made more than that per hour at my first job at a Convenience Store in 1976. It’s well past the time that Businesses are required to pay wait staff at least the Regular Minimum Wage, to begin the job inexperienced, and Increase the Pay once they know it. Let them keep their tips too. They are The Faces of Your Business and Perform Customer Service Too! As some have experienced, they can easily Make or Break a Business!
Great article. Clearly gave some good tipping guidance. As for myself, I’ve been blessed so I bless others. That’s my motto.
I find that Tipping is important to the server as well as many others, if you give exceptional service, or go out of your way to help, you’re going to be rewarded. For Takeout Food, I typically leave a tip. Even if it’s the owner of a small business I will leave a tip, they provide something that I desire. Cabs, ride share, etc., certainly. For a prepackaged Food Item, Soda, Water, Chips, or even Milk… Highly Doubtful. At some point you must draw a line not to tip, I take certain things on a case by case basis. Businesses should take much of the Blame for their Unwillingness to Enumerate Employees Adequately. Hawaii faces many of the same problems as the rest of the Country, believe it or not. It’s just the structure of price differences, Everyone is Struggling! Welcome to the New Normal, hopefully it can End Soon!
I have no problem tipping for the service I receive and tend to be generous for those going beyond with extra smiles and care. What I’d like BOH to do is investigate the minivan mafia at the HNL airport that exploits travelers with trips to Waikiki. The routes often involve circuitous routing that adds extra to fare and then on arrival you will here – no credit card machine working – need cash! Learned long ago … be safe and in the know – take Uber!
A well-known tactic in Las Vegas. It’s called “long hauling”; look it up and you’ll see literally thousands of complaints about this fraud. The Las Vegas taxi driver will say the freeway is “quicker,” but what the driver is actually doing is looping you on the 15, or the 215, to greatly pad the bill — the “long haul.”
It’s so well-known, and happens so often, many millions of people religiously avoid Las Vegas taxis to and from Harry Reid airport. Happened to us while staying at the Wynn. A six-minute trip down Paradise Road — a straight shot right to the airport — suddenly had us on freeways, a blatantly obvious fraud.
I personally feel that the consumer is being taken advantage of. I have never had a problem with tipping for services provided. Now we’re pressured into tipping when you pick up a ‘to go’ order. I paid for the food and the business should be paying the employee who put the order together. I believe that business owners have passed the onus for employee ‘living wage increases” onto the customers. Another new added pressure, is when you are at the checkout in many large stores, and you’re asked to donate to all kinds of organizations, functions, etc. I donate on my own, so why don’t large corporations donate from their own pockets?
I don’t think this is unique to Hawaii. All the electronic payment terminals I encounter at any kind of food business across the entire United States seem to have the tip screen. And tip workers everywhere are in the same position, although I get the cost of living issue is generally much, much greater in Hawaii.
I get more frustrated with the Kamaina discount. The only place in the world I have traveled were residents pay one price and visitors another.
Bobby, you’re absolutely right, however I have received the discount several times because they said that I was nice. I have never asked for it nor acted any special way, I am typically nice I guess!
Floridians get discounts at DisneyWorld (at least for season passes) I know places in Las Vegas that get local discounts. It’s not that uncommon in tourist destinations, but of course, it’s not broadcast to the world.
What does that have to do with tipping? Discounts are not tips nor have anything to do with tipping.
Several months ago, I tried a walk-up burger stand in Kahului, Maui (formerly an A & W). While I was paying with my credit card, a screen popped up to add a tip. The choices were 15%, 20%, or 25%. I could not find an option to skip tipping, and there was a line of people waiting behind me. I tipped 15% and vowed to never return.
A cashier handing me a bag of food does not warrant a tip for a few seconds of “service”. For business owners, this type of extortion drives away customers.
Hmmmm,
I never seen one of these screens without the “no tip” or “custom tip” option, although sometimes the type font is tiny and easy to miss.
I think most owners figure they need to let the employees have the tip button to keep them happy, especially if all the other burger joints are doing it (which I have no idea – but L&l BBQ does it)
David, it helps the business owner keep track of the tips so that they can Tax it as Income. I have rarely ever left a tip through the table top screen, I call the Server over and discreetly hand over Cash. Unreportable, not Taxed, and it goes a lot further with no waiting until payday. BTW… I have encountered them with an option for “No Tip” and also an option for adding a Dollar Amount. I guess some places are behind the Greedy Times!
Tipping is OOC all over the US, not just Hawaii. Rob’s coffee shop example could be any coffee shop. I ducked into a brewery-restaurant in California last weekend, just to buy some beer from the takeaway cooler. Just like your sandwich example. I grab the beer from the fridge, walk it over to the cashier, and I get the bill in an envelope with tip request. And, I’ve had that pre-made sandwich example recently at a grab n go in an airport terminal. I’m surprised supermarket checkers aren’t asking for a percentage of your grocery bill. People do it because it works.
Being a year round resident on Kauai, I am not immune to the tipping request at checkout at all sorts of stores. I generally tap”No Tip”, as I am put off by the request. Dining out, rarely done, is different. I am subject to the high cost of living, I am retired, yet have a part-time job, and I donot receive tips for my efforts. I receive commisions from my employer. I feel that tipping culture has gone too far!
On a Sept. trip to Maui, I went to a couple of Merriman restaurants. I was surprised by an added “kitchen fee” in addition to the expected tip. It was nowhere noted on the menu but there it was added to the bill as if it were a mandatory tax. It wasn’t large but annoyed me. What’s next: a lease fee? a laundry fee? an insurance fee? One would think that the implied contract of offering an entree for $55 is the amount that will cover the cost of goods and service for the restaurant owner. If not, raise the frickin’ price.
New Zealand has it right. Here’s the menu with the price of the meal. No tip. No fee. No surprises.
Don’t be surprised when they introduce pay toilets at restaurants and places like Costco, Macy’s etc.
John, maybe the next line item Fee will be for the Garbage Hauler or the Accountant. If they can add one on, however small, for the kitchen staff anything is possible. BTW… what about a Fee for Cleaning the Grease Trap! Businesses are beginning to have no Shame.
Ever since COVID, tipping culture has gone off the rails. It’s not just the sky-high percentages but also the phenomenon of “tip creep” — where you’re now guilted into tipping for takeout or for services that never used to expect a tip.
And here in CA, restaurants have gotten sneakier with their fees, tacking on charges like “employee healthcare” or “fair living supplement” — basically just creative ways to pad the bill.
Then there’s the new trend where you don’t even get a chance to see your check. The waiter rolls up with a card machine and you’re hit with a pre-programmed tip selection: 25%, 20%, or 18% — no pressure, right?
Oh, and the cherry on top? Service has tanked. A few years back, waiters would at least check in throughout the meal. Now, even at expensive spots, you get your drink, your food, and then poof — they disappear until it’s time to drop the $200 check for two people.
Mark, I know many people suffered during the Covid times, afterwards something certainly has changed and not for the better. Everything is out of control! The Minimum Wage was established as a “Beginning/Training Wage” and never intended to support a Family of however many, but suddenly it was. Instead of High School students and recent Graduates using it as a stepping stone, Adults are forced to use it as their Primary Source of Income. The Businesses that do this should be Boycotted, they are making increasing profits due to this. Covid is long in the past, it’s time to move on. Despite some States raising their minimum wage by almost double, the workforce is in worse trouble, the economy sucks and prices more than doubled putting most in a deficit spending on just essentials, if they can afford it. This current Administration is to Blame! I just Pray 🙏 that things get Much Better, Soon.