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Dec 01, 2023

Tipping for groceries? You must be joking

The American custom of tipping for everything has spread to Britain. It must

The American custom of tipping for everything has spread to Britain. It must be stopped in its tracks

There are traditions and customs flung at us by our American cousins that some of us Brits have relished. Anarchic humour (Larry David et al), an obsession with coffee, the proliferation of TV channels, jeans, jazz and pre-nups. But there is a tradition we’ve never really got to grips with; one that rankles, feels awkward and is specifically un-British: tipping. Americans tip morning, noon and night, left, right and centre and to more or less anyone who crosses their path.

But to us it feels gauche, over-the-top, corrupt even. I remember being in a London pub with a US pal called Scott. The bargirl brought him the drinks he’d ordered, he paid, then crossed her palm with a couple of quid. An American aficionado might think his move sensible and smooth. I just thought it was a bit pervy.

But now a further horror threatens to come our way; a ramping up of the attack on our sensibilities, dignity and wallets. For New York Magazine, a bastion of culture and style – the Big Apple's bible to life – has published a guide on how to behave in polite society in 2023. And amid rules on dating etiquette and how to conduct yourself in a Zoom meeting are the new laws of gratuities.

Tipping in restaurants, it decrees, should be a staggering 20-25 per cent, you should dole out ten per cent when collecting a takeaway. And when you bag a cup of coffee and a bun at a café you should also hand over 20 per cent.

But aside from these bank-busting suggestions, the most worrying diktat was that a 20 per cent tip should also be gifted in a grocery store. An idea that, given the historic flow of ideas – a one-way tsunami of customs – makes me think forget Covid, now is the time to ban flights from the United States. Because if this idea seeps onto our island there will be chaos and fury if not a general collapse of law and order.

Gradually tipping has edged its way through the hospitality sector and beyond. From the hotel doorman, to the restaurant bill, from bin men at Christmas to the cab driver. When the door has been opened, the dinner cleared, the rubbish removed and the journey completed the individuals look meekly at us like urchins at a set of traffic lights in Calcutta. They seek a little extra, we think the final price was more than plenty for the job delivered. Yet we’re barely at base camp when it comes to good service. Our idea of service is too often a grunt in Morrisons when you have the temerity to wonder where the Dijon might be. As a professional restaurant reviewer I still come across, and feverishly record of course, the waiting staff who appear to resent one's presence in their place of work. Just recently (at Sports Direct in Cardiff) I felt the need to apologise to two ladies at the checkout for interrupting their conversation with my attempt to pay for something (their, rather personal, chat continuing during the transaction, oblivious almost to my presence).And soon the custom might see us compelled to tip these people? To tip the souls who work in our revolting and shameful motorway service stations, thereby maintaining an awful situation for them and us? To lousy staff at train station cafes who make no effort to speed up their work as a train draws into the station (yes, you, at Starbucks in Taunton). Having packed all that cancer-inducing processed food into bags at the conveyor belt are we then supposed to tip a monosyllabic blob at the till? Of course, it could prove a wonderful way to insult people; handing over ten pence to the unhelpful trainee at Aldi who, if he cared, probably wouldn't know what coriander was anyway. But it would doubtless become a gratuity that unfairly rewarded the middle classes: the Waitrose staff who shock you with their helpful politesse. US friends: we don't mind Trump popping over here. At least he's funny. But grocery tipping? That's no joke.