I've been saying for a while that the future of the restaurant business likely may mean that the lower end restaurants will have to cater to a sort of "canteen" styled layout vs stand alone shops (ie: Improved North American food courts).
Lower rents of non-stand alone locations with higher traffic and economy of scale seating/cleaning may mean slightly lower prices/no need to tip. This already happens a ton in Asia. If not that, stores with basically no seating and are 99% take out only should be a thing as well IMO.
On a side note, I've been mulling whether I'm better off grabbing coins and bills for 10-25% tips and "zero tipping" on the machine and make the excuse it's easier for their CRA paper trail for claiming tips on their tax return or something (I'd ask before doing it of course). Plus it's easier to blend down a tip and/or not always be paying higher tips on top of taxes (worse in other provinces than Alberta) because of around a dollar in rounding. Seriously, though, some people need to do the calc. Some people bitch about the extra 5% tip they paid and it's basically a few bucks. So easily frustrated but easily forgotten if cash is involved. BTW, for those using cards and getting extra 2-4% cash back at restaurants, you don't have to be as mad. Credit card companies have already decided they'll help pay for a portion of your tips!
I'm not going to be the type of ass that a guy I knew who was a sort of "something but nothing" tipper though. He had a stack of $2 bills, then migrated to have a roll of half dollars for "tipping" when he was pissed at the service.
https://www.coinsunlimited.ca/circul...wrap-coin-roll
That being said, adding something like that to a 10% minimum tip when service was putrid could probably make me feel slightly better than adding a few bucks to a 15% tip to reach a reasonably fair "minimum".
Also, I'm the type of person where if a restaurant is comping me something, I'll pay the full value of the bill as if I had zero tipped. Yes, that usually means it's in the 30-40% range, but I've honestly never run into a situation where the waitress was not completely apologetic and still added more on top of the amount that was comped etc. In all honestly, it's like $5-10 more at most and personally as someone who derives happiness via altruism, the world is better with one person with a ####ty day vs two. Plus the face on the waiter/waitress is often good enough to brighten me back up, so it sorta turns back into a win/win.
